Change of the guard, not dynasties

The Gandhis and the Bhuttos have many similarities though it is obvious that in India the process of anointing the Gandhis is much more democratic. Pakistan continues to be plagued by the fact that often the feudal lords rule the roost and join hands to rig the elections. Even then in both countries the favoured children of the dynasty have to go to the people and seek mandate.

by JYOTI MALHOTRA

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 powers 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.