If I am murdered…the ZAB saga!

This is certainly one way of looking at the man...

However... from the evidence that we have Piloo Moody, it is true that Bhutto admired Nehru as a third world leader... but he was an avowed admirer of Jinnah through out ... about whom he wrote the Time magazine in his college days...

Just a small correction.

#41
``Bhutto’s father owned property in Bombay``

The old Bombay elite liked to have a ``summer home`` or vacation home in Pune or somewhere in the western ghats like Panchgani, so its quite possible it belonged to him.

Do you know which part of Bombay did he grow up? does his house in Bombay still exist?

#33 by amit

“a constitutional guarantee of proportional representation at an all India level in every branch of government, military, police etc with veto power on constitutional amendments.”
Amit:
I agree with almost all of your post but your statement above stands out. I think there was a solution to the problems created by several forces including the colonialists but leaders failed to grasp the situation completely and went with the flow to save their hineys temporarily and left the subcontinent with perpetual hate.
I think a mere constitutional guarantee for maximum autonomy within the Indian frame work would have done the trick but nobody dared take a stand and that certainly was a failure of the leadership. Still, given the amount of pressure those leaders were in, they did what looked liked a best solution to them. The emotionally charged atmosphere that Sub continent had plunged in during the Second World War did not help any. Interestingly, the minority provinces in Pakistan are asking for provincial autonomy within the Pakistan framework but the champions of the strong center continue to deny that. Cabinet mission in effect proposed that solution.

Zakkk
We are not far apart in our thinking and it is true that the army worked on several options but you need to analyze the situation objectively. There really were no links between Yahya and Mujib. If you look at the history of negotiations in early March 1971, you would be surprised to know how little time Mujib and West Pakistan leaders including Yahya and Bhutto spent with Mujib. Everybody was just strengthening their positions then. The Army was moving troops in East Pakistan and Awami league leadership was slipping out to India.

It is true that without the Indian Army, it would have taken Bangladesh years to rid of the Pak army but the army also knew that Pakistan did not have the financial or political means to keep the East Pakistan for an indefinite period. I would recommend you read the Hamood ur rehman report and you would know that the GHQ in Pindi was stalling the reinforcement requests. Before the war the Pak Army was never in a position to confront the advancing Indian army on any front. There were never enough troops and the ones that were there, left positions quickly to retreat to safer areas. The numbers of dead Pakistani soldiers during the combat were ridiculously low. I don’t have time now to go into all details but if you find time you can put the whole puzzle together and you would come to the same conclusion that the objective of the Military action was to get rid of East Pakistan rather than save it.

Pakfin,
I know two of them socially but they are too young to be my friends. It seems that we are referring to different sets of people. The way social connections in Sindh work, we may have some common acquaintances.

bongdongs

Bhutto’s father owned property in Bombay. I don’t know about Pune. Bhutto grew up in Bombay where he lived with his mother. He came to the US from India a few months before the partition. That’s why he had Indian passport and citizenship at and after independence.

HP, Karim son of Pyar Ali Allana, Asad son of Qaim Ali Shah and Jam Ashiq Ali son of Jam Sadiq Ali were all good friends of mine.

My father represented the Bhutto and the Jatoi families amongst many others in the Civil lawsuits instituted by the Zia government.

HP, Karim son of Pyar Ali Allana, Asad son of Qaim Ali Shah and Jam Ashiq Ali son of Jam Sadiq Ali were all good friends of mine.

My father represented the Bhutto and the Jatoi families amongst many others in the Civil lawsuits instituted by the Zia government.

Dont forget that the army funded the Muslim League in the 1970 elections (as usual) to counter Bhutto and Mujib. Therefore there were a whole bunch of conspiricies going on in the background; the army had their A teams and their B teams.

Dont forget that the army funded the Muslim League in the 1970 elections (as usual) to counter Bhutto and Mujib. Therefore there were a whole bunch of conspiricies going on in the background; the army had their A teams and their B teams.

ZAB and Indian citizenship

A large plot of land in a prominent area near Pune university is rumored to have belonged to the Bhutto family and was sold only in the `70`s. I near really believed the story, but hearing other evidence maybe it was true.

HP: While I accept that Bhutto did not want to be an opposition leader of a united Pakistan..and preferred being the PM of a divided one...but there is no evidence to show he planned anything specific regarding the Army crackdown..you can read G W Choudhrys book on the issue and Stanley Wolperts book on ZAB.

