Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, at the country’s helm for more than six and a half years, was a transformative figure in Pakistan’s history. Romanticised and demonised in equal measure, even decades after his death, he remains — with the sole exception of Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah — arguably the most popular and charismatic, albeit also the most controversial and divisive, politician in the country. His dramatic rise and tragic fall, according to Shamim Ahmad’s balanced and thought-provoking book Zulfikar Ali Bhutto: The Psychodynamics of His Rise and Fall, can be explained best by his complex psychological personality.

Ahmad is a retired senior civil servant with a degree in psychology and interest in literature and is the author of the interesting and informative book Torment and Creativity: A Psychoanalytic Study of Literature and Literati that profiles famous literary figures from the East and West.

Analyst Eqbal Ahmad explained the paradox of Bhutto and his enduring mystique quite well: “Z.A. Bhutto, the dynasty’s founder, was a feudal chief from Sindh, where serfs are still incarcerated in their lords’ private prisons. Yet millions of disinherited peasants and workers saw him as a defender of their rights. He was an authoritarian figure whose formative years in politics were spent in the service of a military dictator. Yet he rose to power as a champion of democracy. He moved the multitude with an extraordinary repertoire of patriotic gestures and populist rhetoric. Yet he contributed significantly to Pakistan’s defeat and dismemberment. He moulded the army and bureaucracy to serve as instruments of his personal power, but fell victim to his creations. His failure to fulfil his promises turned large numbers against him. But from his incarceration, trial and execution by a hated military dictator rose the legend of a hero and martyr. When Benazir inherited his mantle, an unlikely dynasty was born.”

A balanced and thought-provoking book psychoanalyses Pakistan’s most charismatic civilian leader since the Quaid

Brilliant, erudite, articulate, indefatigable and charismatic, Bhutto had a razor-sharp mind, photographic memory, sense of history and a wonderful political antenna. He studied at Berkeley and Oxford before training as a barrister in London. Along with his political rival Mumtaz Daultana, he possessed the best personal library in the country and was very well-read. He wrote 18 books or monographs during his life — he was hanged at the age of 51— more than any politician in Pakistan’s history.

Bhutto was extremely energetic and worked 18 hours a day in office as he told the Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci. Polygamous — he had three wives — and known for his love affairs, in his interview with Fallaci he defended himself against the charge of philandering by saying that a politician has to be a romantic.

Although Gen Yahya Khan and the military junta were mainly responsible for the military operation in East Pakistan and the 1971 war with India that led to the breaking up of Pakistan, Bhutto’s role in the East Pakistan crisis, by refusing to accept the results of the 1970 elections, was highly discreditable. Once sworn into power, in his inaugural speech he resolved to pick up the pieces and build a new Pakistan.

His monumental achievements include promulgating the 1973 Constitution, the signing of the Simla Accord with India, hosting the Islamic Summit in Lahore in 1974, starting the nuclear program, re-orienting Pakistan’s foreign policy towards China and the Muslim world, introducing land and labour reforms and implementing civil service reforms. He also facilitated the export of Pakistani labour to the Gulf countries after the 1973 oil boom, changed the consciousness of the working class and promoted art, literature and culture by setting up institutions such as the Pakistan National Council of Arts and the Academy of Letters etc.

His mistakes and missteps, both deleterious and costly, were nationalising the economy, banning the National Awami Party and incarcerating opposition leaders, dismissing the elected government in Balochistan and launching military operations, amending the Constitution repeatedly and whimsically with the help of a rubber-stamp parliament, appeasing the religious right by accepting their demands such as declaring Ahmadis non-Muslim etc, forming the Federal Security Force (which acted like a goon-squad, roughing up Bhutto’s senior colleagues and was also accused of carrying out assassinations of political opponents), neglecting the party machine and mistreating old comrades and holding early elections in 1977 which were not considered free and fair.

French scholar Christophe Jaffrelot aptly summed up Bhutto’s contradictions and their consequences: “Less a democrat than a populist, more an authoritarian than a parliamentarian, more a centraliser than a federalist, and as much a socialist as a product of his social background, he turned his back on parts of his platform — and thus on the middle and working classes that supplied much of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leadership — to co-opt the landowning elite. Most of all, having little respect for basic freedoms, including that of the press, he denied Pakistan free elections in 1977, giving the army, already reinvigorated by military operations in Balochistan, the arguments it was waiting for.”

