Nawaz was shaken by Benazir’s murder: Dutt

The assassination of Benazir Bhutto occurred on 27 December 2007 in Rawalpindi

KARACHI:

One of Benazir Bhutto’s bitterest foes, Nawaz Sharif, was visibly shaken after the killing of the Pakistan Peoples Party leader as he flew in to Larkana following her assassination in December 2007. It seemed like a watershed moment for him.

This incident, amid other anecdotes, was narrated by Indian TV journalist Barkha Dutt during the launch of her book, This Unquiet Land, on the second day of the 7th Karachi Literature Festival Saturday morning.

Dutt was sure about Nawaz’s reaction, because she had hitched a ride with the two-time prime minister from Lahore to Larkana.



“India through my eyes,” is how she described her 318-page book. The session began with columnist Ghazi Salahuddin commending the award-winning journalist for her book’s ‘scoop’: the secret ‘deniable’ meeting between the Indo-Pak premiers on the sidelines of the 2014 Saarc summit in Nepal.

Describing Narendra Modi’s Pakistan policy as unconventional, Dutt said the Indian premier manages to surprise both his critics and supporters when it comes to Delhi-Islamabad relations. “This proves that he’s not playing to the script when it comes to Pakistan,” said Dutt. She explained this philosophy better by answering a question later, saying “the BJP is strident in opposition and innovative in government.”

Criticising dynastic politics in both countries, Dutt said the present-day Bhuttos and Gandhis are out of sync with the changing electorate, adding that the Congress [like the PPP in Pakistan] has no immediate future in politics.

When asked by the moderator to comment on rising extremism in her country, Dutt negated the notion saying “everything is amplified.” She admitted that intolerance has risen in the country but it is more than intolerance for the other religion, it is for any other point of view. It is now near impossible to have a civil conversation about anything owing to the ‘social media mobs’. “Intolerance of the other’s point of view” has increased, she said.



However, she acknowledged that India’s future is safe since people always push back the intolerance, thus ensuring that the state hovers in the centre and not towards any extreme. Salahuddin lamented this lack of collective sense in Pakistan, saying the way Indian civil society came out to the streets in protest after the 2012 Delhi bus rape incident can never be replicated in Pakistan.

Talking about Kashmir, she said the issue is imminently resolvable, and that India’s only concern vis-à-vis Pakistan about the issue is terrorism [emanating from Pakistan].

Answering a question about the strict visa regime between the two countries, she said: “The Indians would love to visit Pakistan in larger numbers…so both sides need to grow up [and make the process less cumbersome].”

When an audience member asked the journalist to share anecdotes about her experiences in Pakistan, she said once after interviewing Benazir’s husband, and future president, Asif Ali Zardari, she was told that nothing was recorded due a technical glitch. Dutt then went back to Zardari and for the first time saw his famed temper boil over as he threw the mike away and got really angry. “After initially refusing to re-record, he finally came around, thanks to my persistence,” remembered Dutt.



Dutt also informed the audience about how she came to Pakistan following the Abbottabad raid in 2011. “I wasn’t getting a visa so I tweeted [then interior minister] Rehman Malik about it and then got it,” she recalled, saying the move later became controversial.

Even before an audience member finished his question about India’s ‘biased policy towards Pakistani players in the Indian Premier League (IPL),’ Dutt cut him off, saying, “the non-inclusion of Pakistani players [in IPL] is a matter of shame.”


Published in The Express Tribune, February 7^th, 2016.