The complex negotiations between Yahya Khan and Mujeeb ur Rehman can`t be discounted, having extracted the maximum from Yahya Mujeeb did not want to be the person to ``bell the cat`` and call for outright independance...Yahya seeing his personal link with Mujeeb breakdown was left with no room to manouverve..and the hawks on the Army and the Awami League side had both already made preparations for a confrontation..even so the Army were not interested in breaking up Pakistan even by that point..there purpose was to break teh Awami League (teach the bingo`s a lesson..as they would say) ..if it had not been for Indian intervention..by mid to late 1971 the Army had succeeded in that mission.

As far as the comparison to Indira Gandhi is concerned...I think both were very shrewd politicians..and education has nothing to do with political cunning...however because India`s institutional system was stronger..the systen could survive IG`s autocracy and check it..Pakistan on the other hand was not so lucky..

Re: # 30

you could be right..... I was a student of class 7-8 then... I passed my Matrics in 1975..
this story was narrated to me By my Uncle.... And there were many stories of the
high handedness of the newly elected ministers.... then.....later on as well we all know
our Nation has accepted such high handedness from the higher ups... and no one now
gives a damn about it....

....But I can vouch for the sudden decline in the educational standards.... I was a student of Marie Colaca Sec School Nazimabad Branch ( Now its no more there...and there is nothing but rubble both at its Saddar premises as well as Nazimabad branch primesis )

...I remember very well our Science teacher a certain Mrs Noor ... First mentioned about the theory of relativity to us... and our Maths teacher Mr Masood did some mathematical explanation of it to us in our class presentaion day. ... and I was in 8th then... .. It all flew over our heads.... but the term theory of relativity got stuck in my head.. ..The very Next year .. when we were in Ninth... our school was Nationalized...
and we found some New teachers.... One of them could not even spell the word
Chemistry he would call it Kay Mis treee and Biology as Bay Lo gee....

..there was sudden increase of students.... and One day We found a heavy contigent of Police in the Office or our Principal ... the reason ... One of the student the son of a local Don .... Had kniffed some other student .....over a petty matter..
From then On.... the standard not only the educational but moral as well got from worse to worst.... and I blame Z A Bhutto for it..

Re:HP#28

I am not a fan of Indira Gandhi by any means. Her formal education was poor as you mentioned. However, she was extremely shrewd, cunning and had phenomenal political skills in manipulating the entire country. Initially she played the role of an innocent, sweet daughter in front of the Congress leaders who got fooled into thinking that she can be controlled. Each stalwart Congress leader like Morarji Desai or Kamraj thought that they can checkmate their rivals by propping up IG to the top position. What ended up happening is that once IG got to the top spot, she ruthlessly got rid of the Congress top brass or the Syndicate, as it used to be called. In fact, the entire sycophant culture in Congress Party today is due to her, since she could not tolerate any opposition to her.

At a national level, IG manipulated the entire public effortlessly with populist slogans. In reality, it is during her rule that the license-permit raj and the associated corruption became widespread. She also was a master in playing leaders against each other. In state after state, she would get rid of any opposition by constantly playing dirty politics or rigging elections. In Punjab she propped up Bhindranwale to defeat the Akalis. In Kashmir, she was the one who got the elections rigged against the National Conference. I am sure you know about the Emergency period, where she tried to briefly get dictatorial powers.

Her strength in dirty politics and cunningness was also her biggest failing. She overplayed her cards especially in Punjab. She just went too far with it and finally ended up paying the price. I find amazing parallels with Bhutto in this regard. The only reason I would place her as more cunning than Bhutto is because she managed to rule India for a long period of time, make a fool of virtually everyone and still keep the country together. Bhutto ended up breaking Pakistan in order to reach the top spot and then couldnt really enjoy power for too long as he got deposed by Zia.

As far as Gandhi, Jinnah and Nehru are concerned, my view is that they were individually remarkable people but all of them were failures since they could not accomplish their objectives. Gandhi could not keep India together as it transitioned out of the raj. Nehru did not even want to keep it together, since he proposed no solution to the communal issue and foolishly scuttled the Cabinet Mission Plan. Jinnah was too focused on territorial separation rather than fighting for what would have been the best solution, a constitutional guarantee of proportional representation at an all India level in every branch of government, military, police etc with veto power on constitutional amendments. No one can objectively say that muslims really won much in 1947 given that they ruled the entire place earlier and most of them couldnt even go to Pakistan. So Jinnah could not really provide a good solution to the communal issue. Hence I say they all failed. Today after 60 years we are finally trying to fix that problem.

