A friend from Mumbai asked me how things were. I groped for a befitting analogy, and off the top of my head said "She meant a lot to people.... sort of like Gandhi."

Will they eulogize her to Gandhian proportions? Gandhis dhoti, Benazir's ajrak, her gracefully draped dupatta, her almost deliberately hideous but unmistakeably modern suits. Gandhi's non-violent tactics and the subsequent massacre of Partition, her violent outbursts against the military and simultaneous dealings with them. Will she be Time's person of the year?

"They're trying to sideline her. They always have. These bastard men... they resented her power, her popularity." My mother was never a fan.

She was ruthless, calculating.... delivered a baby in office, witnessed the murder of her father, her brothers. She took advantage of every situation, she played the media, and charmed a superpower.

There will be another Bhutto. But I don't know if there will ever be another Benazir.

times like these, it helps to listen to the voice of clarity.

Whoever did this wants two things: create unrest through violence; and get the elections postponed sine die. The postponement of elections will only increase the possibility of violence.
Honour Bhutto’s sacrifice — Ejaz Haider


‘Tum kitnay Bhutto marogay? Har ghar say Bhutto niklay ga!’

The headlines read "Garhi Khuda Bux awaits another Bhutto," and I think: they're wondering who'll carry the PPP torch. But Garhi Khuda Bux was awaiting the body of another Bhutto. Tum kitney Bhutto maro gey? Tum kitney Bhutto paida karo gey? How many heroes will you create, and how badly will that fuck with the im-personal process that democracy ought to be?

Like all idiots, I have yet to pull myself together. I seem to have forgotten that I once committed myself to a process- whatever the cost.

It is a tribute to the tenacity of Ms Bhutto, the politician par excellence, that she kept her father’s political legacy alive in a male-dominated society. He had championed the popular cause and had given a sense of dignity to the common man in Pakistan. Benazir Bhutto had the mettle to do the same.

We'll never know if she would've delivered on her promises. We'll never know if she would have the humility to accept election results that didn't go in her favor. We'll never know if she would've been voted out of office as her own supporters realised that it is them, the people, the human spirit that is sacred, and not a leader, a personality, a politician. There will be another Bhutto.

We've lost sight of the process. To vote or not to vote?

II

"Democracy must be meaningful."

It is some comfort to know that even the country's sharpest analysts prefer silence at this point.
Even journalists, I suppose, were children once.
thank you for that lesson, AN.