Songs Of Blood And Sword: A Daughter'S Memoir (9 page)

In 1953, the Bhutto house at 70 Clifton was in its final stages of completion. The gate had two plates: one in a dull gold with the name of Sir Shahnawaz Bhutto and another, directly underneath it in a muted bronze colour, that announced the name and title of the first professional Bhutto: Zulfikar Ali Bhutto: Bar at law. At this time, Zulfikar, married to Nusrat, became a father. Their first child, a daughter, Benazir,
born in June 1953, was named for her father’s sister, who died as a young girl. Her mother delivered her in one of Karachi’s Christian hospitals. Begum Mazari, the sister of the renowned Baloch fighter Akbar Bugti and the wife of the
Sardar
of the Baloch Mazari tribe, remembers visiting Nusrat in the hospital after her first delivery.

‘It was hard for her, she had tears in her eyes,’
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Begum Mazari says of the friend she remembers as a lively young woman. All the family had expected a son, and the delivery of a girl was one more reason to resent the woman who the Bhutto family had fought so hard to ostracise. ‘Nusrat said that hardly anyone had called on her to congratulate her on the birth,’ Begum Mazari says, even though Zulfikar doted on his daughter, treating her tenderly and spoiling her rotten. ‘You know,’ she continues, ‘he was a very progressive man. He broke many taboos. In Sindh you only saw males, only the men would be out in public, but Zulfi took Nusrat everywhere with him, even on state trips.’

Begum Mazari visited Nusrat in the same Christian hospital a year later, in 1954, when Mir Murtaza was born, and noticed a world of difference in the atmosphere in the maternity ward. ‘When Mir was born, her mother-in-law cooked her food and brought it to her in the hospital. She gave her gifts of jewellery and looked after Nusrat in a way she had never done before.’ Not that this is unusual, especially in Pakistan. Even today the birth of a girl means dowry, wedding arrangements, and sadly little else. ‘I remember I asked her, Nusrat what are you doing? I keep coming to the hospital to see you! And she laughed, she was much happier this time, and said what can I do? Zulfi likes children.’ In quick succession, two more children were born. Sanam, a girl, and Shahnawaz, named for his grandfather. Zulfikar and Nusrat’s small family was complete.

In Pakistan, separating rumours from fact is often a laborious job, especially when it comes to politics. It was at this time, shortly after the birth of his children, that Zulfikar left his practice in law to join active politics. It is said that it was Nusrat, his foreign-born wife, to whom Zulfikar owed his political career. An Iranian friend of Nusrat’s had married Iskandar Mirza, the President of Pakistan. As the
government was facing a steady stream of unsettling upheavals, Nusrat mentioned to her friend Naheed Mirza that she might ask her husband to invite Zulfikar to join politics; he was from a good family and had a brilliant young mind lauded in his professional sphere. Mirza, it was known in certain circles, was looking for someone fresh to represent Sindh.

On 7 October 1958, General Ayub Khan, a dapper blue-eyed military man, took power from President Iskandar Mirza in a quiet and largely uneventful coup d’état. The illegal seizure of power came at a time of immense chaos and political uncertainty within the country and most people seemed indifferent to the General’s takeover; some may have even been relieved. In order to understand the realm of the ridiculous that domestic politics had entered, it may be worth noting that in the decade of the 1950s, Pakistan had had seven different Prime Ministers, each intending to carry out a five-year term by law. What seemed aberrant in the late 1950s has now become a sad trademark of Pakistan’s feckless political landscape.

As a result of the coup, President Mirza was forced to abrogate the admittedly flimsy constitution and dissolve all assemblies and ministries. President Mirza, who assured the nation that martial law would be lifted within three months (they all do that, it must be force of habit) and that a referendum was soon to take place, justified his actions by blaming political parties for the poor state of affairs. ‘The mentality of political parties has sunk so low,’ he reasoned, ‘that I am unable any longer to believe that elections will improve the present chaotic internal situation.’
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Military dictators and those who passionately enable them are nothing if not trite. In the late 1950s this may have been somewhat of an original rationale, but by Pakistan’s sixtieth anniversary of independence and three dictators later, the ‘elections don’t help anything’ reasoning has become a remarkably familiar refrain. Mirza, none the wiser, was ousted from power by the army twenty days after martial law was instituted.

