Opinion

The Arrival of a Mystic Politician: Asif Ali Zardari
By Mohammad Ashraf Chaudhry
Pittsburg, CA

“Hun Dasso!”, would have been the natural response of my washman, Ferozdin, had I been in Pakistan on the re-arrival of ex-Senator, Mr. Asif Ali Zardari to Pakistan. My last year visit to Pakistan, and my professorial assertions made in front of Ferozdin that Zardari was a dead meat now, and that the present government would not mind meeting Mr. Advani or Moodi, or even Mr. Sharon if it had to, but it would never condescend to meet Benazir and her spouse, Asif Ali Zardari and Mian Nawaz Sharif, now appeared so devoid of any appreciable foresight when compared to Ferozdin’s insightful “Hun Dasso”.
Indeed, politics in Pakistan is a game of surprises. Be it a sizzling morning in July, 1971 when I woke up to hear on the BBC that it was Pakistan that had facilitated Henry Kissinger’s secret meeting with the Chinese leadership in Peking, or the cold night of December 20, of the same fateful year when huddled up in our cellar with the family, I heard the news time and again on PTV that the situation in East Pakistan was totally under control, whereas Dacca had already fallen. People in a barber shop in Pakistan waiting for a hair-cut are more informative and credible in their analysis of Pakistani politics than are the rulers who control their destinies or the Pundits and word-smiths who get paid for lying shamefacedly, or for rationalizing policy failures that are too obvious to hide.
During school days, our choice to having a monthly haircut was restricted by a parental order. We could go to either Saina (Hussain), a World War II veteran barber, or to Azam Nai. Being somewhat liberal by nature, I never liked going to Saina because he unfailingly reported every movement of mine I made in front of the mirror to my father who also patronized him.
Besides, he would also bore endlessly with his bragging war-time hair-cutting stories and would stop half-way, holding an open razor in one hand and the ear directly under it with another, waiting to win an applause from those who, somehow, were always there browsing an Urdu newspaper.
Azam Nai, however, was different. He was less arrogant than Saina and was more committed to his profession than many. He was a great follower of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, and as one could see, there was hardly a patch on wall that he would not plaster with life-size posters of Bhutto. He virtually worshipped Bhutto, and the secret to having a fine hair-cut from him lay only and only to either agree with him as he would extol the merits of his hero, or to say something positive about Bhutto that could add to his knowledge about him. In the early 70’s Bhutto appeared on the political scene as a savior of the nation.
I could never understand why would somebody so poor like Azam nai, adulate a feudal lord- turned politician so blindly and so thoroughly. In fact, one day I had to pay dearly for differing with Azam Nai on this score. In one hair-cutting session, I nonchalantly criticized Bhutto for his arrogance and for roughing up students mercilessly in Lahore and Faisalabad. Halfway he stopped cutting my hair, and uncharacteristic as it was of Azam, he told me in unusual rudeness to leave his shop. Finding a fault in Bhutto’s style of politics was not a simple lapse; it was a sin in Azam Nai’s eyes.
Bhutto’s legacy and the impact of his charismatic personality is so well-carved on people like Azam and Ferozdin that it is hard to find a rationale for such an infatuation, and Pakistan has always remained in ample supply of such diehards in all these years. The dream of a better future, and the hope for the most-prized possession, self-respect, was what Bhutto had given to such a, “rustic chorus”, as that of Azam Nai and Ferozdin. Bhutto could be differed with, but he cannot be ignored or forgotten. It has been a sad phenomenon to watch painfully his daughter, Benazir squandering away the two opportunities Bhutto’s name and legacy had provided her. Her two- term stint as PM terminated on the charges of corruption and inefficiency, could have turned any other politician into a recluse, but she has never been a sulker . It appears that she has overcome the shock. Under the new and changed circumstances, she seems to be willing to be adjusting herself into a new role, that being, if not of a King, then a king-maker, a Lady-Macbeth, or a Sonia Gandhi. Who then could play the King on her behalf? Perhaps, her own spouse, Mr. Asif Ali Zardari.
