Aboard the Democracy Train

Front Cover	Benazir Bhutto addresses supporters at Kotri railway station in Sindh on May 30, 1979 – Photo by Zahid Hussein.
Map 1	Map of Pakistan.
Figure 1	Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto addresses public meeting in Pishin, Baluchistan on March 1, 1977.
Figure 2	Benazir Bhutto in her ancestral home town of Larkana, Sindh
Figure 3	MQM chief Altaf Hussain addresses election rally in Karachi.
Figure 4	JSTPP chief Qadir Magsi addresses a rally in Larkana, June 12, 2009.
Figure 5	Newspaper article of author after attack on September 23, 1991.
Figure 6	Karachi journalists protest attack against press on September 30, 1991.
Figure 7	Women protest against religious fundamentalism on February 12, 2009 in Lahore.
Figure 8	PPP parliamentary leader Nisar Ahmed Khuhro addresses Sindh Assembly.
Figure 9	JUI (F) Chief Maulana Fazulur-Rehman addresses rally in Sukkur, Sindh on September 26, 2004.
Figure 10	Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan Chief Baitullah Mehsud in Sararogha, South Waziristan on February 7, 2005, shortly before he signed the peace deal with the Musharraf administration.
Map 2	Map of FATA.
Figure 11	PPP Chairperson Benazir Bhutto is welcomed on her return at Karachi Airport on October 18, 2007.
Figure 12	Protest rally against enforced disappearances of nationalist leaders of Sindh and Balochistan, taken in Hyderabad, Sindh on July 1, 2007.
Figure 13	Excerpt of Benazir Bhutto’s will.
Figure 14	Paramilitary personnel patrol a road in Bajaur tribal agency on February 28, 2009.

PREFACE

T
his is a book about politics and journalism in Pakistan, told through first-hand experiences. It is one I have long wanted to write because of my access to people, places and events that are normally hidden from public view. By relating my personal experiences, I hope to give an original insight to Pakistan and reveal who
really
rules the country, as well as expose the enormous effects that being in the US’s orbit of influence has had.

In 1984, I began my career at
Dawn
newspaper as its only female reporter, just as Benazir Bhutto made her bid to become Pakistan’s first woman prime minister. That year, I had come back from the US, armed with a master’s degree in history and a dream, not only to work for the nation’s most established newspaper, but to also effect change while working within the bounds of its staid but reliable coverage. As an energetic, young, Western-educated woman, my editor bypassed senior male reporters and deputed me to cover Benazir and her Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP).

That decade of tumultuous democracy, which marked the onset of civilian rule and the end of 11½ years of military dictatorship, would reveal to me why Pakistan has stubbornly resisted change. As an insider, my experience informs the reader on how the establishment – acting in collusion with feudal lords, tribal chiefs, ethnic and mafia groups – has worked against untidy civilian rule.

As a journalist in Pakistan, I constantly walked a tightrope, informing readers about the machinations of corrupt and dishonest military and government leaders, all the while working for a newspaper that often depended on the goodwill of the establishment. In attempting to get the “inside story,” I often found myself skating on thin ice and this book relates some of the narrow escapes I had from violently enforced censorship.

My status as a female journalist in a Muslim society inadvertently defined my career. In a society already laden with archaic customs, I covered Islamic legislation that aimed to tie women to medieval ways. The laws were supposedly meant to protect women, yet all around me women were raped and murdered, without recourse to justice. This only motivated me further to use my influence as an insider journalist.

The book focuses primarily on the decade of democratic rule (1988–99) when as a political reporter I had a front seat on history. Again, as a US-based academic and journalist from 2000 to the present, I have shared my unique perspective on Pakistan’s politics since it partnered with the US. Whilst the post-9/11 alliance opened the door for Benazir’s PPP to return to power, it culminated in her murder and exposed the conspiracies and intrigue that are woven into the nation’s political fabric.

This book carries the reader through the issues that face a complex society like Pakistan, in which the population spins out of control, violence breeds because of the total collapse of judicial institutions and the situation for women is one of the most difficult in the world. Indeed, the region is a ticking time bomb – and one that teems with conspiracies that threaten it, not only internally, but also on a global scale.

I was only in my late twenties when I began an exciting career as a journalist in Pakistan. As a young, idealistic woman I began with a clean slate and without any preconceived notions of the complex interplay between politics and society. Back then, I worked according to the news industry’s modus operandi to cover breaking news. Given that journalism is often described as “literature in a hurry,” and I was too busy gathering facts to form a proper narrative at the time, this book is an attempt to unpack the message.

In essence, I hope to give a human face to a region associated with stereotypical images of Muslim women and terrorists. In offering a nuanced picture of Pakistan, I want readers to appreciate the fascinating kaleidoscope of its recent history. It is a nation riddled with contradictions, where the past and present live side-by-side and where the more things change, the more they remain the same.

It is with the intent of sharing a nuanced perspective that I invite the reader to better understand Pakistan, by sharing in the exciting and dramatic times that I have spent with the nation’s politicians and people.

Map 1 Map of Pakistan.

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