PENSIEVE: Fatima Bhutto’s pain —Farrukh Khan Pitafi

The gift of our establishment at discord and divisiveness is eerie. Zulfikar Bhutto’s family was ripped apart and, one by one, all but one were killed. And see the sad part. For every death, one of the family
members was blamed

Let us face it. I had bought Fatima Bhutto’s recent book with special vengeance. I wanted to ditch as much dirt on her as possible. After we had a bit of respectful interaction through emails, she had one day left a note on my website calling me a sycophant of the current government along with other aspersions on my objectivity. But once I opened the book, I found that I did not have the heart to do as I had planned. This is a daughter’s memoir steeped in tragedy, pain, mystery and myths. Myths that are told when we are growing up and which try their level best to imprison us. While we most often manage to break the shackles, Fatima’s, it seems, are only too onerous to do away with. Songs of Blood and Sword is a sad journey at the heart of which is the protagonist, our author. It was nothing short of a page-turner, a well-written book but with some very troubling, at times disgusting, sidelines. I want to do justice to the book, but when I finished reading it, I felt I had lapsed into a journey of my own — of psychoanalysing this young and brilliant Bhutto.

First of all, make no mistakes. This book will be a bestseller, its gold and leather bound editions will be kept in the official studies of our generals in the GHQ and Fatima eulogised as the next best thing. But since the book deals with controversial and highly disturbing issues, I want to deal with some of the epiphenomenal matters that may confuse us like they have confused and tortured Fatima.

The book revives several dormant issues that have plagued our chequered history. Unceremonious assassinations of political leaders, Kashmir, the fall of East Pakistan, the nuclear issue, dictatorial regimes and family feuds, all have come to life on these 470 pages. The story starts with reflections on the current state of affairs in Karachi, and through countless flashbacks and flash-forwards, takes us to the formative phases of the author’s impressionable mind. The two incidents that stand out for their gory details are the demise of Shahnawaz and the assassination of Murtaza Bhutto, for the simple fact that the narrator was present on or very near the scene of the crime.

Here and there, we find generalisations casually tossed around, which dim the prospects of the book being read as an objective work. Take for instance this sentence: “Our newspapers, which are now so heavily censored that my column, which I wrote for two years, has been halted because the democratic government of Pakistan does not tolerate criticism.” Believe me, if it were true, two of the ‘ace’ journalists would have been the first ones to go because, unlike Fatima’s work, theirs lacks substance. Similarly, the section on the 1965 war does not even once mention Operation Gibraltar or Ayub Khan’s intervention in Zulfi Bhutto’s marital affairs, which partly caused the estrangement between the two leaders. The portion on the PIA plane hijack also sounds one-sided and without much evidence. It would have been really impressive had she identified the other two hijackers apart from Tipu. Another aspersion is on the person of Nisar Khuhro, where he is portrayed distributing sweets at the execution of Zulfikar Bhutto. I traced the claim to the endnotes and found an interview with Abdul Waheed Katpar on June 4, 2008, many months after Khuhro had been slapped in public by an angry Ghinwa Bhutto, Fatima’s adopted and much loved “Mummy”. It was as if the entire interview was an afterthought, and people wanted her to hear what she would like.

But this is no propaganda. When you write on emotional issues, you are bound to make some concessions to your dear ones. Instead of being offended by many of the author’s unusual assertions, you have to understand her sociology. If you are still clueless, then I request you to read the part where Fowzia, the woman Fatima insists on calling her biological mother, tries to meet her at school. You realise what hell as a child she must have been through. We all are products of our upbringing and there are strong indications that she also internalised all the major biases offered to her without much hesitation.

The most important undertone of the work is, however, focused on Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto. This could have been a biography of the author or her father but it is not. Despite painting Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto as a loving aunt who did not mind even when, during a state dinner and discussions with Hafez al Assad, Fatima climbed into the lap of the then prime minister, it is partly sad and partly disgusting to then realise that, in her world, Benazir is blamed for every evil. Why would that be? Perhaps, again, the biases of her parents. While she is not a creature of such prejudices, she does not realise that her elders were indeed victims of an old belief, that it is only the male heir who carries the mission of the father forward. Benazir being more successful must have annoyed her father. The reason why she opposed his return, while misconstrued, could actually be that she wanted him to be safe. Another reason might be, for which I will need to quote from the Harry Potter series: “Dumbledore says people find it far easier to forgive others for being wrong than being right.” Mir Murtaza never understood it, but Benazir’s way was the only way and democracy the only revenge possible. And he was given to certain racial myths, which never had space for his brother-in-law.

The gift of our establishment at discord and divisiveness is eerie. Zulfikar Bhutto’s family was ripped apart and, one by one, all but one were killed. And see the sad part. For every death, one of the family members was blamed. The elder Bhutto brought it on himself, Shahnawaz was killed by his wife, nay perhaps at his own sister’s instigation if Fatima is to be believed, Murtaza again was killed and his sister and brother-in-law blamed. Before the UN report, a sad attempt was made to even implicate Benazir’s husband for her murder through word of mouth and sleazy propaganda. Thanks to the UN report, this propaganda is cancelled out. But while this book will perhaps be used to muddy the image of conceivably the greatest martyr of the Bhutto dynasty, Fatima’s pain will surely be felt for ages. We can only hope that she will move on in her life, rise above prejudices that were forced on her, and find the happiness that she deserves.

The writer is an independent columnist and a talk show host. He can be reached at farrukh.khan@pitafi.com