Thirty-five years after General Ziaul Haq overthrew Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s government, his malign legacy still torments Pakistan. Bhutto was arrested and finally controversially executed on July 4, 1979. When Zia came to power, he had pledged elections within 90 days. As it turned out, he more than outstayed his welcome over 11 years. July 5, 1977 is etched in the collective memory of Pakistan as the beginning of the worst period in Pakistan’s history. To hold on to his illegitimate grip on power, Ziaul Haq imposed a draconian dictatorship under the guise of Islamisation. While this manipulation of the religious sentiments of the people distorted state and society and pushed them in the direction of extremism and intolerance, it also spawned jihadi terrorism in both its domestic and exportable form. The latter received a fillip and the dictator a windfall in the shape of the Afghan wars. Particularly after the communist coup in Afghanistan in 1978 and the Soviet invasion of that country in 1979, it seemed the only growth industry in Pakistan became jihadi extremism and bigotry wrapped in the (false) holy cloak of religion. The Afghan wars came as a windfall for Zia, helping him prolong his rule with the help and aid of the west, particularly the US, in the name of the fight against Soviet expansionism. Zia and the west expanded the Afghan proxy wars to an unprecedented level, an enterprise that continues to date and has by now delivered its bitter fruit of blowback in the form of our own home grown terrorism. Additionally, thanks to the dictator’s exertions, Pakistan became less Islamic and more a sea of kalashnikovs, drugs and sundry other mafias. The heroin addiction epidemic also dates from this period, ravaging millions of lives and families over the years. Militancy became endemic, with the result that today Pakistan is synonymous with terrorism and is feared the world over as a threat to regional (and by extrapolation, world) peace. The ramifications of Zia’s legacy have proved manifold and insidious. The genie of extremism released from the bottle by him has given birth over time to various jihadi groups operating in Pakistan with impunity, with help from the deep state. Today, we owe the killing fields of Karachi, the genocide of Hazara Shias in Balochistan and the sectarian and terrorist afflictions that have society in their grip to Zia’s legacy. Unfortunately, even after his death in 1988, the successor governments, both civilian and military, have failed to address or reverse the damage done by Ziaul Haq to state and society. On the political front, the mess is now so vast that the mind boggles at what it would take to undo what Zia had wrought. Truly, it was the worst of times when he was around. The scary part is that it continues. *