While the Bhutto family is busy figuring out how to maintain the dynastic control over the party, Benazir’s death has opened up another succession issue where Benazir may not have an heir apparent or any heir at all.

The greatest attribute of the Peoples Party and the Bhutto family is their strong commitment to Pakistan. Despite major setbacks both political and Physical, the family never wavered from its commitment to the country. The Bhuttos can be accused of many things; nepotism, corruption, and establishing a fiefdom in the party but, no one can challenge their patriotism and commitment to Pakistan.

The Bhuttos hail from a province in Pakistan that has a long list of grievances against the army and the bigger province Punjab. The Bhuttos never used the provincialism or the Sindhi nationalism card in their politics.

Nawaz Sharif and his entourage was greeted with Punjabi na Khapan and Pakistan na Khapay (Don’t want Punjabi, don’t want Pakistan) on his condolence visit to Ghari Khuda Bux. The Sindh newspapers headlined, “Punjab sends another Sindhi PM in coffin”.

Sindh’s grumbling against the central establishment in Pakistan started right around the time when Bengalis figured out that they had not won independence but replaced one group of colonialists from Europe by another group of colonialist from the west of India.

Sindh suffered enormous shocks after the 1947 partition. The arrival of a huge number of migrants from the central provinces of India was the beginning of the problems that continued to escalate in the following years. The immigrants initially were greeted by Sindh in the true spirit of Sindhi traditions where a guest or someone who needs helped is offered whatever a Sindhi host could. The number of these immigrants soon overwhelmed resources in Sindh.

These immigrants to Sindh had come from the areas in India that were in political and communal turmoil for at least a hundred years and the immigrant brought their experiences in communal relations with them. The Sindhi middle class primarily Hindu and well adjusted in the Sindhi society, was frowned upon by the new immigrants and soon it was apparent that the new immigrant would have a hard time living with the Sindhi Hindu middle class. The problems reached a point that Hindus decided to leave Sindh before the situation came to head and the Punjab like riots were repeated in Sindh too.

All the jobs and housing left vacant by the Hindus were filled by the new immigrants. The Sindhi suffered a massive loss in education as most of the educators in the interior of Sindh were Hindu. The shock transfer of Hindu population deprived Sindh of is vibrant middle class that could have helped Sindh in resisting the immigrants onslaught over the Sindh resources.

The new leadership in Pakistan had no experience working with the Sindhis before. To them Sindhi were just backward rural people who did not deserve a second look. In their arrogance, they moved the Sindhi government to Hyderabad thus removing Sindhi politicians from any influence in the federal affairs.

People from the central provinces of India never stopped coming to Sindh and after Karachi was turned in to a sanctuary for the immigrants, the Liaquat government turned Karachi in to a Federal city. That further deprived Sindh of its major revenue source.

With the Sindhi middle class out of the way, the army and the civil service controlled leadership in the center decided to form One Unit in 1956 to counter the growing political unrest in Bengal. The idea was to turn West Pakistan in to one province and make it equal to East Bengal. The plan was a political disaster from the get go. While the Bengali saw that as yet another attempt to deprive them of their political right, the people of the smaller provinces in Pakistan Sindh, Baluchistan and NWFP lost their ability to govern their own provinces. Lahore became the capital of West Pakistan and tons of lower level Sindhi provincial employees who were hesitant to move to Lahore, lost their jobs.

After the construction of Kotri Barrage, pretty much all newly arable lands were given to retired or in service army officers and civil servants. This process picked up steam after the 1958 Army coup led by Ayub Khan. New Punjabi settlements appeared in Sindh that were known as Punjabi Chak or General da Chak.

The Sindhi middle class after the shocks of the partition, Hindu departure and stealing of the jobs and lands slowly began to emerge in the 60s. From 1963 onwards, Sindhi political resistance started to emerge and in 1967 the whole Sindh was up in arms against the One Unit.

1967 was the year when Z A Bhutto began to make his mark in Pakistani politics. ZAB never had a history of aligning with the Sindhi struggle for jobs, national rights or against the One Unit. ZAB had completely immersed himself into the Federal politics. He worked with Iskandar Mirza and Ayub Khan and his ambition was to gain a position of prominence in the national politics rather than the Sindh politics. ZAB was raised in Bombay and did not speak Sindhi fluently until he moved to Pakistan from the US in the early 50s. He hired a teacher in Larkana to relearn Sindhi.

