Sindh MPAs remember ZA Bhutto, selectively

KARACHI:

Such is the love MPAs have for the late former prime minister and founder of the Pakistan Peoples Party Zulfikar Ali Bhutto that speeches on a resolution commemorating his birth anniversary were deferred on Saturday for Tuesday, simply so everyone would have a chance to talk. If this goes ahead, it will be the third session in a row dedicated to this topic.

The memories of Bhutto shared in the Sindh Assembly on Friday touched on the same themes – the 1973 Constitution, the Simla Agreement and the development of the atomic weapons programme. Very few MPAs spoke of Bhutto’s trial and the events leading to it, or of other aspects of his life and career, including his plan for land reforms or nationalisation. It would also be foolish to expect or hear of any critique – Bhutto’s execution and his exalted status as a martyr make criticising his leadership and any of his policies tantamount to digging your political grave.

Some of the MPAs did offer their own insights. MPA Haji Muzaffar Ali Shujra spoke of the ‘Israeli and Qadiani lobbies that opposed Bhutto’ while others – in angst-ridden speeches – noted that Bhutto had broken away from his own class with the reforms he had introduced.

There were a few tense moments in the house on Saturday, after MPA Humera Alwani was admonished by a visibly irked Speaker Nisar Khuhro for making personal comments and the way she framed her supplementary questions. MPAs Rafiq Engineer and Nusrat Seher Abbasi nearly got into another fight, almost three weeks after their last war of words. When Abbasi pointed out the lack of quorum, the PPP’s Rafiq shot back by asking if she would have been able to muster quorum to present a tribute to her leader – Pakistan Muslim League-Functional’s Pir Pagaro?

Education Minister Pir Mazharul Haq managed to pour oil on the rather choppy waters, by saying that while it may not have been correct of Abbasi to note the lack of quorum given the speaker’s ruling on the subject, it was true that MPAs should have been in the house to speak on ZA Bhutto when they were already informed and asked to. “We must look at ourselves first,” Haq said, as his colleagues from the PPP nodded approvingly.

While the session dwelled on the past, the events of a day earlier – a Peoples Amn Committee (PAC) protest that was baton charged and tear gassed by the police – did not even come up for discussion. Alwani attempted to speak about it, but Khuhro told her she would have to wait until Home Minister Manzoor Wassan or someone responsible was in the assembly to answer her questions. It would have been interesting to see what the Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s stance would have been on the PAC, which is widely considered to have been absorbed by the PPP and supported by the party, but has also been banned.

For her part, Alwani said that the residents of Lyari were staging a “peaceful protest”, prompting Khuhro to ask, “How is a ‘protest’ ever peaceful?” A wise question, that perhaps Wassan could answer some day.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 8^th, 2012.