The Departure of Benazir Bhutto

kanak m dixit

The 'daughter of the East' is dead. The assassination of Benazir Bhutto in Rawalpindi is a tragedy that puts Pakistani politics in a tailspin, forestalling a return to democracy and heralding ever more violence in the public arena. The killing sends a tremor across the political landscape of Southasia. The former prime minister was one of the best-known faces among the region's politicians, a modern and urbane woman who dared to join the hurly burly of grimy politics.

Nearly continuous military rule over the decades has left the Pakistani polity fragile and brittle. With the elections slated for 8 January 2008, the hope was that Pakistan would, once again, attempt the transition to sustained democracy. There were critics who questioned Benazir's willingness to end her days in exile to join an imperfect electoral terrain as defined by President Pervez Musharraf. But there was no question that even flawed polls would nudge Pakistan away from military rule and towards democratic functioning. If the people of Pakistan would prosper in peace under a democracy, Benazir held out the hope for its ushering.

The practice of politics has become deadly and insecure in Pakistan. How can politics be conducted in the absence of mass rallies? How can leaders galvanise from behind bullet-proof glass, or from the distance of the television screen? Is this, then, the way of Southasian politics in the days ahead, an inexorable distancing between the leader and the masses? And is it right that so much of leadership's mantle be invested in one person, that her departure should create a chasm that leaves a society so bereft?

Himal Southasian's January 2008 issue, takes a look at the evolving politics of Pakistan in the context of the autumn of discontent just past. This issue was prepared before Benazir Bhutto's assassination, but hopefully will provide the context to understand the evolution of the Pakistani polity in the coming months.

27 December 2007, Kathmandu