Table Of ContentZulfi
Bhutto
of
Pakistan
His Life and Time
STANLEY WOLPERT
ZulfiBhuttoofPakistan Copyright©www.bhutto.org 2
CONTENTS
Chapter 1 SindhiRoots(pre-1928) 7
Chapter 2 FromLarkanato Bombay (1928-1947) 27
Chapter 3 BriefCaliforniaInterlude (1947-1950) 37
Chapter 4 FromOxfordto Karachi(1950-1957) 50
Chapter 5 Apprenticeshipto Power (1958-1963) 75
Chapter 6 ForeignMinister to theFieldMarshal(1963-1965) 96
Chapter 7 WintersofHisDiscontent (1965-1969) 130
Chapter 8 Free ElectionsandtheBirthofBangladesh(1970-1971) 172
Chapter 9 President Bhutto “PicksUpthe Pieces”
(December 1971-July 1972) 210
Chapter 10 ProvincialProblemsProliferate (mid-1972-early 1973) 253
Chapter 11 ForeignTriumphs,DomesticTragedies(April1973-1974) 274
Chapter 12 Prime Minister Bhuttoat the Peak ofHisPower (1974) 294
Chapter 13 From“LeaderofPakistan’sPeople to
“Leader ofthe ThirdWorld”?(1975) 314
Chapter 14 Preludeto NewNationalElections(1976) 332
Chapter 15 NewElectionsandTheir TragicAftermath(early 1977) 353
Chapter 16 Zulfi’sFall—FromMartialCoupto Martyrdom
(5July 1977-4April1979) 384
ZulfiBhuttoofPakistan Copyright©www.bhutto.org 3
Preface
Since 1980, when I visited Pakistan to do research on my Jinnah of Pakistan, I
have been fascinated by the mercurial and seemingly self-conflicting life of Zulfikar Ali
Bhutto. Most Pakistanis I met either loved or hated Zulfi Bhutto, the People’s Party
prime minister, who was arrested by his own commander-in-chief General Zia ul-Haq,
and hanged after two years in prison. Millions of Pakistanis still hail Zulfi Bhutto as
their Quaid-i-Awam (“Leader of the People”), even as they do Mohammad Ali Jinnah
asPakistan’sQuaid-i-Azam(“Great Leader”).
For most of its brief history since its birth in mid-August 1947, Pakistan was
ruled by unpopular generals who seized and held power using martial force. Bhutto
seemed different, the almost uniquely popular founder-leader of Pakistan’s People’s
Party, who had just swept the polls throughout Punjab and Sindh only months before
his arrest. How then could he be hanged without inciting mass riots throughout
Pakistan,ifnot arevolution,I wondered?
This book is the product of a decade-and-a-half of my reflection onthat question,
the last five years of which have been devoted to research into the life of Zulfi Bhutto as
amicrocosmicmirror ofPakistanisociety anditstroubledhistory inhistimes.
I am indebted to many people for kind assistance in completing this book. First
of all, it was thanks to Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and her mother, Begum Sahiba
Nusrat Bhutto, that I was given full and free access to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s Library at
his 70, Clifton home in Karachi. Prime Minister Benazir, now Leader of the Opposition
in Pakistan’s National Assembly, graciously granted me free access to all of her father’s
books and papers preserved in that Bhutto Family Library and Archive, providing that
her mother, who uses 70, Clifton as her Karachi residence, had no objection. Begum
Sahiba Nusrat kindly welcomed me to carry out my research in that Library whenever I
came to Karachi over the next three years. Prime Minister Benazir and Begum Sahiba
also tooktime fromtheir busy schedulesto permit me to interviewthemat length.
I interviewed more than 100 of Zulfi Bhutto’s colleagues and family, and am
grateful to all of them for their patient cooperation and frankness in answering my
questions. Most helpful were Zulfi’s closest collateral relative, Mr. Mumtaz Ali Bhutto,
and his only living sibling, Begum Manna (Bhutto) Islam, both of who shared their
intimate recollectionswithme.
ZulfiBhuttoofPakistan Copyright©www.bhutto.org 4
Foreign Minister Sahabzada Yaqub Khan was most encouraging when I
informed himofmy intentionto embark uponthisstudy,andAmbassador JamsheedK.
Marker was singularly instrumental in launching my research. I am deeply grateful to
both of those gentlemen-diplomats for their more than “diplomatic” kindness and
consideration. Special thanks to Mrs. Marker for her gracious hospitality and help. I
thank Ambassador Abida Hussain and Minister Fakhar Imam for their illuminating
insights. Thanks to Ambassador John Kenneth Galbraith, Ambassador Henry Byroad,
Ambassador Robert Oakley, and Ambassador William Clark, for sharing so many
recollections and so much South Asian wisdom with me. I am also most indebted to
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Teresita Schaffer and Deputy Assistant Secretary of
State Nancy Ely-Raphelfor their frank responsesto my many questions.
