Fatima Bhutto, niece of Benazir Bhutto, is in India to promote her book Songs of Blood and Sword. She appeared in an interview with Barkha Dutt. The interview is 45 mins. long but worth every bit. Here is the link. I know it has Barkha I’m-trying-my-best-to-be-a-cross-between-Oprah-and-Simi-Garewal Dutt, but it is still worth your time.
Fatima’s father, Murtaza Bhutto, was killed in 1996 in a conspiracy allegedly involving her aunt, Benazir Bhutto. Her relationship with Benazir since, leading to Benazir’s own assassination and the strange circle that it completed forms a large part of the interview. And the book, I presume.
What struck me most was the ease with which she talks about the duality of Benazir Bhutto — as a politician and as an aunt. It would have been fine if she had shown her angst at the treatment meted out to her father and his family. But she comes across as remarkably composed and intelligent.
And then there is this quote of Fatima Bhutto (she was asked about why she refused to enter active politics) :
I don’t believe in birth-right politics. I don’t think, nor have I ever thought, that my name qualifies me for anything.
I’m political, my writing is political, I’m active in political causes. I’ve always been interested in politics — but this very idea of eastern politics of dynasty, I don’t think breeds affection. I think it is an entitled, dangerous system. It doesn’t enhance engagement in politics. It doesn’t help participatory democracy.
She deserves much respect for this quote. Given how the Zardari kids are shaping up with Bilawal Sunny-Deol Zardari and Asifa Imma-speak-Urdu-with-a-phoren-accent Zardari, Fatima might be the only good thing to come out of that whole family.
Oh, and she is really charming.
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April 6, 2010 at 10:20 pm
The first step to peace. « News You Can't Use !
[...] Good timing, I must say. [...]
April 7, 2010 at 1:58 am
maverickshree
Yeah..the one good thing about her is her charm
April 7, 2010 at 7:24 am
roshni
Apparently there were rumours shes dating george clooney. haha dont ask me for references now ^.^ ….but yea… besides that, I generally tend to like her… mostly. -n0d-
April 7, 2010 at 10:36 am
Deepak Iyer
@Shree : You mean there isn’t any other ??
@Roshni : You are hereby banned temporarily from this blog for providing that piece of information.
April 8, 2010 at 6:05 am
roshni
George Clooney hater -gasp-
April 8, 2010 at 7:02 am
Deepak Iyer
@Roshni : I am indifferent to George Clooney. It is the Fatima bit that bothers me [:)]
April 10, 2010 at 8:24 am
araina
fatima is charm personified and creates a sense of awe for every person residing in the indian subcontinent for paradoxically she detests her aunt Benazir’s outlook but on the other hand she is every bit like her aunt. With all the vices an epitome of feminine power and liberalism.
April 10, 2010 at 5:01 pm
Deepak Iyer
@Araina : Can you kindly elaborate ?
April 20, 2010 at 7:38 am
Roshmi (Musings of an Unknown Indian)
Hi! Came here through Blogged.
I read your post with interest and here is my take…
Fatima and her step-mother claim or rather shout from the rooftop… that Benazir ‘stole’ Zulfiqar’s legacy from Murtaza.
‘Legacy’ is not a shirt or sweater or coat or shalwar or a raincoat. That whoever wears it will ‘inherit the legacy’. Wonder how anyone can ‘steal’ a legacy as well…
Plus it is Benazir who is the architect of the ‘Bhutto legacy’ as well as the ‘Bhutto brand’. There is no dynasty whatsoever. In Fatima’s icy view, it is herself and her brother and her cousin, and not the children of Benazir, who are “the only Bhuttos remaining”.
The PPP (Pak peoples party) which is headed by Bilawal/Asif Zardari is essentially a matrilineal line. The significance of her children taking on her name and her widower stating that he too wishes to be buried beside her are immense too… in the Islamic context and not just vis-a-vis Pak and/or south asia. She belonged to the elite and was a Rajput muslim woman (and a descendent of Salahuddin Ayyubi… from her mother’s side) who in a deeply tribal, clanish, feudal, class and caste conscious Islamic society married a man outside her caste. One who belonged to a ‘lesser tribe’, is a so-called ‘lower-caste’/'low-born’ and was her ‘social inferior’.
‘Zardari’ means ‘people with wealth’ but they were originally ‘camel herders’.
She retained her own name (father’s name) post marriage… and chose to be buried in her own family graveyard (that of her parents and forefathers) and not that of her husband’s. All these actions have far more significance… from the Islamic context… but is usually glossed over.
Fatima’s work is emotional, partial, naive and wholly unreliable about who really did what to whom. The credibility of the book really is suspect in my view.
Murtaza Bhutto was shot dead by police outside his home in Karachi in September 1996 and Fatima has for long pointed a finger of blame at her aunt Benazir and her husband Asif Ali Zardari, the current President of Pakistan, for his killing. At the time of his death, Murtaza was estranged from Benazir. Within weeks of Murtaza’s murder, Benazir’s government was sacked. Zardari was thrown behind bars for the murder. A welter of corruption charges was piled on. And after a fresh election, her PPP was reduced to just over a dozen seats. Her opponent secured an unprecedented two-thirds majority. In 1999, she fled into exile, never to taste political power again. If there was a beneficiary of Murtaza’s murder, events demonstrate that it wasn’t Benazir.
