Bhutto: He was not Hanged, by: Ghulam Akbar

203 Pages·2010·1.19 MB·English

He was not hanged

Ghulam Akbar

Reproduced by

Sani Hussain Panhwar

Member Sindh Council PPP

First published in May 1989

He was not hanged Copyright © www.bhutto.org 1
THE NINETY-THIRD SURAH
AD-DUHA
(THE BRIGHT MORNING HOURS)

This surah although in the first instance addressed to the Prophet, has a far wider
purport: it concerns and is meant to console -every faithful man and woman
suffering from the sorrows and bitter hardships which so often afflict the good
and the innocent, and which sometimes cause even the righteous to question
God’s transcendental justice.

IN THE NAME OF GOD,
THE MOST GRACIOUS
THE DISPENSER OF
GRACE.

(1) CONSIDER the bright morning hours,
(2) and the night when it grows still and dark
(3) Thy sustainer has not forsaken thee, nor does He scorn thee:
(4) for, indeed, the life to come will be better for thee than this earlier part of thy
life]!
(5) And, indeed, in time will thy Sustainer grant thee; [what thy heart desires],
and thou shalt be well-pleased.
(6) Has He not found thee an orphan, and given thee shelter?
(7) And found thee lost on thy way, and guided thee?
(8) And found thee in want, and given thee sufficiency?
(9) Therefore, the orphan shalt thou never wrong,
(10) and him that seeks [thy] help shalt you never chide.
(11) and of thy sustainer’s blessings shalt thou ;ever] speak.

AL-Quran

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WHO WAS A DEMAGOGUE
WHO A MURDERER
WHO A MARTYR?

In the late sixties, as Executive Editor of Daily Kohistan, Resident Editor of
Mashriq Karachi and Chief Editor of Weekly Mussawar, I had committed myself
to the cause of Bhutto whose emergence as the messenger of hope, the prophet of
change and the torchbearer of national pride had caused the status quo forces to
unite against the “intransig ence” of the masses.

In the seventies, when the likes of Maulana Kausar Niazi and company were
installed as the trumpeters and the architects of the promised revolution, and a
new breed of opportunity-seekers and soldiers of fortune cropped up, my
youthful idealism took such a rude shock that I was left with nothing but the
ashes of my burnt-out dreams. Disillusionment, frustration and anger caused me
to turn, from a blind Bhutto-follower, into a blind critic of Bhutto. Paradoxically,
I hated all those too who hated Bhutto. My 1977-book titled “The Apostle of
Deceit” was as much my case against the status quo forces, as it was the angry
cry of my anguished soul at the erosion of the hopes and the expectations I had
associated with Bhutto. Reason having deserted my mind, I was ill-prepared to
give a thought to the invisible restraints and constraints under which Bhutto had
been functioning. No matter how confident he was of the backing of the masses,
the status quo forces were far mightier because of their access to and control of
the ‘ultimate’ instruments of power, as I discovered in the dying seventies.

In the early seventies, Bhutto had been advised by Chon En Lai not to take
hurried steps towards the change he wanted to bring, as he did not have the
infrastructure required to build a new socioeconomic order. Bhutto had replied:
“I have to do everything for my country and my people within the time I have,
and I know I don’t have much time.”

He always knew he was on the hit list of those who could not afford his
nationalism. He tried to make himself powerful through political manipulation
and such steps as the seventh amendment but in the end it was proved that he
could not acquire any more independence in pursuing his objectives than his
people could acquire their right to decide about their own destiny.

As the truth started revealing itself in the early years of Zia, I, who had
condemned Bhutto for having betrayed my expectations learnt that he had
always been “a prisoner” and it was when he tried to break out of “the prison”
that the countdown to his ultimate “doom” had begun.

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Zia, till he decided to find a legal excuse for hanging Bhutto, was for me just
another strongman in uniform, one of those many in the third world who had
thrived and continued to thrive on the extensively propagated notion that
stability through the power of the summary-trial-courts and law-and-order
through the threateningly-pointed-bayonets alone could solve the problems of
the people.

But when Zia seriously got down to the business of tailoring Islam to suit the
special requirements of his frame, I instantly knew that the worst in our history
had occurred. Here was a man who was quite capable of rising some fine
morning from his bed with the notion that God in His Supreme Grace had
appeared in his dream and urged him to hang all the evil-doers and infidels in
the country to pave way for the enforcement of Shariah. He was even capable of
claiming that, to make his Divine and sacred assignment easier, the angels of
God had themselves delivered the list of all such evil-doers and infidels to him.

The Zia era has passed into history as did the Ayub era and the Yahya era before
it. The Bhutto era has returned, but with a new Bhutto at the helm of affairs,
distinctively different in style and temperament. The pattern of the battle
however has not changed. Infact the status quo forces, due to their unshared
reign for over a decade, are more well-fed, better-organised and much stronger
than ever before. The conditions offered to them to prove that democracy means
nothing but conflict, chaos, disorder and misery, are ideal for their designs.