Thanks to Fellowship support from our excellent American Institute of Pakistan
Studies (AIPS), I was able to start my research in Pakistan early in 1989.I am grateful to
all members of the AIPS Board for their scholarly confidence, but must specially thank
my good friends, Professor Hafeez Malik and Professor Ralph Braibanti, without whom
AIPS would never have been born. Hafeez helped convince Prime Minister Bhutto of
the importance of starting this premier Institute for U.S.-Pakistan scholarly exchange in
1973, and Ralph presided over the first Board meeting in Washington that year. Thanks
to Dr. Peter Dodd and Dr. William Lenderking for their warm hospitality in Pakistan,
and to Mr. Ali Imran Afaqi for his kind and efficient help, and to Consuls Kent Obee
andHelenaFinn,and Consul-GeneralJoe Melrose.
UCLA’s Gustave E. Von Grunebaum Center for Near Eastern Studies also
supported my research, and I thank my good colleagues, Director/Professor Georges
Sabagh and Professor Richard Hovannisian, for their kind assistance. I also thank Dean
John N. Hawkins, who heads our Institute for International Studies and Overseas
Programs at UCLA, for his unfailing help and encouragement, and my old friend and
colleague, Vice-Chancellor RichardSisson,for hiswarmsupport.
Piloo Mody first “introduced” me to Zulfi Bhutto with his memoir, Zulfi, My
Friend (1973). Piloo hoped someday to “complete” that inchoate biography of Zulfi, but
he too died young. I remain, however, singularly indebted to Piloo for his insightful
work, and to his wife Vina, who generously granted me full access to her and Piloo’s
fine collection of Bhutto photographs. Thanks to dear Joyce Hundal for introducing me
to Piloo and Vina. I also thank Mr. J. J. Mugaseth, Zulfi’s oldest school-buddy, for so
kindly assisting me, and also sharing his early photos of Zulfi. Thanks to Omar Qureshi
and Al Cechvala for their time and hospitality and to Husna Sheikh for kindly agreeing
to allow me to interview her and to Begum Mehru Rahim Khan for her gracious
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assistance. Special thanks to General Gul Hasan and to Minister Roedad Khan for their
interviews.
Many friends in Pakistan opened their homes as well as their hearts and minds
to me, too many to list all of them, but I must particularly thank Brigadier Noor
Hussain and his good Begum Hushmat; Rizvan Kehar and his good wife; Suhail and
Yasmeen Lari; Dr. Haye Saeed and his daughter Salima; Yahya Bakhtiar and his
daughter Zeba; Begum Shaista Suhrawardy Ikramullah; Khalid Shamsul Hasan and his
family;andArdeshir andNancy Cowasjee.
Khalid-Sahib knows I can never adequately thank him, and Ardeshir, like
Khalid, is a true gentleman-scholar and a friend, with whom I join in mourning the
deathofhiswife and father.
My warmest thanks to my splendid editor Nancy Lane, who had now been
midwife for many ofmy books.I thank JaneBitar fortyping the finalmanuscript.
To my darling wife, Dorothy, I can but inadequately express my growing admiration
anddevotionthat hashadonly 40briefyearsinwhichto blossom, withmuchlove.
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1
Sindhi Roots
(pre-1928)
No individual in the history of Pakistan achieved greater popular power or
suffered so ignominious a death as Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (1928-79). Zulfi Bhutto’s political
rise and fall were, indeed, so meteoric as to make his name a legend in the land over
which he presided for little more than half a decade prior to his hanging. A full decade
after his death, Bhutto remained popular enough to ensure the election of his daughter,
Benazir, to the premier position he once held. Wherever she campaigned in Sindh and
much of Punjab, the popular roar that greeted her was “Jiye Bhutto!”—”Bhutto Lives!”
by which millionsofPakistanismeant andstillmean,ZulfiBhutto.
Zulfi Bhutto roused such diametrically opposed passions and has left such
divergent images among his disciples and adversaries that it remains virtually
impossible to reconcile them as reflections of any single personality. Much like the
nation he led, and in many ways came to epitomize, born irreconcilably divided,
partitioned into East and West, torn from the subcontinental fabric of Mother India by
the Islamic faith of his fathers, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, microcosmic reflection of Pakistan,
was never a simple personality. His unique charisma and the deep-rooted failings that
brought him to an early and violent death emanated from his schizoid personality, the
strengths of one part of which were matched by weaknesses of the other, the depths of
its dreadful darkness mirroring the brilliant heights of its most powerful peaks. Torn
apart by his inner conflicts, never able to reconcile his romantic dreams of glory with
the mundane realities and misery so prevalent all around him, Zulfi hoped to the bitter
end of his brief but flamboyant sojourn at the top of Pakistan’s slippery pole to save
himself and his land from a destiny of diminution, death, and fragmentation,
vaingloriously viewing himselfasanIslamic Napoleon,the “Shah-in-Shah”of Pakistan.
