A changing of the guard, not
dynasties By Jyoti Malhotra
NEW DELHI - In life, as in death, the
Bhuttos and the Nehru-Gandhis have reigned supreme
across the South Asian imagination, their mystique
underscored by the Greek tragedies they have often
left in their wake.
But as Pakistan marked
the first month since Benazir Bhutto's
assassination on January 27, a variety of national
polls is throwing up similar results: President
Pervez Musharraf, whether or not his rogue
generals had a hand in the assassination, must go.
Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party
(PPP) will likely sweep the polls whenever they
are held - they are scheduled for February 18 -
especially if the PPP gets into some sort of an
electoral alliance with Pakistan's only remaining
mass leader, former prime
minister Nawaz Sharif.
Truth is, in South Asia, you don't speak
ill of the dead. And if you're Benazir Bhutto, who
electrified the popular imagination when she
returned home on October 18 - even if her return
was brokered by the US, a popular subject of
revulsion in Pakistan - the fact that she was
felled by a cowardly assassin has had the effect
of immediately catapulting her into the rarefied
world of martyrs.
In life and in death,
Benazir Bhutto particularly fills that image. She
was the daughter of Zulfiquar Ali Bhutto, the
founder of the PPP, who was hanged to death by the
military dictator Zia ul-Haq in 1979, when she was
only 26 years old.
When she was killed
last month, Pakistan disregarded the international
clamor and disdain about political dynasties
inheriting power, and along with the daughter
mourned her father, for whom they had not been
allowed to grieve, because the erstwhile dictator
had imposed a strict emergency.
For the
same reasons, Pakistan will accept her son,
Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, as his mother's political
inheritor. This, even when the people see through
Benazir's husband, Asif Zardari's political
cunning, of giving Bilawal the middle Bhutto name
even before Benazir's body had become cold in the
family graveyard at Larkana, in southern Pakistan.
Bilawal would do well to finish his
studies at Oxford, something he has promised
himself as well as the people of Pakistan. In
time, he may have to stand up to his father, who
sought to fulfill his own political ambitions both
times his wife was prime minister (he was
popularly known as "Mr Ten Percent") and who may
now feel thwarted if the son does not fall in
line.
Still, the anointment of Bilawal has
an uncanny resemblance to the rise and rise of
Rahul Gandhi in India, the son of former prime
minister Rajiv Gandhi. Rajiv, who took power in
the biggest election landslide after his mother,
Indira Gandhi, was assassinated by her own
bodyguards in 1984, was himself blown to pieces
when a suicide bomber got close enough to him at
an election rally seven years later.
Clearly, Rahul Gandhi's current popularity
and power stems from the fact that his mother, the
all-powerful Sonia Gandhi - who also figures in
the top 10 of Forbes' most powerful women in the
world - runs the Congress-led government in Delhi.
Possibly, young Rahul may never need to
write a job application, at least not in India.
Unless the opposition parties seize power and keep
it long enough in the coming years to destroy the
enduring mystique of the Nehru-Gandhi family,
Rahul Gandhi can be assured that the prime
minister's seat will one day be his.
Cynics point out that the magical mystery
tour of India-Pakistan's first political families,
even as they ruled over some of the poorest people
in the world, sometimes came to resemble the
manner and lifestyle of feudal bloodlines.
India, even as it prides itself on being
the largest democracy in the world, has simply
transferred the loyalty and devotion that royalty
once commanded to elected politicians. In today's
India, across political parties, sons and
daughters are inheriting power by simply asserting
their right to fight an election.
The fact
that they have grown up in political households
clearly gives these young men and women an edge.
Moreover, the electorate, especially in rural
India-Pakistan, is extraordinarily sensitive to
caste and community considerations. Add to the
electoral alphabet soup the magic of a family name
leavened by an Oxbridge education and you have an
unbeatable combination.
Consider the
following: Rahul's grandmother, Indira Gandhi, was
instrumental in breaking up Pakistan when both
nations went to war in 1971, and midwifing the
birth of Bangladesh. (Indira's father, of course,
was Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first prime
minister). At the time, the prime minister of
Pakistan was Zulfiquar Ali Bhutto, Benazir's
father and Bilawal's grandfather.
Benazir
often said that she admired Indira Gandhi.
Some would argue that the similarities
between the Bhuttos-Zardaris and the Nehru-Gandhis
is only superficial. Even if both countries were
one country until 60 years ago, ruled by common
dynasties and empires over the centuries,
democratic India has allowed many more political
families to bloom. In Pakistan, on the other hand,
feudal lords with vast tracts of land have usually
joined hands with the army to prevent free and
fair polls from taking place.
And yet, the
first glimmer of change could be on the horizon.
Fact is, India's political dynasties must have
their charm offensives vindicated by the teeming
millions every five years at the hustings. Unlike
the maharajas of yesteryear, today's political
families are keenly aware of the danger of
becoming yesterday's men and women. A classic case
is of Indira Gandhi's other grandson, Varun
Gandhi, first cousin to Rahul Gandhi.
Unfortunately for Varun, his father, Sanjay Gandhi
(Indira's younger son) died when he was far too
young to be able to manipulate the inherited
political privilege. This desperately ambitious
young Gandhi has no takers.
That's the
point, then. Political families may well behave
like royalty, but they must be cleared by popular
will from time to time to be of use to anyone,
including themselves.
Even in Pakistan,
where the army has effectively run the country
even during elected governments, the fact that the
country's lawyers could launch a political reform
movement with such vigor last year testifies to
the anti-dynasty yearning across the country. But
because the army still runs Pakistan with an iron
hand, the lawyer's movement hasn't yet reached
fruition. Ironically, Benazir's return to Pakistan
on October 18 actually threw the lawyer's reform
movement into the background, as she, an
experienced political hand, became the symbol of
hope to overthrow Musharraf. Meanwhile,
what of the international surprise at the manner
in which all Pakistan closed ranks and hailed
Benazir Bhutto, in life both corrupt and
politically inept, as their heroine in death?
After all, it was during her prime ministership
that the Taliban were spawned, as a strategic move
to take control of Afghanistan.
Truth is,
when Benazir returned home on October 18, Pakistan
hailed her as the new angel of mercy because of
its growing disenchantment with Musharraf.
With Benazir's death, that disillusionment
is complete. It doesn't matter anymore who killed
her. Just like all the other Greek tragedies
littered across South Asia, in death if not in
life, Benazir has unified her country, if only for
a moment, against the soft dictatorship of
Musharraf.
Nor does it matter if Musharraf
travels halfway across the globe to claim Western
support. For when the bells toll on February 18,
the day Pakistan goes to the polls, their chime
will be enough to unseat Musharraf and his party.
Jyoti Malhotra is a political
analyst based in New Delhi.
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2008 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
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