The country has been facing the worst economic crisis of its history, to overcome
which, very drastic and potentially unpopular steps are required. Tragically the
consequences of the misdeeds of a decade have to be faced by a democratic
government the authority of which is already being challenged by the supreme
beneficiary of the Zia era who has been hoisted to the pedestal of ‘national’
leadership by those who hate the very sound of the word Bhutto just as they
used to hate the sound of the word Jinnah in the forties.

If we have really seen the last of our ‘martial laws’ the man to be revered by our
future generations will be General Mirza Aslam Baig, and the person to add a
chapter of pride to our national history will be the daughter of the man who was
hanged for murder.

Through this book, I, as a self-appointed representative of an aging generation,
am talking to our future generations who are entitled to know the exact truth
about the man who fathered the constitution of Pakistan.

Was he an apostle of frenzy and deceit as I had led myself to believe in the
seventies?
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Was he an ordinary criminal as Zia had wanted the world to believe when he
hanged him on April the 4th, 1979?

Or was he a messenger of hope, a prophet of change, a crusader against injustice,
a fighter for freedom and a martyr in the cause of democracy?

I am not an authority on the subject. But those who know the truth are never
going to reveal it. Yet the truth has to be found out. We owe it to history. We owe
it to our future generations. We owe it to Pakistan, the interests of which are far
more sacred and precious than the interests of Benazir Bhutto, of the Pakistan
Peoples Party, of Nawaz Sharif, of Qazi Hussain Ahmad and Professor Abdul
Ghafoor, of Maulana Fazalur Rehman and Shah Ahmad Noorani, of Majid
Nizami and Mir Khalilur Rehman, of the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad, of Inter
Services Intelligence, of the four-star, three-star and two-star uniforms, of the
overseas directors of the unending puppet show and of the syndicate that
decides who is a traitor and who, a patriot.

It is good to pray in the Friday prayers for our well-being. But not all, not always,
our prayers are heard. He who runs this universe (and all the universes) does not
change His Laws simply because Qazi Hussain Ahmad and Maulana Fazalur
Rehman lead the prayers. They infact may be praying for different rewards. Even
their mosques are different.

We get only what we deserve. Nothing more. Nothing less. That’s God’s Justice.
It is His Grace that He doesn’t judge us harshly. He knows we are humans, not
angels. It is when we decide to turn into monsters that His Fury is provoked.

Let us not provoke His Fury my dear countrymen!

Let us earn His Benevolence! Let us deserve to pray for His Grace! Alhamra did
not fall because there was suddenly a dearth of praying priests. Undeserving
prayers are never heard, never answered.

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THE AUTHOR

The author was born on 27-7-1939. He was educated in Sindhh. After getting his
degree in English Literature, he joined Daily Kohistan as Magazine Editor in 1961.
He was made the Karachi Bureau Chief of Kohistan in 1962 and in 1963 became
its General Manager and Executive Editor. In 1964 he was elected to the Board of
Directors. In 1966, when the newspaper was taken over by the Pakistan Muslim
League, he joined Daily Mashriq and became the editor of its Karachi edition. In
1968 he launched weekly Mussawar followed by fortnightly Film Times and
Weekly Muslim Ishtraak from Lahore. He quit journalism in 1974 after having
authored a few political novels on the Middle East war. It was his best-selling
book on the late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto which made him a controversial figure.
Since 1974 he has been in advertising. In 1981 he founded Midas (Pvt) Limited
which is now the biggest advertising agency of the Punjab and one of the biggest
of the country.

This book comes after his absence of nearly twelve years from the world of
letters.

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TO

T
he leaders and the people of the United States of America who have always
advocated the cause of democracy and the rights of man but have often
expediently allowed themselves to back dictatorial regimes in the third world
countries which look upto the statue of liberty with hope and reverence.

P
erestroika’s author who says that there will be no second Noah’s Ark to save
the planet Earth if its inhabitants continue to seek glory in war.

T
he people of Pakistan who have survived the agony of living under the
tyranny of autocratic rulers and are now determined to defend their freedom
against external as well as internal aggression.

T
he common man of Pakistan whose awakening in the late sixties caused the
wind of change to blow from Karachi to Khyber.

M
ajid Nizami whose political philosophy is different from mine but whom I
respect for his commitment to democracy.

M
unnoo Bhai and Mahmood Sham with whom I share a common cause.

And

B
enazir Bhutto upon whose shoulders rests the unenviable responsibility of
building Pakistan into an invuinerably strong democracy on the foundations of
divisive polarization, and growing regionalism.

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H
“ appy is the country that has no history, but your country has a history of so many
martial laws, of the assassination of one and the hanging of another prime minister, of a
plane crash that killed a president, of an organization that opposed its very creation before
becoming the sole defender of its ideology.”

S
“ till there can always be a new beginning. It has been proved that slander cannot make
a patriot, a traitor; when water recedes the stone is still there.”

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HE WAS

NOT

HANGED

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