“For over a year and a half I have been kept in solitary confinement,” Zulfi wrote from
his acrid death cell in Rawalpindi’s now-demolished prison, that bitterly cold January
of 1979. “My family has owned not thousands of acres of land but hundreds of
thousands, for generations…..My genesis to political fame is written in the stars….If I
am not a part of Pakistan……Sindh is not a part of Pakistan ... my roots in the soil of
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this land are very deep.”1 So it is in the subsoil of Sindh we must search for Zulfi’s
roots, in the shifting treacherous sands of that ancient southernmost province of
Pakistan.
Sindh means “river,” named for its Indus lifeline. The Bhuttos migrated to Sindh
in search of water, leaving their parched Rajputana desert homes farther east, in what is
now India’s Rajasthan, near the dawn of the eighteenth century. Zulfi’s paternal
ancestors had before his clan’s long trek been Hindu Rajputs, but during the
seventeenth century Central Asia’s great Mughals conquered virtually all of India, and
many Rajput warriors, like Zulfi’s progenitor, Sheto,2 converted to Islam, reaping a
harvest of tax exemptions and other benefits from the devout Mughal Padishah
(Emperor) Aurangzeb (r. 1658-1707) and his Muslim amirs, and claiming for himself, as
clan leader, the regal title of khan. Thus, as far back as history traces them, Bhuttos have
been adroit at seizing whatever opportunities life offered, equally ready to move on or
to change their faith if they deemed it expedient for survival’s sake, determined to
overcome drought, famine, or the fiercest of adversaries in struggling to advance
themselves and the fortunes of their clever family. Sheto Khan found the fertile land he
sought in Sindh’s Ratodero, just a few miles north of Larkana, and the rural town in
which Zulfi would be born two centuries later. In the fecund watershed of the Indus
River, the silt around Ratodero and Larkana proved rich enough to raise as much rice
and sugar cane as all the Bhuttos could eat, and cotton enough to clothe that fast-
growing clan as well. Though unknown to Sheto Khan, less than ten miles south of
Larkana was the still-undiscovered site of one of the world’s greatest ancient cities,
Mohen-jo-Daro.3
The untilled growthand woods aroundRatodero andLarkanawere full of game,
especially wild boar, which Bhutto men always enjoyed hunting. Hunting would, in
fact, become Zulfi’s favorite sport, and though he was considered only a fair shot, for
almost two decades, whenever he was in Sindh, he annually hosted a regal hunt at
Larkana to celebrate his birthday. Zulfi probably had the best and largest private
collection of hunting rifles and ammunition in Pakistan, and his guests would include
the sheikh of Abu Dhabi and the shah of Iran, as well as Pakistan’s presidents Ayub
KhanandYahyaKhan.
1 Z.A.Bhutto'sPrisonCellHolograph(hereaftercitedasBhuttoPCH)inBhuttoFamilyLibraryandArchives
(hereaftercitedasBFLA),70,Clifton,Karachi.
2 ForearlyBhuttofamilyhistoryIhaveprimarilyrelieduponSirShahNawazBhutto'sunpublishedmemoir
(hereaftercitedasSirShahNawaz'sMemoir),whichbegins,“ThisisnotanAutobiography....”Itisheldinthe
BFLA.
3ForbackgroundinformationaboutMohenjoDaroandtheearlyIndusValleycivilization,seeStanleyWolpert,A
NewHistoryofIndia,4thed.(NewYork:OxfordUniversityPress,1993),chap.2,andappendedbibliography.
ZulfiBhuttoofPakistan Copyright©www.bhutto.org 8
Mughal governors ruled Sindh from its bustling port city of Thatta (some fifty miles
east of Karachi), which had attracted English merchants early in the seventeenth
century by reports that it was “as big as London” (with then close to a quarter million
population) and that “its port filled with ships laden with every kind of merchandise,
which arrive by passing down the navigable Indo river, on whose bank it stands ... a
most wealthy and most vicious spot.”4 The breakdown of Mughal power soon after the
death of Aurangzeb in the early eighteenth century left Thatta and Sindh in the hands
of the martial Kalhoras, under whose rule British East India merchants established their
first factory in 1758. Sheto’s great-grandson, Pir Bakhsh Khan Bhutto, fought and
defeated the Arbos, a tribe related to the Kalhoras by marriage, in “many battles in
Larkana,” where he established Bhutto power. Before the end of that century of violent
conflicts and rapid change, however, the Kalhoras themselves were defeated by fiercer
Baluchi invaders, the amirs of Talpur, who took control of Sindh, moving their capital
almost a hundred miles north along the Indus to Hyderabad. Wadero Pir Bakhsh Khan
swore allegiance to the new Talpur rulers of Sindh, and was confirmed in return over
his vast tracts of Bhutto land around Larkana, Sukkur, and Khairpur. In 1821, however,
Wadero Pir Bakhsh was “invited” by His Highness Mir Ali Murad Talpur to send his
eldest son, Allah Bakhsh Khan Bhutto, to Khairpur, where he was kept “as an
honourable hostage” at the Talpur court for five years, “to ensure that my family did
not revolt.”5
The British had been forced to abandon their first factory in Thatta less than two
decadesafter opening it,andtriedwithout initialsuccess to negotiate anew commercial
treaty with the Talpurs. East India Company servants continued, nevertheless, to seek
fresh footholds in the region that had once proved profitable, and soon after 1830
British ships sailed up the Indus to Hyderabad, eliciting the prescient prophecy from
observant Sindhis that “our land is lost now that the British have navigated our river.”