After all history is full of examples in which leaders have followed other leaders: In the ancient history, Alexander the great, imitated Achilles; Caesar followed Alexander; Scipio copied Cyrus, and in Pakistan, Mustafa Khar followed Nawab of Kalabagh; Shahbaz Sharif followed Khar and Pervez Ilahi is trying to follow all the three. Senior Bhutto emulated Napoleon; and President Musharraf, Kamal Ata Turk. Machiavelli is right when he says, “A prudent man should always enter upon paths beaten by great men and imitate those who have been most excellent… if you cannot acquire love, you should know how to escape hatred… in our times we have not seen great things done except by those who have been considered mean…” Good iron does not make strong nails; leaders have to have a good portion of meanness in them in order to be effective as leaders.
Jehangir Badr of Panjab calls Asif Ali Zardari a savior of Panjab, and his arrival in Lahore a historical event in the history of Pakistan. One can understand his saying so. It was not in Zardari’s release and departure, as it has been in his re-arrival that these jialas have begun reading the writ of their own bright future. Let us see how a Mystic Zardari fares and fits in the midst of these crooked but tried, “wise men”.
They say the most endangered species in the world these days is the presence of dedicated leaders, and they say so rightly. Asif Ali Zardari certainly does not fall in that category of angels, and he has never claimed to be one like them. Very few people in Pakistan have been so controversial as he has been, and very few have been so blatantly maligned as he has been. If serving time in jail is a criterion behind being an authentic politician, then Asif Ali Zardari is perhaps Pakistan’s Nelson Mandela. Politicians fear him most because he begins where they end. I consulted quite a few books written in the West, but I found very little written favorably on his behalf. Stephen Cohen, in his latest book, “The Idea of Pakistan”, writes on page 147, “… and every one was astonished at the degree to which she gave a free hand to her husband, Asif Zardari, who was widely believed to be corrupt”, and on page 252, when Benazir was PM for the second time, he writes, “… but the charges of corruption only increased, notably with regard to the sale of 28 state-owned companies between 1993 and 1995. Benazir’s husband, Asif Zardari, personally known as Mr. Five Percent, acquired the nick- name as Mr. Ten Per Cent for the commission he reportedly asked for in return for government approval of industrial projects. Benazir imperiously dismissed such charges as, “motivated by the enemies”.
Hassan Abbas in his latest book, “Pakistan’s Drift Into Extremism” writes, “Benazir started to distribute patronage and largesse to the party faithful who had suffered under Zia’s whip. Allegations of corruption on Benazir’s husband, Asif Ali Zardari and some federal cabinet ministers also had an impact on the government’s credibility”. On page `152 he further writes, “Widespread allegation against Asif for taking kickbacks in government contracts were increasingly believed by all and sundry”.
Marry Anne Weaver in her book “Pakistan: in the shadow of Jihad and Afghanistan” on page 194 writes, “… a top presidential adviser, and one of Pakistan’s ranking bureaucrats, remarks to me one morning… her main weakness is her husband. It’s a pity. I wish she had married someone else”. Asif Ali Zardari, a party-loving sportsman with a colorful past, an extremely charming forty-year-old businessman, with a handsome, rugged face, set off by jet-black hair and a thick, black handlebar mustache… his main occupations before he married Benazir were polo by day and discothèques by night”, …(continuing on page 196 Weaver says what most writers and observers and friends of Zardari had failed to notice and acknowledge), “and a bee had stung her hand. By the evening, when the Zardaris arrived at the flat, Benazir’s hand was swollen and she was in considerable pain. Asif had insisted on taking her to a hospital and had arranged for a doctor and a car. HER MOST REVEALING COMMENT WAS, “For once, I was not the one in charge”.