It was at this time that Zulfikar was approached and asked to join the new government. Like many Pakistanis undergoing their first coup, Zulfikar’s reservations about the military government were eased by
the promise that martial law would soon be lifted. Pakistan was a country still in its political infancy; maybe the military would work to restore order, maybe they would pave the way for an earnest era of democracy. And so it was at the age of thirty that Zulfikar joined the government, serving as the Minister of Fuel, Power and Natural Resources.

As Zulfikar had entered politics with a clean slate, his presence within the new government was looked upon positively; he was young, spirited and intellectually determined. It was often said that in a government ‘dominated by the strong, central figure of Ayub, Bhutto was reputed to be the one man who stood up for his views, was listened to with respect, and assigned the most delicate tasks despite his young years’.
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In 1960 Zulfikar was given the sensitive task of negotiating an oil agreement with the Soviet Union. Throughout his short time in office, Zulfikar was openly frustrated with the compromising position Pakistan was constantly put in vis-à-vis the major powers and had consistently argued for a turnaround in foreign policy. Pakistan’s relationship with the Soviet Union was difficult at this time, mainly because of Pakistan’s stubborn insistence on standing by the United States, thus allying itself on the other side of the Cold War’s equilibrium. The Soviet Union, in turn, had a thriving relationship with Nehru’s socialist India, supplying it with massive amounts of military aid and economic assistance. Zulfikar’s visit, however, was a success. He returned home with the Soviet promise to fund further oil exploration within Pakistan, credit of 120 million roubles and a deal to supply experienced experts and equipment for the programme. What further endeared Zulfikar to the Soviets was his insistence on travelling around the Soviet Union. He spent a day in Samarkand and spoke to his hosts of the ‘grandeur of Islamic architecture and culture so richly visible it made one feel proud to be a part of its history, race and religion’.
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Even though Zulfikar’s government duties busied him with commerce, industry and finance, it was Pakistan’s image and position abroad that most concerned him. ‘Our salvation lies in one world . . . in which we shall not only eliminate wars but also offer the promise
of a new social and economic order,’
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Zulfikar wrote, fired up against all the injustice he had witnessed, but thus far had not yet suffered. ‘We must have fearless minds, our spirit should never be daunted . . . we can only improve with the improvements of humanity, for we are an inextricable part of it. Let our achievements be for all.’
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But Pakistan’s achievements, under the directive of General Ayub, were not to be for all. Military dictators in Pakistan tend to cuddle up to any power that promises to protect them and it is no small surprise that the power which most frequently enables militarism in Pakistan is the United States. Under the pretext of modernizing its military, already impressively modern, Pakistan signed a Mutual Defence Agreement with the United States in May 1954. As part of the agreement, Pakistan was ‘encouraged’ to join SEATO, the South-East Asian Treaty Organization, in September 1954 and later CENTO, the Central Treaty Organization, in 1955. The growing power of communist China was the catalyst for the creation of SEATO. Countries like Thailand and the Philippines were eager to band together under SEATO, fearing a Korean War-inspired outbreak in their own countries, but Pakistan, miles away from communist Korea, was hardly at risk. India, Burma and Indonesia refused point blank to be part of SEATO and Ceylon eventually wriggled out of negotiations too. The great alliance was to be made up of three countries: Pakistan, Thailand and the Philippines. CENTO was later introduced as a corollary to protect US interests in the Middle East and again, Pakistan parlayed its strategic importance into access to the American-drafted CENTO pact. CENTO caused a great deal of disruption within the Arab world as it was seen as a ploy to destroy Arab unity. Pakistan, by virtue of being a signatory, became suspect – and not for the last time – in the eyes of Arab states. Pakistan did nothing to improve its PR when it played a subversive role during the Suez crisis and came out on the side of the aggressors on all the aspects of the conflict: the nationalization of the canal itself, Anglo-French collusion with Israel and aggression against Egypt. As a result, Pakistan’s image in the Middle East was pitiful. A Syrian newspaper,
Al Badra
, wrote that Pakistan, like Israel, was solely a creation of British imperialism.
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No implication could
have stung more, especially for Zulfikar, who yearned for Third World unity and was about to join the stage as Pakistan’s Foreign Minister in 1963. Furious at the perception of Pakistan as an unthinking US stooge, he maintained that ‘CENTO is not and was not meant to be an expression of Iranian–Turkish–Pakistani–British–Iraqi community . . . its ineffectiveness has been manifest.’
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There is no doubt that CENTO was extremely detrimental to Pakistan’s relationship with Arab and Middle Eastern Nations, but it was SEATO that cemented the notion that Pakistan acted wholly as an American tool.