With the more powerful and ever-threatening Punjab kingdom of Sikh Maharaja Ranjit
Singh to its north, Sindh’s amirs first hoped to ally themselves withthe British company
in order to keep the one-eyed “Lion of Punjab”6 at bay. In April 1838, Colonel Henry
Pottinger concluded a treaty with the Talpur amirs, which permitted a British minister
and his “escort” of troops to reside in Hyderabad. Two months later the British
concluded their infamousTripartite TreatywithRanjit Singhandthe exiledformer amir
of Afghanistan, Shah Shuja, who had lived as a pensioner of the British in Ludhiana,
4 ThequotationisfromFraySebastianManrique,aPortuguesewhovisitedSindin1640-41,andisnotedin
YasmeenLari,TraditionalArchitectureofThatta(Karachi:HeritageFoundation,1989),p.8.
5 SirShahNawaz'sMemoir.
6 KhushwantSingh,RanjitSingh,LionofPunjab(London,1962).
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and was to serve as the company’s puppet-prince on the throne of Kabul after he was
returned to it by a mighty British army that invaded Afghanistan in 1839. That doomed
army of the Indus would, moreover, invade through Sindh, and Sindh’s amirs were
expected to pay all military bills as part of the “debt” Shah Shuja claimed from them,
which the British company was pleased to support, despite repeated Talpur
disclaimers. Sindhwas thususedas the launching padfor the tragicFirst Anglo-Afghan
War.7
Sir Charles Napier led the brutal conquest of Sindh in September of 1842. Three
Talpur amirs had divided their kingdom, the major portion ruled from Hyderabad, the
others farther north from Khairpur and Miani. Those armies joined forces in a last
desperate stand against the British invasion at Miani, the Talpurs’ Waterloo, in March
1843, when ten thousand Sindhis were slaughtered. Napier established his court in
Karachi, then just a tiny port on the Arabian Sea, where he remained as the company’s
first governor. He was honest enough to confess to his own diary: “We have no right to
seize Sindh, yet we shall do so, and a very advantageous . . . piece of rascality it will
be.”8 Napier personally reaped some £70,000 in Sindhi plunder. His most famous
subordinate was a brilliant young Canal Department servant named Richard Burton,
who wrote two cogent volumes on Scinde, The Unhappy Valley, which would be
publishedsoonafter he returnedto Londonin1851.9
Pir Bakhsh’s son, Dodo Khan Bhutto, ruled the clan during Napier’s over-
lordship of Sindh, and he was, indeed, appointed by Napier’s lieutenant as “the sole
arbitrator” to give an award on the boundaries of the Chandio Jagir; his liberality to the
Chandios would long win their support for all Bhuttos. His hot-blooded grandson, Mir
Ghulam Murtaza Bhutto (c. 1869-99), Zulfi’s grandfather, fell in love with the beautiful
Sindhi “mistress”10 of Larkana’s British collector-magistrate, Colonel Mayhew. Mayhew
was then “an old man . . . over sixty.” Handsome Mir Murtaza, of course, was much
closer in age to the young Sher beauty, which soon reciprocated his love. The wily old
colonel suspected the affair and “laid a trap to catch the sinners,” Zulfi’s father recalled.
The colonel pretended to leave on tour, letting word of his departure reach Larkana
from his Sukkur residence, luring Mir Murtaza as fast as his horse could gallop to the
Sher mistress’s bed. The colonel returned that same night to catch the naked lovers,
7 SeePatrickMacrory,SignalCatastrophe:StoryoftheDisastrousRetreatfromKabul,1842(London:Hodder&
Stoughton,1966).
8 TheLifeandOpinionsofGeneralSirC.J.Napier,ed.SirW.Napier,2:218(London,M.)
9 SeeFawnBrodie,TheDevilDrives:ALifeofSirRichardBurton(NewYork:Norton,1967).
10 SirShahNawaz'sMemoir.
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