Notably, there is no mention in the book of the former Scotland Yard team that investigated Murtaza’s murder. Enlisted by Benazir’s government, the team found there was at least another shooter on the other side of the road to the police. Before being paid off and kicked out of the country by the new interim government, it drew comparisons with the “grass knoll syndrome” of the John F Kennedy assassination.
April 20, 2010 at 7:42 am
Roshmi (Musings of an Unknown Indian)
Citing a tribunal report, Fatima concludes that Murtaza’s murder could not have taken place without approval from “the highest” authority. But that, as observers of Pakistan’s anemic and abbreviated periods of civilian democracy know, has never meant the prime minister’s office.
In the same vein, Benazir’s return to Pakistan in 1986 is said to have succeeded a term in “self-imposed exile,” something that will surprise those familiar with her solitary confinement in Sukkur jail. By contrast, Fatima is sympathetic to others’ decision to flee, leave alone her father’s understandable absence from Pakistan.
In keeping with Sindh’s and Pakistan’s patriarchal traditions, the ‘progressive’ Fatima never recognized her aunt’s claim to be a Bhutto. Instead, she was denounced as “Mrs. Zardari.”
There is a lot of vengefulness in the book, but very little by way of a larger vision. The sense of her story is that a Bhutto deserved to be in charge of the PPP, only that it was the wrong Bhutto, and that her father was cheated of his due. Much of her contempt for Zardari appears to derive from the fact that he was a ‘low-born’, unlike the Bhuttos. She recounts, entirely unselfconsciously, the story that her grandfather Zulfiqar had disliked Zardari’s father Hakim Ali Zardari even though Hakim was a PPP man, and that “he humiliated him and even had him thrashed on occasion”, as if this reveals something about Hakim’s inferiority and not about Zulfiqar’s feudal arrogance.
April 20, 2010 at 7:58 am
Roshmi (Musings of an Unknown Indian)
Now… all those who were accusing Benazir of perpetuating ‘dynastic rule’ through herself and her son… are pitching for her niece. Amazing, isn’t it… ???
Her widower now is also the President… the highest job in that country. He comes from a caste that is dubbed as “not having the right to rule”.
No wonder he has, is and will be ridiculed. Much of the derision of Zardari comes from the fact… he derives his power from a larger than life woman and not any macho landlord, general, hereditary saint (Pir), etc.
April 20, 2010 at 10:56 am
Deepak Iyer
@Roshmi : That was one lengthy comment.
I haven’t read the book, so I can’t really say much, but I am now eager to read the book.
Whichever way the book goes, I don’t think that affects any section of this post [:)]
October 21, 2010 at 4:35 am
hela
Having nearly finished the book, you are totally correct, Roshmi. Brilliant comment.
In Islam – thought not for some reason, adopted by the Indian subcontinent – a woman who marries keeps her father’s name, and does not take her husband’s. Why Fatima derides her aunt’s decision therefore is beyond my comprehension.
Similarly, she criticises Benazir’s wearing a white duppta over her head – saying that she was not religious and this action was to keep the religious elements onside. This may have been true but there are two elements – firstly, Benzair is renowned for not covering her hair properly – hence at best it was a v cultural act. And anyway, even if it is true that she wore it for votes (which is entirely possible), erm…so what? It’s the sad state of modern day politics that politicians pull off such stunts for a few more votes (American President candidates for instance, always parade their wives). But when Benazir does such things, according the the laws of Fatima Bhutto, it is a crime….
“She recounts, entirely unselfconsciously, the story that her grandfather Zulfiqar had disliked Zardari’s father Hakim Ali Zardari even though Hakim was a PPP man, and that “he humiliated him and even had him thrashed on occasion”, as if this reveals something about Hakim’s inferiority and not about Zulfiqar’s feudal arrogance.”
Yes! It was bizarre to include this! It was even more bizarre to make out that Zardari was some sort of pariah and idiot based solely on the fact that his father was not liked – that children are identical to their father’s?
As for Fatima’s quote…
“I don’t believe in birth-right politics. I don’t think, nor have I ever thought, that my name qualifies me for anything.”
Yet she utilises her name to full affect, from being the media darling of the Western press (I guarantee you, this is only due to the ‘Bhutto’ name), to selling a book filled with ‘opinions’ favourable to her world view (or her view on Benazir – who is blamed for all the problems in the world(!)), void of true research into facts, and presented to the world as an accurate portrayal of some members of her family, while denouncing those who procreated with ‘the lesser castes’. And yes, her book will sell well, despite this. Why? Because her name counts for something…
(P.s. despite my criticisms, I do think Fatima Bhutto writes well, and in some places (most notably near the beginning of the book), quite beautifully)
October 21, 2010 at 7:21 am
Deepak Iyer
Thanks for the comment, Hela.
I can’t comment on the contents of the book, having not read it, but I’m not sure I agree with the final part you wrote.
I respect her for saying her name ‘doesn’t qualify her for any post’. Qualify being the key word. I don’t mind if she uses it to sell books or earn a name for herself, since her comment was solely about politics.
The reason for my respect is that in the sub-continent, it is easy to hold a view that politics is your birth-right. I see countless examples, most recently being Bal Thackeray’s grandson who joined their party with much fanfare.