On the day of Bhutto’s death anniversary every writer wrote something, even those who did not have the skill       themselves got services of ghost writers and wrote something. Once again the ashes of forgotten words have filled the air. Therefore it’s very important that something should be written. This question must be raised who was he? What did he want? What happened to him, and why did it happen…….?.

From that reference I would start with Sarang’s thoughts “some people hear their inner voices so clearly that they live their lives by what they hear.  Such people become crazy or they become legends and the dilemma with Bhutto was that he changed the world a bit and became crazy a bit.

This is a very painful thing. It is not difficult to change the world. And anyways crazy people are beyond any pain. But he did not become completely wise, neither he became completely crazy. He was stuck up in the middle.

Some one had said a very good thing,
“I have solved the mysteries of wisdom,
O My lord! Now make me mad.”

G M Saiyed once recited this verse I don’t know who has written it. But there must have come out a pray like this from a person like Bhutto.

Bhutto’s friends and foes all thought that Bhutto was embodiment of wisdom and cleverness but only Bhutto knew it so well that he was the man who lived between the border of complete wisdom and complete madness. Bhutto kept vacillating between madness and wiseness. Just like the faryad of Faiz “we who were neither in this row nor in that row”. He was in the middle and kept staring in both directions with the utmost despair.

But this is not an honor or accolade it’s most painful thing. He felt this pain and anguish all his life.
It is very easy that one becomes Machiavelli.  Bhutto liked Machiavelli very much. But he loved Mansoor too. In his inner being Machiavelli and Mansoor became one. And in the contradiction between the two he kept shattering and vacillating .But no Kabir came in his life who could have said something like this about him:

Chalti Chaki dekh kar khara Kabira roey
Do paton key bech men sabit bacha na koi

So he kept on pinching between wisdom and craziness .He could neither become member of the club of wise persons nor can he become Rind of Mekhana. Revolutionaries also said to him  “ Go you are not one of us .” And imperialists also distanced him from themselves saying “you are not our friend but foe.  That‘s why he decided to create his own separate world . The world in which there was consciousness and unconsciousness at the same time   . Because it was a world in between.  There was extreme cleverness and innocence in it at the same time.

There is one point in Marxist philosophy “contradictories are intermingled”.This contradiction was always ensconced in Bhutto with a very fine balance .He was cruel and he was victim. He was heartless and a very sensitive person as well. Very timid and very chivalrous! His haughtiness was at its own lofty heights but he was embodiment of humility as well.

He was the the one who bended, to kiss the dust.  Who ever met Bhutto noted this that in his exterior was western but in his soul there was a fragrance of east .He knew it too well that politics is the play of cool minds but he played it very emotionally. He got from politics more than what he wanted. There is no doubt in it that he loved power, but he never imagined that he would get so much love of people. He never thought that so much love of people will be his destiny.

People’s love come in the lap of many politicians but politicians seldom return this love of people with love. Where as Bhutto embraced this feeling of love for people and this way a relationship was created between him and his people. Power and position earn respect of people but he got people’s love. Whenever he used to address people’s congregations he did not only impressed the crowd with his wit and reason but with his ability for emotional rhetoric as well.

He used to flow with the flowing streams of emotions. He has not written this anywhere but in his emotional moments, he had expressed it many times that out of this dispersed mass of people. He has to create a nation.

After his death “bhuttoism” came into much vogue.But the sad thing is they termed his slogan “roti, kapra aur makan” “Bhuttoism”

But quite contrary if there could be any ideology named bhuttoism then it could not be “Roti , kapra aur makan”. “Roti, kapra aur makan” was his slogan and the crux of his political manifesto. It also captured people’s imagination and it turned out to be attractive for people as well but the thing that is called ideology is something special; As far as the manifesto is concerned, it is a material thing whereas ideology sprouts from the land of emotions and spirit.

If we gather the scattered emotions then there sprouts an idea of “building up of one nation”
He felt it with extreme emotions that although Pakistan is a country but Pakistanis are not a nation. He had a dream that Pakistanis should become one nation. And he also realized that he had the ability to turn Pakistanis into a nation. Therefore Bhutto fell in love with this ideal. As a nation is akin to a family therefore he started on the endeavor to establish a relationship of a family member with the masses.

Though people could not become his family because it was difficult and a time taking process. But based on his emotions he became member of his people’s families, even of those families who had some contradictions with him.

This is the reason that when he was given the death sentence, fire was not ignited in many a hearts across the length and breadth of Pakistan. Bhutto was one of those political leaders who had a very close relationship with people that is why people know so much about him. He was not a person about whom people know very little. But despite of having so much information about him it remained difficult for his people, fans and followers to know about his reality and abut who he was. He was the one whose style was mast and Malang. For him path to people’s politics was the path that led him to his own self actualization.

Politics was his passion his way of life his tareeqat. He was in search of political truth he was a political Sufi. He saw in his love for people one glimpse of oneness of God, a glimpse that made him loose his heart to it.  As for the question of success and failure is concerned let us not have an argument of this kind for the people like him, because such people are beyond success and failure and also because the success and failure are materialistic values. The one who plunges his soul into aazmaish raises his soul beyond the question of success and failure.

Basically Bhutto was a said soul. A Sufi leader, a lonely person, who gathered around him a mass of people. But despite of that he remained lonely. From swinging on his childhood swing till his hanging on the gallows he remained lonely. On the people like him, and on the people who gained life and death both, writers like shakespear can write excellent dramas. But had Kazan Zakas known Bhutto he would have written a novel on him. Although he did not know Bhutto, the words, the immortal lines he has written in his excellent book “Report to Greco”, are enough to describe Bhutto’s being and his soul.

Nicos Kazan Zakas writes.

Three kinds of souls
Three kinds of pray.
I am bow in your hands lord draw me lest I rot
I am a bow in your hands lord
But do not over draw me I shall break
I am bow in your hands, overdraw me lord and who cares if I break.

Bhutto was the soul of the third kind.

Translated from Urdu By Tania Saleem