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.
