The writer is a former editor of Dawn.
The writer is a former editor of Dawn.

A LOT has been said about the PPP as it celebrated its 50th Foundation Day in Lahore with its young leader making brave claims of having regained his party’s popularity of yesteryear and posing a serious threat to the now established political order.

The PPP was once indeed a glorious party whether led by its charismatic founder Zulfikar Ali Bhutto or, after his judicial murder, by his daughter Benazir Bhutto, without doubt one of the most indefatigable and resilient political leaders the country has ever produced.

I remember well I first saw Zulfikar Ali Bhutto as he campaigned for the 1970 general election. We lived in Mirpurkhas in Sindh and since I was just a schoolboy fascinated by ZAB, many years before I was allowed to drive, I begged my father for the use of his car and driver.


A frail young woman defiantly looked the military dictator in the eye and told him what she thought of him, regardless of the consequences.


We parked the car outside Gama Stadium on the edge of town where Mr Bhutto was going to address a lunchtime election rally. But he was late. It later transpired his mega rich opponent in Mirpurkhas belonging to the Wassan family had laid out hundreds of biryani deghs to lure the PPP supporters away.

This was reported to Mr Bhutto, who stopped his procession in Tando Allah Yar, a town not too far, for a couple of hours. By the time he finally arrived thousands of his supporters had enjoyed Mr Wassan’s hospitality and were now ready to throng to the jalsa venue and listen to the speakers.

The lasting image of ZAB I have is atop a PPP tricolour-bedecked truck with thousands of mesmerised followers surrounding him and walking alongside and behind his vehicle. What even a young schoolboy could sense was the magnetic connection between him and his mostly dispossessed supporters. The atmosphere was electric.

Fast forward to election result day and the one clear message from the electorate was emerging. The then establishment’s favourite, the Jamaat-i-Islami which was supposed to halt the electoral ambitions of the Awami League in East Pakistan and the PPP in West Pakistan had been more or less decimated.

Then followed the pain of military defeat, of losing half of the country, of hearing on Radio Pakistan about a ‘ceasefire agreement’ between local military commanders in East Pakistan but later seeing Lt-General ‘Tiger’ Niazi signing the document of surrender in Ramna Racecourse, Dhaka, before Indian Lt-Gen Jagjit Singh Aurora.

As a young schoolboy I may not have understood the politics of it or even what led to the debacle. I could nonetheless feel the collective depression of everyone around me. When ZAB first addressed the nation after taking over power from the disgraced Gen Yahya Khan in early 1972 my only impression was that the civilian leader represented hope with a promise to pick up the pieces.

I suspect with 24x7 TVs blasting all sorts of news into your living rooms, there may be greater awareness even among young schoolchildren now. Then, we didn’t know much as we went about our protected and rather smug lives.

So, of course it didn’t register with me what happened to the governments in Balochistan and the then NWFP. Neither did it register with me that upon coming to power Mr Bhutto soon embarked on a purge of most left-leaning founding members of the party.

It became clear after the coup of 1977, ZAB’s arrest and bail in a murder case, and from the thunderous reception he got from all of Punjab on his release that his crackdown on opponents and dissenters within his own party had not weakened his stranglehold over his support base.

The poor were never at the receiving end of his wrath which was reserved for his own socioeconomic class. Thus, the shirtless easily forgave his excesses against others for he had given them a sense of ownership in Pakistan and gave their plight and their concerns a voice.

I recall being in Lahore the day the Supreme Court verdict came on Mr Bhutto’s appeal against his conviction by the Lahore High Court in the Nawab Mohammad Ahmad Khan Kasuri murder case. A young, spunky lawyer called Asma Jahangir, my hosts’ cousin, excitedly told us the verdict was split and that nobody had ever been executed after a split decision.

And then of course the day when Mark Tully, the BBC correspondent, broke the news of ZAB’s execution, everyone realised that Zia was so determined to eliminate Mr Bhutto that no convention or tradition, no international appeal would stand in his way.

I was at university and then in my first years in journalism and saw at close quarters the fighter Benazir Bhutto was and the steely will she possessed. A frail young woman defiantly looked the military dictator in the eye and told him what she thought of him, regardless of the consequences mostly in terms of long incarceration, often in isolation.

The current rulers’ financial scandals, incredible fortunes and now troubles date back to the period when they could do as they pleased so long as they could present a viable opposition to the party led by the young, rebellious woman.

We all know what happened in the relatively more recent past. As far as the PPP is concerned it faced epic tragedies and no I am not just referring to the assassination of its gutsy leaders. There have been tragedies galore.

Not least the one I am going to refer to and one Asha’ar Rehman alluded to in his excellent piece in Friday’s Dawn. I have had the privilege of seeing where the PPP was founded in the vacant plot behind Dr Mubashir Hasan’s frugal Gulberg home. (Now the low-profile, simple home of Dr Sahib’s late brother, Dr Shabbar Hasan, stands on it.)

The PPP’s foundation day festivities were held in Bahria Town, in the shadow of the opulent and grand Malik Riaz-built Bilawal House (partially paid for by Mr Asif Zardari). The venues of the two ceremonies eloquently tell the tale of the PPP’s journey.

The writer is a former editor of Dawn.

abbas.nasir@hotmail.com

Published in Dawn, December 3rd, 2016

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