Bhutto, the author argues, developed a sense of insecurity, anxiety and even inferiority because of the déclassé status conferred on his beloved mother by the feudal milieu ... it inculcated in him hubris, megalomania and arrogance, which resulted in paranoia, persecution mania and a compulsion to humiliate others.

Bhutto was the most powerful civilian ruler, initially as president and later as prime minister, in Pakistan’s history. Within months of assuming power, he dismissed Gul Hassan Khan and Rahim Khan — the army and air chiefs respectively. Gen Tikka Khan, known for his ruthless crackdown in East Pakistan, was selected as the next army chief and is now remembered as the most subservient of all army chiefs in Pakistan’s history.

Disregarding all advice, after Gen Tikka’s retirement Bhutto promoted Ziaul Haq, a junior general of fawning behaviour, as the next army chief. Gen Zia had all the disqualifications for that senior appointment except one: flattery and sycophancy. It turned out to be a fatal mistake as Gen Zia launched a coup against Bhutto in July 1977, following disputed elections and protests by the opposition. After the coup, Gen Zia jailed Bhutto, who was subsequently hanged in 1979 following a guilty verdict by the court in a murder case, but the verdict is generally regarded as judicial murder.

Bhutto, according to Ahmad, exhibited a classic split personality which can be ascribed to his parents’ marriage: his father was a landed Sindhi aristocrat who fell in love with a Hindu dancing girl. After converting to Islam, she became his second wife, but was not accepted by his family. The humiliation and rejection his mother faced in the Bhutto household left deep scars on young Bhutto’s psyche. He imbibed egalitarianism and empathy for the downtrodden from his mother and inherited the arrogance of a feudal from his father.

Bhutto, the author argues, developed a sense of insecurity, anxiety and even inferiority because of the déclassé status conferred on his beloved mother by the feudal milieu. (A flaw in Ahmad’s book is the scant information about Bhutto’s mother whose tribulations were the source of Bhutto’s own fatal flaws.) On the one hand, these attributes spurred him to work harder and strive for perfection and superiority as he tried to redress the deficiency of his birth. On the other hand, it inculcated in him hubris, megalomania and arrogance, which resulted in paranoia, persecution mania and a compulsion to humiliate others — especially those who were well-born — when he was in power. Both his brilliant and stellar achievements and his weaknesses should be viewed in the light of his psychological make-up.

Ahmad also finds signs of Bhutto suffering from the Phaeton Complex — emotional pain from a lack of attention from a parent, in this case his father — and maniac depression/bipolar disorder. His Phaeton Complex explains his mercurial temperament, his sense of insecurity and an urge to succeed and prove himself. His refusal to accept the second position in a united Pakistan under Sheikh Mujibur Rahman after the 1970 elections can also be attributed to this complex. A number of highly successful and great leaders in world history — such as Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Winston Churchill and Abraham Lincoln etc — are known to have suffered from bipolar disorder, exhibiting qualities of empathy, resilience, realism and creativity in addition to many symptoms contrary to these values.

In a provocative chapter, Ahmad, a former chairman of the Central Board of Revenue, also posits that, contrary to popular opinion, economic performance under Bhutto (growth rate of 4.8 per cent) was not that poor and was close to the average growth rate of five per cent in Pakistan’s 70 years’ history. Bhutto achieved this despite the loss of East Pakistan (both market and essential foreign exchange earnings), the nationalisation of the economy, quadrupling of international oil prices, bad crops and floods during his tenure. More importantly, he laid the foundations of heavy industry in Pakistan and his facilitation of manpower export to the Gulf countries benefited the economy in subsequent decades.

Using psychoanalytical theories and tools to explain the contributions and contradictions of his subject, Ahmad pens a balanced and psychologically plausible portrait of Bhutto. He notes that Napoleon Bonaparte was Bhutto’s all-time favourite hero and, in an insightful chapter, the author analyses Bonaparte and Bhutto’s other heroes such as Mao Zedong, Giuseppe Garibaldi, Giuseppe Mazzini, Count di Cavour, Chou En Lai, Jean Jacque Rousseau, Joseph Stalin, Alexander, Hannibal and Genghis Khan, examining how, like his heroes, Bhutto craved conquest and absolute power and demanded docility from everyone around him, brooking no criticism or disobedience.

The reviewer is an Islamabad-based independent researcher and consultant

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto: The Psychodynamics of
His Rise and Fall
By Shamim Ahmad
Paramount, Karachi
ISBN: 978-9696375432
284pp.

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, May 12th, 2019