As Foreign Minister, Zulfikar made no secret of his disgust at many of the decisions of the government and isolated himself from the machinations of the state when he spoke out in the National Assembly, pointing out that:

It was said that the foreign policy of Pakistan was bankrupt; that we must walk out of the alliances of CENTO and SEATO, but the next day on getting into office, there were dazzling somersaults and it was solemnly said that without CENTO and SEATO Pakistan would not survive. These are some of the people who have played havoc not only with our internal life, but have made us feel ashamed in the world outside in our external dealings.
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Such dissent was not welcomed by the government, especially not by General Ayub, who may have been charmed by Zulfikar when he was Minister of Fuel but rarely saw eye to eye with him as Foreign Minister.

Zulfikar felt that under Ayub’s governance, Pakistan was ‘in danger of becoming a mere satellite, without any policy of its own’.
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Pakistan’s continual political and diplomatic immaturity would have distressed Zulfikar, had he lived to see his country’s current place in the world. Foreign policy was an extraordinarily weak point of Ayub’s, who couldn’t have cared less about diplomacy so long as American money kept flooding in through military pipelines, but for Zulfikar it was paramount. A year into his post as Foreign Minister he wrote that ‘the foreign policy of a nation is a manifestation of its sovereignty.
If a people enjoy all power, except the right to conduct foreign relations, it cannot be regarded as independent.’
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Pakistan was increasingly putting all its energy into relations with powers like the United States and the Soviet Union and wilfully neglecting Asian and non-aligned states. Zulfikar saw the danger of Pakistan placing all its eggs in the Cold War basket and as Foreign Minister declared, much to General Ayub’s displeasure, that:

we are in the vortex of grave historic events, in which the difference between a right and a false move might well mean the difference between survival and disaster . . . Instead of generating hope and providing for an easing of international tensions, the Titans, through their animosity, are leading the world to the brink of total annihilation.
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Zulfikar refused to jump either way, in the words of the historian Hugh Trevor-Roper, and it was this characteristic that most grievously annoyed General Ayub.

While bilateral relations were the centrepiece of Zulfikar’s foreign policy, there was no easy way to avoid the fact that relations between Pakistan and China had seriously deteriorated under General Ayub. The General was constantly pushing China out in order to make room for the United States, blind to the glaring fact that Pakistan was no longer America’s favourite client. Relations with China, and conversely with the United States, took a sharp turn in 1963 when Zulfikar, seen as the architect of Pakistan’s bilateral foreign policy, took up the position of Foreign Minister. In anticipation of Pakistan’s possible rapprochement with China in December 1962 and the young Foreign Minister’s socialist leanings, the United States transferred 300 million rupees in counterpart funds, meant to initiate credit expansion, from the State Bank of Pakistan to US commercial banks operating within Pakistan.
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It was a clear warning to Pakistan.

But Zulfikar did not respond well to threats. An emissary of the United States – rumours point to Henry Kissinger – told Zulfikar once that if he were one of their senators, they would have dealt with
him before he got out of hand. I wouldn’t be a senator, Zulfikar cockily replied, I’d be your president.

Three months later Pakistan and China signed a historic border agreement. Engineered by the Foreign Minister and his Chinese counterpart, Chen Yi, the agreement formally demarcated the boundary between China’s Sinkiang region and the contiguous areas whose defence fell under Pakistani control. It was heralded as a great achievement, one that would ‘not only give full expression to the desire of the peoples of China and Pakistan for the development of good-neighbourly and friendly relations, but also help safeguard Asian and world peace.’
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The United States was considerably miffed. It pronounced that the border agreement was ‘an unfortunate break in free world solidarity’ and promptly withdrew an offer of funds it had promised towards the construction of an airport in Dhaka.
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