Daily Times

Whenever he talks about his mother, a feeling of suppressed grief, a restrained anger seems to burden his every carefully enunciated word. Whatever he says is heard, analysed, dissected, lauded and ripped apart, depending on whom the listener swears allegiance to. Nothing he says ever goes unnoticed. Most of what he pronounces reveals his undisguised love and admiration for his deceased mother, his legendary grandfather, and his party. Whatever may be surmised from his infrequent statements, one thing stands out with a steadfast singularity and clarity — he is the son of his mother.

Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari. He is the son of Benazir Bhutto and Asif Ali Zardari. The twice elected/dismissed Ms Bhutto is in a class apart from all. Her death does not count when it comes to a measurement of her stature as a female politician sans parallel. The merits and criticism become insignificant when it comes to her. She was an institution in herself, setting up an impossible standard to copy, if not more. Not because she was a great politician. It was unarguably her unique position in Pakistan’s troubled democratic history, fitting her into a slot that became vacant after her death; the present scenario seems devoid of anyone even one-tenth of her calibre to occupy it. The only person who, ironically, is to be the next Bhutto legacy heir, incidentally, is none other than her first-born, and the chairperson of the party she could not hand over the reins to him herself because of her untimely demise.

Who is Bilawal today? He may be the envy of any ambitious, pampered, next-in-line and secure offspring of one of the mighty names of our fickle politics, but it cannot be all bright and Oxford-white for the most noted political heir of Pakistan’s most noted political dynasty. Merely the legacy would be too weighty for words to lighten and past laurels to perpetuate. Imagine being the grandson of the country’s most famous politician (barring Mr Jinnah who is above all lists), Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, and inheriting his mother’s agony as to what happened to her beloved father, the leader of millions. When he talks about his grandfather’s judicial murder, he echoes what his mother reiterated to her dying day, and what any democracy-loving Pakistani would want: justice. Mr Bhutto’s larger-than-any-dictator and elected leader’s persona, his undignified ouster, and his still unexplained government-controlled assassination are all too much for any Pakistani worth his political and humanistic salt to fathom. All of them died looking for answers…Mir Shah Nawaz Bhutto, Mir Murtaza Bhutto, Begum Nusrat Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto — the sons, the wife, one of the daughters. Now it is Bilawal’s turn to demand an answer. He has all the time in the world to wait for one, and he seems determined about getting one. When he speaks at his grandfather’s mausoleum on his 33rd death anniversary, the simmering anger, mixed with layered grief, speaks volumes about the expectation of an answer. What Mr Bhutto’s sons, wife and daughter did not find, Bilawal still seeks today. Will he get it? It may bring him and his deceased family’s souls some long-cherished relief. Maybe.

Benazir Bhutto was the youngest prime minister of Pakistan and the first female one of any Muslim country. After a continuous struggle post-Mr Bhutto’s assassination on April 4, 1979, in her two brothers’ absence, Ms Bhutto became the chairperson of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) in 1982. Still standing after a long, torturous struggle against General Ziaul Haq’s decade-long dictatorship, she won her first free election after the general’s mysterious plane crash in 1988. That year was fateful in more ways than one. Campaigning as a female, as a Bhutto, as Mrs Zardari, as an expectant mother, turning the stereotypical on its head, she smiled her way to the house on the hill. As Ms Benazir took the oath on December 2, 1988 as the 11th prime minister of Pakistan, her three-month-old son Bilawal took his own unique place in history. As she mothered two more children, her daughters, Bakhtawar and Asifa, her life went through its usual rollercoaster motion of political and personal drama. The dismissal of her first government; a barrage of accusations levelled on her, her spouse and her party; the indecorous tussle with Mian Nawaz Sharif; her next electoral victory; her second stint as the PM, the tragic assassination of her brother, Mir Murtaza Bhutto (during her incumbency), and her second dismissal all read like chapters from a Greek drama — unhinged, awry.

The young Bilawal saw it all. What he understood signified nothing compared to what he felt. Living with a self-exiled mother, separated from an imprisoned father (Mr Zardari jailed in Pakistan from 1996-2004 on charges of corruption), and nourished on the saga of the Bhutto family’s tragedy (not unsubstantiated), Bilawal grew up to face a world where his family was lauded and cursed simultaneously. Today, when he makes statements about defending the honour of his family, his legacy and his party, most of us, who witnessed it all, good and ugly, nod in understanding, sympathetic.

December 27, 2007 altered the political map of Pakistan, yet again. Benazir Bhutto was assassinated. The country wept in disbelief and sorrow, united in its anger against the brutal murder of a woman they loved, admired and considered irreplaceable. Even the ones who did not like her uttered a prayer for her, shocked. As the scantily guarded, heavily threatened, hailed as the next political messiah, twice democratically elected prime minister bled to her death, amid chaos and noise, all hell broke loose for her three children living abroad. As you await your remarkable mother to take her rightful place in the political hemisphere as a mature, wisened leader, repentant of her past professional follies, responsive to her opposition, and ready to take another dictator head on, you receive a phone call announcing she is dead. Your entire being shifts. Your teenage mind, unable to grasp the enormity of the tragedy, goes into a stunned muteness. As you watch your beautiful much loved mother go into her untimely grave, you force your heartbreaking pain into a glazed, inscrutable, stony silence. You stand next to the grave, with your head lowered, quiet, and the world watches you, full of pain. On December 30, 2007, as in a repeat performance of almost two decades ago, another party chairperson is chosen. The resemblance is too eerie, too uncanny to elicit even one coherent comment. Bilawal Zardari renamed Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, aged 19, becomes the youngest chairperson ever, probably, of a political party of the PPP’s stature. There is too much history. History owes him an explanation. He wants justice. He demands justice. His mother’s assassination cannot be a nothing. A relative closure comes with justice, and Bilawal demands it, rightfully so.

When Bilawal wishes his grandfather, Mr Bhutto’s case be reopened, he is justified. When he takes an apparently simplistic and overly emotional stance vis-à-vis the sanctity of his mother’s grave, he is justified. Who truly thinks he is not? When he wants his mother’s murderers to be punished and he openly points a finger, he is justified. When he defends his father, Mr Zardari, the incumbent president, no matter how flimsy it may sound to his detractors, he is justified. After what his family and party have been through, what is expected of him? Whether his father deserves to be defended is another matter altogether, but as Mr Bhutto’s grandson, as Ms Bhutto’s son, as the chairperson of the PPP, Bilawal will not mince any words to ensure no more unjust prosecution takes place. He will not allow it. He has been through too much already.

History will be a judge of the 23-year-old Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari. How sagacious, broadminded, politically shrewd, fair and just he turns out to be, time will tell. How from an emotionally charged, passionate, PPP-encircled Bilawal he becomes a national leader of the two legendary Bhuttos’ stature, only time will tell. As of now, notwithstanding the limelight, the famous pronouncements, the position…he is just a grieving son.

The writer is an assistant editor at Daily Times and can be reached at mehrt2000@gmail.com