WHERE does Benazir Bhutto stand in the historical stream? Does one assess her in terms of her life and achievements, triumphs and failures? Finally, does she have a place in the panorama of female persona across the world as well?

Till 1857, India had spawned some warrior queens, while the 1857 uprising had etched the names of Rani of Jhansi and Hazrat Mahal of Lucknow on blood-stained pages of its history. Besides, the Freedom Movement had also produced several women leaders, but none of them could hold a candle to Benazir. If she had a prototype at all, it was in Fatima Jinnah, who so fearlessly and fiercely waged a struggle against an entrenched president, Ayub Khan, during 1964-65 — just as Benazir would against Gen. Ziaul Haq two decades later.

As against most of the Freedom Movement female leaders, Benazir was a born leader and a born fighter as well. In fact, she was more in her elements when in opposition, while for the most part defensive when in power. After Z. A. Bhutto, Benazir was the only truly dynamic leader Pakistan had given birth to. By chance or by design, she was born and brought up to lead, and in preparing and promoting her for a leadership role, ZAB played a critical role. Radcliffe, Oxford, Oxford Students` Union presidency, a stint at the foreign office, her brush with diplomacy at the Simla summit (1972), her self-willed presence during ZAB`s never-ending travails during 1977-79 — incarceration, legal battle and eventual death on the gallows — while her brothers escaped from Pakistan, no matter how, five hard years under Zia (including some time under house arrest and some time in jail), and self-exile — all these were important bench marks in her life, preparing her, step by step, to don the Bhutto mantle and found a political dynasty.

On her part, she had endowed herself with a vast array of personal attributes which outweigh environmental variables in the Nature-Nurture typology. Family connection, of course, was in the “given” genre, but consider how she excelled herself in acquiring a first rate education, in terms of IQ and EQ (emotional quotient), in being knowledgeable about issues, in taking initiatives on time, in being enterprising and, moreover, in putting in hard and solid work. Additionally, she was articulate, ambitious and dedicated.

On various occasions she proved herself to be not only courageous and intrepid, but also patient and persevering. Above all, she had a vision — a vision for her country, for her people, for her party as well as for the political dynasty she had founded. Remember, “Bhuttoism” is a term which was unknown in ZAB`s life-time. It was Benazir who not only coined it but also invested it with some high sounding ideals which resonate with the common man`s aspirations and dreams. She made it popular as well.

Bhuttoism was her mantra since her triumphal return to Pakistan on April 12, 1986. On that occasion, she led a vast sea of people through Lahore`s tree-lined broad boulevards to the narrow roads astride the congested neighbourhoods around the city`s most popular Data Gunjbakhash shrine, leading to the Minar-i-Pakistan`s specious grounds where some forty-six years ago, the demand for a sovereign Muslim state in demographically dominant Muslim regions was launched.

While the choice of the Minar grounds to proclaim and celebrate her return to active politics and her first salvo at the entrenched Zia regime indexed her commitment to Pakistan, her invocation of Bhuttoism and her explication of the ideals and philosophy underlying it confirmed her as the foremost, if not as yet the sole, legatee of ZAB. That day she became a leader in her own right, although she adroitly used the clutches for a long while afterwards. Even in her Liaquat Bagh address on December 27, 2007, an hour or so before she fell to a sniper`s bullets, she had chanted with the surging crowd, “How many Bhuttos will you kill when every house spawns a veritable Bhutto?” Thus she sought to bring Bhuttoism to the doorstep of every hamlet, to the common folks` ken of imagination.

Over the years she was extremely successful in ingraining in their imagination that the PPP was the embodiment of Bhuttoism and that she alone was the sole custodian of both. (That`s why her coup against Murtaza Bhutto, favoured by Nusrat Bhutto as Chairman, in December 1993, had hardly evoked any opposition in the entrenched PPP hierarchy.) That was the key to her success. Only a person with a Himalayan IQ and EQ could have strategised oneself to stamp in his/her leadership in such an ingenious way — to inextricably bind the followers with the leaders. And Benazir was certainly one.

