Thaindian News

New Delhi, April 4 (IANS) Fatima Bhutto, the niece of slain former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto, Sunday said politics was not the best way to bring about transformation in society and she had chosen the media and academia to work for change.
Fatima, who took part in a panel discussion here on “Altered Histories: The Legacy of Political Assassinations in South Asia” along with political critic Ashis Nandy, Hindustan Times editorial director Vir Sanghvi and Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar, said politics has an element of violence.

“Politics is not the best way to bring about change. Academia and the media are phenomenal ways of change. That’s the way I have chosen,” Fatima said, answering a query on her reluctance to join politics.

Fatima’s just-published memoir “Songs of Blood and Sword” details four generations of the Bhutto family and is story of her father Murtaza Bhutto’s murder.

She said leaders from political dynasties had been assassinated in South Asia and added that in Pakistan, leaders who became “too dangerous for the establishment” had been killed.

She said former Pakistan president Zia-ul-Haq was killed after jihad was over in Afghanistan and Benazir got assassinated as she became inconvenient to certain powers after returned to the country on a sympathy wave.

“She was isolated. Her protection was removed. It became easy to assassinate her,” Fatima said of Benazir’s Dec 27, 2007 assassination.

Nandy, who moderated the discussion, said some political assassinations had been marked by calculation of gains or losses by the killers and in some cases, there was a “change of bonding” between the assassin and the assassinated.

He claimed that four to five attempts were made on life of Mahatma Gandhi and Nathu Ram Godse, who killed him Jan 30, 1948, was involved in some of them.

He said Godse had participated in the non-cooperation movement and had a lifestyle similar to that of Gandhi.

“He (Godse) thought Gandhi was a liability to the new infant state,” Nandy said.

Sanghvi said that political assassinations of top leaders in South Asia had been marked by a desire for revenge, fear of consequences or family disputes.

He said an assassination was written about from various standpoints in the West, but this does not happen in south Asia.

Citing instances of assassinations of former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi and if Zia-ul-Haq, he said there are many unanswered questions. “Why should it be so?” he wondered.

Disagreeing with the notion that political assassinations can be game-changers, Aiyar said they had little impact on changing the course of history.

“Gandhiji pointed out that violence does not lead to productive results,” he said,adding that violence was “useless in way of political change”.

The discussion was organised by the Religare Arts Iniative and Caravan, a narrative journalism magazine. Fatima is associated with Caravan as a contributing editor.