Like Indira Gandhi in the hands of Sanjiv Gandhi, the most privileged and the most brilliant woman of Pakistan, Mohtarama Benazir Bhutto, also had her own Achilles heel, her own spouse. Shaheen Sehbai, in one of his beautifully written articles, “Will you please let Asif Ali Zardari go!”, writes …there is no moral or legal point in keeping Asif Zardari in jail, just because he imported a BMW. He is now close to being declared a ‘prisoner of conscience’, because if everyone is a thief in this land, why is a petty thief in jail when every robber friend of the military ruler is out, enjoying life and robbing the country… there has to be a limit to injustice, pettiness, victimization and bigotry’. The words may be harsh, but they are not devoid of reality. Asif Ali Zardari has suffered more than he deserved. Zardari has landed in Lahore in a big way. Ex-PM, Mr. Jamali calls this fanfare about Zardari’s arrival as a calculated government move to glorify and magnify the image of Zardari. Mr. Agha Naveed in his article, “Zardari’s place in Politics”, endorses this point of view. Zardari has come to role in his own name.
It was not a matter of coincidence, but a well-calculated part of a grand plan that Zardari was to land in Lahore when President Musharraf was to be in India. The ensuing music was to be faced by the chief minister of Panjab and by PM Shaukat Aziz, and the final decision about the placement of Zardari was to base on how the things would go.
Agha Naveed, a former PPP leader, presents many an interesting theory in the article. To him, it appears Ms. Benazir has accepted the rule of Musharraf and her role in politics minus her candidature for a third-time premiership. She has accepted this pill in the larger interest of the Bhutto legacy, and she intends to achieve two things: one to transform Asif Ali Zardari as a mass leader of Pakistan, and if this worked, then launch her son, Balawal as the future leader of Pakistan. After all, Sonia Gandhi has also planned the same way to launch her son, Rahul Gandhi on the success garnered by Manmohan Singh. It is a win-win situation in both cases: the legacy, (Nehru or Bhutto), and the government in their name both remain in tact.
Asif Ali Zardari’s landing in Pakistan and in Panjab is good for the present government too. The Chaudhry’s of Gujrat appear to have outgrown in President Musharraf’s estimate in many ways. They have been helpful to him, but at a great cost to his own name and reputation, and have become a tangible hurdle in his way of working. Were he alone, he would have dealt a deadly blow to the Sardari system in Baluchistan and would have eradicated this cancer from its roots once and for all, but he could not. Even in such petty matters as the inclusion of a religious column in the passport, he got ditched by many a minister who owned his ministership to him. A man of his stature appears so pigmy-sized when he is often found on TV defending a large and burdensome battalion of ministers and state ministers. Shaukat Aziz is a great finance minister, but he cannot fight against his own gentle nature. He is too gentle to be a PM.
In Zardari, the President sees four opportunities: one he could get a very strong PM from Sindh; second, he could get Benazir on board not as his rival but as his ally; third, he could gracefully distance himself from the Penelope’s web woven by the Chaudhrys and lastly and most importantly, he could implement his agenda of progressive social and economic policies; of moderation in politics, of accommodation with India; of promoting better relations with all the major powers, including the United States; of implementing his policy of gender empowerment; and most importantly get a solid backing to nullify the regressive impact of the mullahs.
Zardari is a mystic politician now. It is hoped that he would not throw away the opportunity of serving the people of Pakistan, if and when it is thrust upon him. In fact, the jialas have already begun basking in the sunshine of such an eventuality. He knows better than anybody that it was money that took him to the jail and his wife to exile. The fact is that Benazir is basically a visionary, a dreamer, and not a good ruler. She tried to emulate her father and she could not. If an opportunity falls in his way, Zardari should not waste it like she does by being somebody else. He cannot be a Bhutto, in fact, no body can be. Hassan Abbas writes that Zardari is well known for having a sharp mind and a heart that was uncommonly large and warm.
Azim Nai died as a very poor man, but not his dream. Million like him are still holding on to the ray of hope that was kindled in their heart by Bhutto.
Military rulers try to satisfy the soldiers and stupefy the people; politicians try to please the people and stupefy the soldiers, and the result is obvious. Asif Ali Zardari and President Musharraf can make an ideal team of leaders that Pakistan currently needs because, in the words of Machiavelli, “Principality (leadership) that is attained through crimes (Agathocles and Oliverotto), and both of who were very popular despite their crimes”, is often good for the masses. And, after all Zardari is not as bad as he is painted. He is graduate from Pedinton School, London in Business and Economics, and has been in active politics of Pakistan since 1990. Who knows, new benefits often make old injuries to be forgotten.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------