Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and the Pakistan People's Party

On Zulfikar Ali Bhutto... he was a more sophisticated western educated version of Nawaz Sharif. Just like Nawaz Sharif was created by the establishment under Zia and the ISI later on, Bhutto was essentially Iskandar Mirza and Ayub Khan's man.

Just like Nawaz Sharif would do so against the great Benazir Bhutto, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto played an important role for the establishment against Fatima Jinnah and the people's movement that had shaken the foundations of Ayubian military dictatorship. He was also instrumental in establishment's calculations against the coalition of Mujeeb Rahman's Awami League and Wali Khan's NAP.

After 1971, Pakistan's self identification as a "Muslim homeland" was put to test (though unjustifiably and I have written about it). Bhutto as a patriot Like Nawaz Sharif, Bhutto came in heavy with the Islamic ideology... using foreign policy tools and combining them with populist islamic rhetoric to achieve his own ends. His role in the apostasisation of the Ahmadi community (which I must point out was in the front ranks of the Pakistan movement) was not out of his personal conviction but was the result of political expediency. Bhutto was too keen a student of history to miss the Masadi-style Islamist tools used by the establishment in 1953 to bring down the Muslim League government ... he therefore went around the Mullahs, all the while thinking and promising Ahmadis in private that he would restore their status. He was not given that opportunity.

Masadi's claim that Bhutto was merely using the available tools is a lie. Jinnah - who Bhutto did not tire quoting or admiring- had clearly ruled out attempts by the Mullahs to declare Ahmadis Kafir going so far as to declare the entire effort a conspiracy against the Muslim people. It was because of this strong stance in favor of the Ahmadis that even the most of religious of Muslim League leaders, Khawaja Nazimuddn, refused to bow down to Mullah pressure.
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto himself had called this effort to declare Ahmadis Non-muslim a conspiracy against Islam. However, despite is great genius, Bhutto was a man of weak constitution and without scruples.

Had Bhutto had Jinnah's integrity and honesty ... he would have been probably one of the greatest leaders of the 20th century, but ultimately that was not to be. Bhutto's great genius was interrupted by his feudal background which constantly challenged his ability to work for the people.

That said, many politicians take that route. Their movements over time take a life of their own. PPP is one such thing ... Bhutto is a legendary figure, though always second to Jinnah even for the most devout of the Jiyalas, but he is no longer PPP's master signifier. PPP has become a national institution - no doubt exactly what Bhutto wanted it to be.

For political parties changing positions is not a new thing. Look at the Democrat and the Republican Parties. Today most rednecks vote for the Republican Party but it was this very party that fought the civil war and won it, emancipating the slaves in the process. Meanwhile the Democrat Party was the very party that dominated the South. It remained a party with primarily slave owner roots till the middle of the last century.

It was the democrat party which produced William Bryan Jennings... the one politician who won more nominations for president than anyone else in American history but never once won. William was also the person who was the greatest defender of Christian Fundamentalism and the hairbrained theory of "creationism" and was the lead counsel against Clarence Darrow in the Monkey trial of 1925.

Today it is unthinkable for a Democrat to think in those terms. So parties do evolve... without disowning their past. PPP can do the same.