#31 by pakfin

``By the way who are you? Some of the names mentoned in your article are famliar to me. Some of these gentlemen were friends and colleages of my late father.``

I am not exactly young anymore so your father and I may have some common friends. Would you care to post his name for me? Just first name would do.

People that I mentioned were my seniors but they were absolutely wonderful friends. I still talk to at least two of them.

You are right about the Army and Politicians reltionship in Pakistan.

HP a well written piece of Pakistan history.

I believe that Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto did marry Husna in the end so her claim of being his wife is probably true.

You are right about Pyar Ali Allana, he is a gentleman.

Wars are fought by armies and not by politicians. In countries like ours no matter how powerful a poltical leader may be, in the and it is the army that calls the shots. It would be a naive assumption that Bhutto got us into wars in 1965 and 1971.

By the way who are you? Some of the names mentoned in your article are famliar to me. Some of these gentlemen were friends and colleages of my late father.

Aquaris, the minister you are talking about was the labour minister Abdul Sattar Gabol. Though I seriously doubt that he would have called up a college teacher for admitting a commerce student in a medical discipline.

Tahmed,

That appears to be a true story. I have also heard that from some sources.
The conflict between him and some generals was at a standoff and there as no way Bhutto was coming out of the Jail alive. Even a Supreme Court verdict in his favor would not have saved him.

#25 by Zakkk

“I believe Kissinger has repeatedly denied havining issues such a specific threat to Bhutto.”

I think Kissinger was polite in saying that. He was known for his antics in the state dept.

“I don`t think Bhutto played such a major role”

I think the army relied heavily on Bhutto at that time to set up the situation for them. Bhutto was always the army supporter. Even from his death cell he was not willing to say anything against the army. There are reports that he advised his daughter Benazir in pindi jail to never to confront the army. Benazir is still following the advice.

Despite winning the elections in 1970, Bhutto knew he would not get power without the army support and I think he advised Yahya Khan in formulating the exit strategy from East Pakistan. Bhutto was a good thinker, planner and manipulator and I think he might have come up with the idea to suckker India in to the East Pakistan crisis to expedite Pakistan’s exit from there. I hope you understand that the purpose of the military action was to get rid of East Pakistan quickly.

Amit:
It is had to compare but for the heck of it...

How do you compare intelligence? Let me take a shot at it, and you be the judge.
Measuring in terms of education ZAB was far ahead of IG. He was accepted to USC then to Berkley. He was also accepted at Harvard though he did not go there. He also did a stint with Oxford and was called to bar at Lincoln Inn. He taught law at a Karachi Law College. He was barely 24 years old when he became active in politics after finishing his education. IG, on the other hand never went beyond passing grades and I doubt that she got any degree to show for her years in college. ZAB was a well read person and had an enormous collection of books at his library in Karachi and at his Farm house in Larkana. What do we know about IG’s interests in books and other intellectual pursuits?
In terms of political intelligence or I should say acumen, ZAB again had to find a way to make room for himself in Pakistan’s political elite. IG was Nehru’s daughter and really had it made for her.
They both had some common traits though. Both were obstinate, controlling, and autocratic. ZAB was a master manipulator and a brown nose too. I don’t know how good IG was in manipulating others; may be you can provide some input here.

Both IG and ZAB had a chance to outwit each other in Simla and I think that was a stalemate or in a certain way Bhutto came out ahead when he forced a stalemate in the negotiation thus forcing IG to let the POW go without any commitment from Bhutto in return.
Still, I doubt that I can conclusively prove that ZAB was politically more intelligent than IG.

Here is my curveball for you!
I would add Gandhi ji, Jinnah and Nehru in this comparison too. Of the three, Jinnah and Nehru were probably more intelligent. Gandhi appeared to be of average intelligence but he was able to massage Christian teachings into his own political ideology and in the end came out much savvier than both Jinnah and Nehru, who in conventional wisdom prolly were sharp politicians.
One really pertinent example would be the Gandhi, Nehru, and Jinnah reaction to Cabinet Mission. Gandhi did not seem to have any problem with that at all. Jinnah made a serious mistake in accepting it against his politics and party goals. Nehru failed to visualize the impact of his one hasty statement and gave Jinnah an opportunity to revisit his initial decision. In the end, I think cabinet mission report would have been beneficial for all Indians. Gandhi understood it but Nehru and Jinnah wavered on it and caused the mayhem.
In that instance, I would say Gandhi was much more politically intellegent than both Jinnah and Nehru. But then there may be instances when all of them made serious errors of judgment.
What do you think?