Like her father, Benazir aspired for and sought after an animusdominandi role, indeed for untrammelled power. But with a hung parliament in both her terms (1988-90 and 1993-96), she had much less power than ZAB had wielded. Both her terms were also trouble-infested and conspiracy-ridden. Although she somehow managed to scrape through a no-confidence motion in November 1989, yet she was badly shaken and could never regain her soaring self-confidence during the rest of her term. The problem with her was that in the flush of victory, though limited, at the hustings in November 1988, she opened too many fronts. What with the dominant Punjab, the ANP (NWFP), MQM (Karachi) and most religious groups arrayed against her, the opposition was formidable by any standard. And corruption charges alone, whether true or fabricated, provided grist to the rumour mongering mills. Hence her dismissal on August 6, 1990 failed to provoke any protests or adverse reactions, except among the PPP jiyalas.

Her second term indicated that she had learnt her lessons. She went in for a coalition in the Punjab, managed to oust a PML government in the NWFP and install her own, and successfully bought over the troublesome Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan, the veteran organizer and desmanteler of coalitions, and Fazlur Rahman along with his JUI by installing them as conveners of non-functional but lucrative committees. However, two explosive issues wrote her nemesis the judges issue with Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah arrayed against her and the running feud, indeed warfare, with the MQM which demonised Karachi, the nation`s financial capital, thereby causing economic erosion.

Meantime, the murder of her own brother, Mir Murtaza Bhutto, on September 20, 1996, in front of the hereditary Bhutto House at Clifton, at the hands of the police dramatised, as nothing else, how the law and order situation had touched its nadir. And within six weeks, she was sent home by her own nominee and party faithful, President Farooq Ahmad Leghari. Interestingly, she couldn`t think of a more plausible response than to comment “kill a Bhutto to get a Bhutto”. In any case, that was the end of her power game for the moment — for she could manage only sixteen National Assembly seats in the February 9, 1997 elections. What with a plethora of cases against her and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif after her blood, she judiciously opted for self-exile. The rest, as they say, is history.

The clue to Benazir`s life and achievements is that she was ever in pursuit of power since the mid-1980s. Like ZAB and Indira Gandhi, she had always aspired and worked for total victory and total power. More than ZAB, Margaret Thatcher was her supreme model. Yet in the course of her struggle for absolute political power, she developed a genius for compromise, if only in order to exploit an opening to power. She knew when to bide her time and when to take the tide. She developed the Bismarckian sense of “the art of possible”, and came to be content with limited success while awaiting the tide in her favour. To Bismarck, “Politics are not a science based on logic; they are the capacity of always choosing at each instant, in constantly changing situations, the least harmful, the least most useful”. And except for the 1985 partyless elections, she never missed an opening to saddle herself in power.

In this eternal quest, there were no permanent friends and no permanent enemies. What mattered was her party`s interest which was entwined with her personal interest. Thus, when a feud broke out between President Ghulam Ishaq Khan and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in early 1993, she was quick to befriend her tormenter, who had sent her home barely sixteen months ago, to cobble together an interim government and get her husband appointed as minister. Fourteen years later, she made a “deal” with Gen Pervez Musharraf to “share” power with him, and got the National Reconciliation Ordinance promulgated, to facilitate her return along with the party faithful in tandem. And her return to Pakistan on October 18, 2007, though marred by suicide bombing and explosions, was as triumphant and as memorable as the April 1986 return.

However, the most remarkable thing about her was that she had the requisite intelligence and sophistry to dexterously utilise the Hovlandian paradigm of political behaviour to present her every move in terms of national interest. Thus, the Musharraf “deal” would be presented as the right royal road to establishing democracy in Pakistan in the given circumstances. And, wonder of wonders, she was able to sell

her argument.

Inexplicably though, the subcontinent has spawned a number of women leaders in politics — Bandarnaike and Kumaratunga (Sri Lanka), Hasina Sheikh, and Khaleda Zia (Bangladesh) and the more important Indira Gandhi. None of them, however, are comparable to Benazir in terms of her personality, struggle and achievements. Nor do Tansu Ciller (Turkey) Soekarnoputri (Indonesia) Corazon and Arroyo (Philippines) come within miles of Benazir. Except possibly for Margaret Thatcher, the Iron Lady, Benazir could claim the foremost female persona scepter since World War II. That explains the extensive coverage she received in the world press and TV on her assassination.

Finally, from all indications, what Benazir wished most was to be an icon during her life time and a saint after her death. That twin wish stands squarely fulfilled. And that, at any role, is more enduring than her aborted quest for absolute power. n

The writer, an HEC Distinguished National Professor, has recently edited Unesco`s History of Humanity, Vol. VI, and earlier edited In quest of Jinnah (2007), the only oral history on Pakistan`s founding father.

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