The Lamp Blown Out at Liaquat Bagh

December 27–28, 2007

In the warmly lit evening hours of December 27, Benazir was addressing a rally in Rawalpindi with the intention of restoring civilian rule in the badlands of jihad. Liaquat Bagh had many PPP supporters egging on the Daughter of Democracy.

The witnesses say she made a fine speech. But if you harbour any instincts to lead such a radicalized society as that of Pakistan, you are always at risk of being put off the stage. Suddenly. Tragically. 

And exactly this happened with the brave lady of politics from the badlands, who had defied the challenge thrown at her during her reception rally.

The suicide attack, as has so often been proven, showed how a missed chance doled out by destiny can prove to be a maker and breaker in our lives. After addressing the rally, she would have sped away to safety had the urge to greet her excited supporters again not drawn her into committing the fatal error of popping her head out of the sunroof at the top of her Land Cruiser.

The assassin seized the opportunity and fired a volley at her. She collapsed before people could realize what had happened. He followed the ghastly deed with the macabre act of suicide bombing, scattering burnt flesh, torn limbs, clothing and debris on the road.

On the scene, many others were sacrificed at the bloody altar.

On October 18, she had returned home. She now joins the fabled list of assassinated leaders from the subcontinent. Her illustrious father, the famed Bhutto, had been hanged in 1979. She became one of the youngest Prime Ministers at the age of 35. She saw bloody turmoil through her almost two-decades-long political career.

Now the lamp is blown out at the age of 54.

Whom to blame?

Perhaps nobody, perhaps everybody.

The senseless policies of sixty long years drew one more round of blood. Let us pray to the gods of all religions that the bloodbathing comes to an end.

The precincts of Liaquat Bagh witnessed her last speech. People say she spoke well, fearlessly. As her convoy came out of Liaquat Bagh onto the road, shocked, dazed moments hung mournfully over the charred bodies.

Rioting occurred across cities in the wake of the assassination.

It was the same park where the first Prime Minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, was shot dead in 1951.

Hardcore supporters of the PPP, known as Jiyalas, wept inconsolably.

The Daughter of the East is now no more.

People saw Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in her. Many in the contemporary world thought her to represent the feeble face of democracy in the badlands of sectarian violence, jihadist onslaughts, AK-47s, bombs and terrorism.

Now the onus naturally seems to descend with its dark, ominous shadow over the teenage shoulders of her eldest child, Bilawal Bhutto, who looks like Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.

Bombs and bullets, military, ISI, Al-Qaeda, Taliban, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Lashkar-e-Taiba, fire spreading Maulvis, barbarically excited clan leaders—Pakistan definitely presents a picture of utter chaos. Its manifestations are heard in distant Europe and America.

Jidahis are now found in society, in households, on sidewalks, in tea shops, in the ISI, in various arms of government, even in the Pakistan Air Force, where elements were implicated in attempts targeting Musharraf's convoy in 2003. The General survived though.

The firestorm launched by Islamist extremism—the pampered kid of the Pakistani government right from the state's formation—is rattling common lives. The fabric of society has been torn. Murders take place with impunity.

She returned to Pakistan in 1986, caught the fancy of the masses and became Prime Minister in 1988. Now, returning after eight years in exile, she was on the same path. But tragically, this time, the hope was snuffed out brutally.

The party founded by her father, the largest opposition party, was pitted against the mightiest institution in the country. A graduate of Harvard and Oxford—how could the illiterate Jidahis trust her? They had reasons to hate and be afraid of her.

Her stints at prime ministership—1988 to 1990, followed by 1993 to 1996. Her two brothers, too, had been killed earlier.

On Friday, December 28, she was buried in the white-tombed mausoleum at Garhi Khuda Bakhsh. An Islamic cleric led the mourners in prayers as she was given a place alongside her father and her brothers, Murtaza and Shahnawaz.

People thronged the dusty fields surrounding the mausoleum.

Sindh is definitely weeping.

Its famous daughter of Larkana is no more.

Now the Pakistani government says that she was not hit in the head; rather, she died due to her head hitting the sunroof of her vehicle. It only adds to the ambiguity and confusion surrounding the mystery of her death.

Outside, people just don't believe the official version. After all, the state of Pakistan naturally kills any urge to accept the sound bytes coming from the land of jihad.

The people waging daily struggles for life here in India, to whom neither time nor circumstances allow the sight of the full picture—unbiased and critically analyzed—regarding Pakistan, consequently see Pakistan and its army-political-jihadi axis as a behemoth: a vague, opaque, thick, single-faced entity. They tout that the murder has been arranged by Musharraf.

The common person finds the General, now in civilian clothes, a charming, wily fox who can dazzle anyone in any way. More than hate, they appreciate him, even if it means paying such compliments laced with crude jokes full of expletives and comically uttered foul words.

She was perhaps the best political face, and thus, in their eyes, the best prospect for the return of order and normalcy in Pakistan amid the chaos.

And certainly, the whole world bears this loss in one form or another.

Democracy has been kicked again in Pakistan.