Rare read: ‘Taseer was completely mesmerised by ZAB’

Taseer publishes 'Bhutto: A Political Biography' in 1980 in India

LAHORE:

Yasmin Saigol said on Saturday that former governor Salmaan Taseer had been completely mesmerised by former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s public appeal, charisma, modern outlook and boldness.

She was speaking at a discussion regarding Taseer’s book Bhutto: A Political Biography at Books n Beans. Saigol said Bhutto epitomised an age of change and idealism for Taseer. She said she had typed the book nine times on an old typewriter with a pedal. Saigol said this had allowed her to pause and play tapes that had been given to her by Taseer. “Back then I had thought that I would never be able to forget a single word of the book but now I do not remember large parts of it,” she said.

The book, the first of its kind, was published by Vikas Publishing in 1980 in India. It was released a few months after Bhutto’s execution. Rights activist Ali Dayan Hassan said he had come across the book in his teenage years and had been surprised as to why such an objective and rich account of Bhutto’s life had been ignored in subsequent years.



Najam Sethi said the book had not been published in Pakistan due to the imposition of martial law. He said Taseer had decided to pirate and sell copies of the book due to this.

Sethi said even the pirated copies had to be hidden because Taseer was being persecuted by the regime at that time.

Sethi said there were around 500 copies of the book in the country, some of which they had been compelled to burn as there was no space to hide them.

Nighat Khan, who had assisted Taseer on the book, talked about how it had changed over time. Khan said he had started writing the book with Bhutto’s permission during the last year of his tenure. She the book’s tone changed after Bhutto’s downfall, imprisonment and hanging as a lot of critical material was deliberately left uncovered. Khan said this had been done because they did not want to play into the hands of the autocratic regime. “We had to write sensitively about someone who could have been hanged,” she said.

Sethi also spoke about how the book had changed in the aftermath of Bhutto’s execution. He said following Bhutto’s execution pertaining to the book’s credits Taseer had called him. Sethi said he had credited Husna Sheikh, an alleged wife of Bhutto but had failed to credit Nusrat Bhutto befittingly. He said he had rushed to London to meet with the book’s publishers and made other changes in light of Bhutto’s hanging.

He said that Taseer possessed a gift for writing is evident from the book. Sethi said the book came across as being a softer account of its subject in comparison to other works due to the fact that Taseer had authored it with a partly political aim. He said he planned to republish the book.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 11^th, 2015.