Re: Pakistan - A History in photographs
Interestingly, it was this same newspaper ‘Azad’ , which allegedly misreported Bhutto’s slogan ‘Idhar Hum, Udhar Tum’.
Khalid Hasan writes about the charges levelled against Z.A. Bhutto about his role in the crisis of 1971 which resulted in the emergence of Bangladesh
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**A charge against Bhutto that does not go away is that had he not declared at a Nishtar Park Karachi public meeting, addressing Mujibur Rehman, “Uddhar tum, iddhar hum.” (You stay there, we stay here), Pakistan would have remained united. These words are said to have set the seal on Pakistan’s dismemberment. The truth is that these words were never said by Bhutto. It was Abbas Athar, news editor of the Lahore Urdu daily Azad, who ran the Bhutto speech under this brilliant though misleading headline.
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Abbas Athar was a past master at thinking up such startling headlines. This famous headline appeared in Azad on March 15, 1971. What Bhutto had said was, “If power is to be transferred to the people before a constitutional settlement, then it is only fair that in East Pakistan, it should go to the Awami League and in the West to the Pakistan People’s Party, because while the former is the majority party in that wing, we have been returned by the people of this side.”