Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto

[Amal]

Re: Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto

@Ali_Syed

Bhutto was a good leader overall, intelligent, had vision and could have turned the country around if he wanted to. But when he started playing power politics then his as well as the country’s down fall began. Maybe his feudal mindset was at play but he brutally tried to crush dissent which created new problems, if he had rallied the nation for the cause of rebuilding and reached out to the people they would have responded. But he divided people but pushing the opposition to the other extreme.

In a way, I feel that he underestimated his own potential and focused on traditional and typical political ploys that generally most of the politicians adopt for managing opponents. He went clearly wrong on that. He had an assortment of rivals that could have been handled without touching the extremes that he resorted to, but still however wrong he might be, he did not deserve the penalty meted out to him. How he managed his opponents was wrong. But givent the post-1971 situation, how his opponents behaved was also wrong. ZAB misread the entire situation and skidded on a slop that was specifically laid for him. While he was wrong, his opponents also cannot be absolved of the blame of being part of the ploy that eventually led to an 11-year long and dark eclipse in the country

I understand that he was not free of errors — none of us is — but taking into account the context of political cultural and leadership material, I cannot help feel that a true substitute for a leader of his intellect and vision is still missing in our jigsaw of politics.