[nukkad] benazir - the other side

Following article was recently published by Francois Gautier the editor in 
chief of Paris-based La Revue de l'Inde. 

Francois Gautier | December 31, 2007 | 16:11 IST 

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh described Benzair Bhutto as 'one of the 
outstanding leaders of our sub-continent, who always looked for reconciliation 
between India and Pakistan'. 

Most magazines are doing cover stories on her. 

Bhutto is on the verge of becoming a 'martyr of democracy'.? It is a? sad that 
a mother of three children was so brutally killed and we all mourn her terrible 
death. 

Nevertheless, truth must be told.? For, as usual, what the press says is not 
exactly what happened. 

Firstly, under Bhutto, anti-Indian terrorism in the Kashmir region was fostered 
and increased.? Benazir was also directly responsible for the ethnic cleansing 
of Hindus in Kashmir. 

"She was instrumental in sponsoring Jihad, openly inciting militants to 
intensify terrorism in India," says Ajai Sahni, the executive director of the 
New Delhi-based Institute for Conflict Management.? "I find it very difficult 
to discover a single element with her relationship to India that is positive 
and for the betterment of her country or the region," he adds. 

Remember how she was shouting her slogans of Azaadi, and exhorting the people 
of Kashmir to cut Jagmohan, then governor of the state, into pieces, as in 
"jag-jag, mo-mo, han-han".? She would say this while making chopping motions 
with her right hand as it moved from her left wrist to the elbow, leaving 
nobody in any doubt as to what she meant. 

Secondly, under Bhutto, the Taliban formed and, helped by Pakistan's 
intelligence service, swept across Afghanistan and later hosted Osama bin 
Laden.? It is a bit of an irony that she may have been killed by the very 
people she helped foster if at all she was murdered. 

Thirdly, she deliberately increased tension levels and then threatened India 
with a pre-emptive nuclear strike.? The tension peaked when Bhutto repeated her 
late father's immortal boast of waging a 1,000-year war against India. Even 
Rajiv Gandhi was forced to mock her in Parliament, asking if those who talked 
of a 1,000-year war could last even a 1,000 hours. 

And fourthly, in her last speech before she died, she alluded to India as one 
of the threats Pakistan had to face, implying that if she was elected she would 
deal firmly with it. 

Then why is it that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh calls her a friend of India 
and that Indians mount candlelight vigils in the Gateway of India for her? 

I interviewed Benazir Bhutto twice, the second time as she was campaigning to 
be re-elected for a second term: 

The first question I asked, was about Kashmir, as she was the one who had 
called for Azad Kashmir, a Kashmir free from India, which had triggered the 
ethnic cleansing of most of the Hindus of the Valley of Kashmir -- 400,000 of 
them had to flee their ancestral land. "You know," she answered, "You have to 
understand the Pakistani point of view on Kashmir.? If one goes by the logic of 
Partition, then at least the Kashmir valley, which is in great majority Muslim 
-- and it should be emphasised that for long the Hindus Pundits in Kashmir 
exploited and dominated the Muslims, who are getting back at them today -- 
should have reverted to Pakistan.? But let us say that officially we want to 
help grant Kashmiris their right to self-determination." 

"That's the only reason?" I continued. "No," answered Benazir.? "It should be 
clear also that Pakistan never forgot the humiliating loss of Bangladesh at the 
hands of India, although India claims it only helped Bangladesh to gain its 
freedom in the face of what the Bangladeshis say was Pakistani genocide.? Zia's 
emergence was a result of that humiliation." "But Zia hanged your father?" I 
interrupted. "Yes and I hate him and God the almighty already punished him for 
that," said Benazir, alluding to Zia's death in a plane crash.? "But Zia did 
one thing right, he started the whole policy of proxy war by supporting the 
separatist movements in Punjab and Kashmir, as a way of getting back at India." 

"And what about Pakistan's nuclear bomb?" I asked. "That's my father's work," 
she said proudly.? "He realised, after? having lost the 1965 and 1971 wars with 
India, that both numerically and strategically, we can never beat India in a 
conventional conflict. Thus he initiated the programme by saying that 'We will 
get the nuclear bomb, even if we have to eat grass'." "But is it not a 
dangerous weapon if it falls in the hands of the fundamentalists of your 
country?" I asked. "No such danger," Benazir answered."? Anyway, it is not only 
a deterrent against India's military conventional superiority and an answer to 
India's own nuclear capability, but also the ultimate weapon to re-assert 
Islam's moral superiority." 

"We in Europe are going to unite in a Common Market, why don't Pakistan and 
India forget their differences and form some kind of confederation with other 
South Asian countries, instead of killing each other?" I asked. "Pakistan and 
India were never one country," answered the imperious lady."? They were only 
kept together by force, whether by Mauryan, Moghul or British rule.? Hindus 
have recognised the reality of Islam, and we needed our own country to feel 
free." 

I was flabbergasted: here was a lady educated in Oxford and Harvard, who 
mouthed such irrational statements.? She spoke good English, was pretty, 
articulate and pleased the press. But when in power, she had to resort to 
anti-Indianism to please her voters.? Her husband was known as Mr. 10 Per 
Cent.? She was hounded out of power twice for incompetence and corruption. 

Is she then a martyr of democracy? 

History will tell.



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The truth is not always the same as the majority decision. 
- John Paul II: (1920-2005), the Pope 
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