Daughter of the East: An Autobiography of Benazir Bhutto


Reviewed by S.G. Jilanee
(Dawn books & authors)


Others write their autobiography in the twilight years of their lives, when they have amassed a substantial baggage of events and experiences of life’s highs and lows that they wish to share with their readers. But Benazir Bhutto is different. By her own admission she is fully cognisant of the meaning of her name; ‘beyond compare.’ So, her first major act upon becoming the first ever and the youngest Muslim woman prime minister, and before she had ever cut her teeth as one, was to launch her autobiography under two different titles: Daughter of Destiny and Daughter of the East, almost simultaneously.

Now, after two stints as prime minister, each aborted before completing a full term, she has published an ‘enlarged’ (but not revised) edition of the latter. One chapter, ‘Prime minister and beyond’ has been added. But in spite of the fact that Stanley Wolpert, had decisively unravelled the twist her father had given to the story of her Lothario great grandfather, in his book Zulfi Bhutto of Pakistan, in 1993, she clings to her father’s version as in the earlier edition of her book.

The whole book reads like a resume. The last chapter lists her achievements, her hands-on-experience as prime minister, and her ‘objectives’. Earlier chapters are devoted to her family background, childhood, education, marriage, pregnancies and childbirths, the chilling details of her father’s execution, the torments she and her mother suffered and of her political struggle. Also included are lyrical references to her father’s political career. The tale of sufferings drips with pathos; the account of filial and fraternal affection, with schmaltz. The very opening sentence of the book: “They killed my father in the early morning hours of April 4,” sets the tone as if asking the reader, “If you have tears prepare to shed them now.”

The book, except in parts, reads much like a PR exercise. Information has been sexed up, and spin added with abandon; facts have been distorted or suppressed. Even historical facts have sometimes not been checked for veracity. For example, the statements that, “On March 27, 1971, he (her father) was actually in East Pakistan’s capital city of Dacca for another round of talks with Mujib” and that “the Indian army invaded East Pakistan and struck at West Pakistan as well,” are incorrect. The actual date was March 25. And it was Pakistan that started the war by sending air sorties inside India on December 3, 1971.

The target readership for the book seems to be Americans. The purpose seems to be to muster their support for her return to power in the upcoming elections. All the emphasis is therefore laid on her profile as an avowed anti-mullah, anti-madressah, anti-Taliban and anti-Al Qaeda, as well as her consuming passion for democracy, human rights, women’s rights and what have you. And finally, there is her reassurance: “Educated at Harvard and Oxford, I considered the United States and Britain as my second homes”. That should clinch her conquest of the American hearts and minds.

The book launch was also carefully timed to synchronise with the reported signing of a “$28,500-a-month contract” by the Peoples Party with BKSH and Associates, an affiliate of the reputed PR group Burston-Marsteller in Washington, “to promote the PPP’s views on Pakistan’s current political situation to members of the Bush administration; the US Congress; think tanks …and members of the media in Washington, New York, the UK, and Brussels …”

But excessive spin triggers the law of diminishing returns. So even foreigners, who would normally ask few questions, have picked holes. One such, Donald S. Zagoria observes, “As a historical account, however, the book is marred by Ms Bhutto’s white-washed presentation and selective account of her father’s political career.” (Foreign Affairs: Summer, 1989)

The edition under review is full of other such holes. Bhutto insinuates that elections are fair only if she wins (1988, 1993); if she loses they are rigged (1991, 1986). There is no mention of the fact that her interior minister, Naseerullah Babar, was directly involved in training the Taliban. And she disdainfully sweeps aside all allegations of corruption against her and her husband (including even the Rockwood Manor and the diamond necklace), as false.

At one point she says; “I was lecturing abroad in April 1999. Orders were issued for my arrest.” But the fact is well known that she was under trial. She left Pakistan with the court’s permission.

Also her statement, “I suspect that Murtaza’s murder was a conspiracy to destabilise my government,” fails to impress. She was prime minister. Her interior minister was directly controlling the police operation that led to her brother’s assassination. She had the vast state apparatus at her command to unearth the conspiracy and bring her brother’s assassins and conspirators to book which, inexplicable, she did not do.

Ms Bhutto’s claim, that “most terrorist attacks took place when the terrorists did not have to deal with a democratic Pakistani government,” is too farfetched. But she makes it utterly ridiculous by citing, as examples, not only the “Bombay blasts and the Indian parliament attacks,” but even “both the 1993 and 2001 attacks on the WTC, the attacks on the US embassy in Africa and the USS Cole in Yemen” (in which no Pakistani was involved).

From what she has said, a beatific picture emerges of a woman,who outsmarts many men in sheer stamina (she went to work on the morning after giving birth), cleverness (she underwent a Caesarean section to pre-empt the strike called by her political opponents), survives numerous attempts on her life, faces the bitter hostility of army generals and Muslim fundamentalists, and yet remains unfazed in the single-minded pursuit of her avowed ambition to become prime minister of Pakistan in order to bring democracy and modernity to this ‘wretched’ country. Side by side with all this she performs the role of a doting mother, a loving wife and an affectionate daughter and sister.

But what is left unsaid is no less eloquent. It presents the grisly image of a cold-blooded schemer, who would ruthlessly eliminate every obstacle in the way of her ambition. Thus, she totally disowns his brother Murtaza’s widow, Ghinwa, his orphan son, Zulfikar, who is now the only male descendant of her father, as well as the orphan daughter of Shahnawaz, when she says, “What was left of my father’s family was now our mother Nusrat, my sister Sanam and I.” She also mentions her mother’s pathetic state, but has forcibly separated the old lady from the orphaned children of her two sons.

Add to that her deep ethnic bias as revealed in her admission that she refused Pervez Musharraf’s promotion “because of his suspected … links to the … MQM.” But this is a half-truth. The fact is that Musharraf is a Muhajir. Daughter of the East clearly needs to be read with a liberal pinch of salt.




Regards,

angelfalls!!