As Bhutto gained prominence in Pakistani politics, the Sindhi nationalist groups began to increase their influence in Sindhi middle class. The Sindhi nationalists and the Sindhi students group found it difficult to work with Bhutto and his politics. Still, Bhutto during the election campaigned captured the imagination and respect of the Sindhi youth, Hari(peasants), and landowners at the same time. The gulf between Bhutto and the Nationalists groups widened after Bhutto became the PM of Pakistan.

Bhutto countered the Nationalist opposition by re-establishing Sindhi as the medium of instruction and the official language. He opened the gates of employment for the unemployed Sindhi youth and established the Quota system that legitimized the Sindhi rights for jobs at the Provincial and Federal level. His actions firmly established Bhutto and his family in the hearts and minds of Sindhis. Not forgetting his Land reforms that helped establish a rural middle class in Sindh.

This was the golden period of Sindhi renaissance after a long period of domination by the Punjabi bureaucracy. The situation did not last long. Just after five years Bhutto was dislodged from the premiership. Sindh went up in arms and until 1984 Sindhi were constantly harassed by the Pak army, Sindhi leaders were jailed, Sindhi students were tortured and jobs for Sindhis just evaporated completely from both the center and the province.

Sindhi nationalist began to re-emerge from the political hibernation and this time around the youth and the middle class in the PPP were also attracted to the Nationalist ideals. The youth never left the PPP but now they were inspired by nationalist slogans and it was clear that sooner or later the PPP would turn into a Sindhi Nationalists Party.

The PPP high Command in Sindhi saw this eroding support and quickly put pressure on Benazir to come back to Pakistan. Benazir’s youth and Bhutto’s fascinating name again helped the PPP re-establish itself as the Party of Sindhi youth.

Benazir twice became the PM of Pakistan and in her both terms; she aggressively worked for jobs for Sindhis and resolved Sindh economic problems. For that she was accused of nepotism by the Army establishment and the Punjabi bureaucracy.

Benazir assassination and funeral brought the memories of ZA Bhutto assassination and funeral back with a difference. In 1979, the army had clamped down on Sindh and Sindhi were brutally dealt with by the army to quash the protest. This time around the army did not dare come in the Sindhi cities and towns until the first wave of emotions had subsided.

For three days and still counting, Larkana and the entire interior of Sindh and Sindhi/Baloch dominated areas in Karachi resonated with the slogans of Jiya Sindh and Punjabi na Khapan and Pakistan na khapay.

The assassination has provided the Sindhi nationalism another dead body to carry on its shoulders as yet another example of the Punjabi and the army efforts to deprive the smaller provinces of active participation in the state affairs.

Sindh is headed for the same situation that exists in Baluchistan now and had existed in Bengal before the 70s election. Baluchistan has no voice in the federal affairs. The Baloch leadership is either murdered or has been made ineffective by the harsh administrative actions and army threats. The vacuum will be filled but the time it will take, would allow the Baloch nationalist to establish their political demand of a separate Baluchistan.


Asif Zardari today may call for the unity of Pakistan but he does not have a Bhutto name to back him up in Sindh. Bilawal is not Benazir of 1977 who from a very young age learned to fight the army and its goons in different jails. She still was a naive girl when she took the mantle of the Premiership in Pakistan and was supported by a dedicated group of the PPP workers who had suffered with her and developed camaraderie with Benazir which at times was stronger than their commitment to ZAB.

Bilawal has not suffered, had no experience of fighting in trenches. He had not had a father who was on the death row for almost two years and he does not have a mother who knew what it takes to be an anti establishment politician in Pakistan.

Benazir’s pyre will continue to burn and this burning pyre would remind the Sindhis that their hopes of staying in Pakistan and fighting for their rights within the state are disappearing fast. Sindhi Nationalism and the Nationalist will come forward to provide the leadership.

The people who killed Benazir have perhaps killed Pakistan too.