The most popular slogan of the Pakistan Peoples Pakistan (PPP) is, “Bhutto lived yesterday, Bhutto lives today”. The slogan signifies the place Zulfikar Ali Bhutto holds in the history of Pakistan. For his supporters, he is martyr, a shaheed, and has left behind a great political legacy. Bhutto lives on for many reasons but nothing can be more noble than the great sacrifice of going to the gallows and not submitting to the will of a military dictator.
Bhutto was a great leader; charismatic, articulate, learned and a man of the people. No other leader can truly match his stature. Benazir Bhutto, his daughter and another martyr, came somewhat close to her father; equally charismatic, cosmopolitan, liberal with profound insights of the political world. This piece is not about comparing the two at all. What I wish to say is that the place these two Bhuttos, and more remarkably ZAB, have in public imagination cannot be matched by any other leader in Pakistan. So what does really makes Bhutto’s legacy live on?
There are three things. First, it was his struggle against the military regime of Ayub Khan of which he, too, was a part of for many years. What many commentators fail to understand is that Bhutto, the most popular figure of that regime, turned the public tide when he launched the PPP and the protest movement. Interestingly, all other political parties as well as college students in particular, had been in the protest movement but the shining star was Bhutto. He attracted a bigger crowd, raised hope for political change and his image unified the progressive forces of the time before him. His supporters included poets, writers, journalists and intellectuals. The political struggle transformed him and his party in less than a decade. He emerged as the most popular leader of Pakistan at the time and the PPP became the second mass-based party in Pakistan’s history after the Muslim League. The mass-based credential and genuine popular support for the PPP has been comparatively deeper and wider than the party leading the Pakistan Movement.
The second important fact that makes the Bhutto legacy live on is that his politics and image thrived on the idea of social and economic reform in Pakistan. He used the slogan of socialism, precisely Islamic socialism. Actually, he was inspired by the ideology of a welfare state, a popular political creed of the time even in the hardcore capitalist countries of Europe. Some of the economists in Pakistan continue to unjustly blame Bhutto for the adverse economic effects of nationalisation. They forget that these effects were universal. One could see them taking place in China, India and other socialist or semi-socialist states as well. The magic of democracy, had it continued, would have corrected its path because it works according to the doctrine of pragmatism. As the neo-liberal economies continue to create social and political gaps on account of inequality, the idea of a welfare state in new forms will re-emerge and grip the minds of political reformers.
Finally, the political consciousness that Bhutto raised is unparalleled in the history of developing countries. By travelling through almost every nook and cranny of Pakistan, he attracted crowds in large numbers. His message of worth, value and centrality of the common man spoke to them. If there is some degree of popular engagement in the political process of Pakistan, it is due to the enduring effects of the popular politics of Bhutto.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 8th, 2012.
COMMENTS (12)
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@ JS Historians have written hundreds of books on Bhutto, instead of Zia.
“Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it” George Santayana
Spanish born American Philosopher, Poet and Humanist who made important contributions to aesthetics, speculative philosophy and literary criticism. 1863-19
Bhuttos PPP was never the most popular party in the country, that was Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's Awami League which won the most National and Provincial seat in the country...Does the author not know basic history?!? and im saying this as a (west) Pakistani.....This people is how the fake history of this country was created and how its still being molded today......
Bhutto does live on. In the corruption of everyday Pakistani society, in ethnic tensions between Sindhis and Urdu-speakers, in the nepotism still widespread in Pakistan today, in the strife in Balochistan, in the feudal system still strong in Sindh today, in the widespread corruption and hypocrisy of our politicans today, Bhutto lives on.
Hundreds of thousands of people still vote when they hear the name of Bhutto.This is enough to know how great he was.
It is very easy in subcontinent to capture power by misleading people by populist slogans and prey on their ignorance. Did Bhutto distribute his feudal lands to peasants.in Larkhana ? Was there improvement of lifestyle education among the Bhutto's serfs? Was there roti, kapada and makan in Bhutto's own landed ancestral property? I
"N THE countryside around Larkana, the Bhutto's ancestral home, it's hard to believe the peasants had ever heard of Mao and Ho. Landlords here own huge tracts of land - tens of thousands of acres - and are treated like lords. Tenants kiss the cuffs of their master's trousers. When I called on Benazir's cousin, Mumtaz Bhutto, who had helped Murtaza in his campaign, he was hunting wild boar with his hounds. Here, the local chieftains, like the Bhuttos, behave as if nothing has changed for the past 500 years. Only when they leave their ancestral estates do they enter the 20th century." quoted from THE INDEPENDENT by MICHAL FATHERS SUNDAY 17 OCTOBER 1993
The only Pakistani leader who dared to challenge our establishment and US. He can never be forgotten. His name will remain with the name of Pakistan forever. Atleast people like you Mr Rais still dare to speak truth :)
absolutely
Bhutto was a complex individual troubled by his own internal demons as revealed by his interview with Ms Oriana Fallaci( interview with history 1988). It has become fashionable today to see him as a man without any faults. The history shows us that he as a foreign minister he encouraged dictator Ayub Khan to indulge in military adventurism in 1965. He turned against his benefactor when it became politically convenient to him. He was one of the main actor for the breakaway of Bangladesh when he refused to allow Mujib Rehman who won the elections in 1971 to assume power Well researched biography by historian Stanley Wolpert (Zulfi Bhutt of Pakistan 1993)o reveals his personal failings which led to tragic consequences for him personally and also for Pakistan