Through the Lahore fog, a clear picture of despair

“Everyone in Pakistan cried that night. I tell you there was not one person in this country that did not cry.

“Everyone in Pakistan cried that night. I tell you there was not one person in this country that did not cry. She should not have been killed. A terrible thing has happened.” This is what the first person I talked to in Lahore said. It was the driver who drove me into the city along a highway that was not there when I last came here six years ago. He was a supporter of Pervez Musharraf and said this was because he had seen more progress in Pakistan in the past ten years than ever before but he felt the loss of Benazir “as if a member of my own family died.” He was right when he said everyone does. It’s as if by dying her terrible, needless death, she stole the tattered hope this country continues to have that one day there will be real democracy here.

That Benazir’s death dominates everything that is happening in Pakistan I noticed before I got to Lahore. On the front page of the newspaper the PIA stewardess handed me as we took off from Delhi at dusk was a macabre Wanted poster that had pictures of a body-less head, its face stitched up as if post mortem, alongside the hazy picture of the two men in the crowd now believed to be Benazir’s killers.

Under the pictures were these words. “Information about terrorists involved in Liaqat Bagh, Rawalpindi incident of 27th December 2007. Rs 1 crore cash award. The public is hereby notified that the two individuals in the above photograph as the accused terrorists involved in the cowardly and inhuman terrorist act of Liaqat Bagh, Rawalpindi which resulted in the tragic martyrdom of former Prime Minister Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto and others. The Government of Punjab has announced a cash Award of Rs 1 crore for lead information and any solid evidence.” The Wanted poster went on to assure informants that their identity would not be revealed.

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On my first evening in Lahore, I dined with friends in a beautiful, old-fashioned drawing room warmed by gas heaters but filled with sadness. There were people, old and young, and everyone talked only of Benazir Bhutto. They remembered that she had her flaws, she could have governed better, done more for women, she could have done more to control her husband’s grasping ways, but in the end everyone agreed that she was the best possible leader for Pakistan.

Those who knew her personally remembered that she was generous, forgiving and the best of friends. Those who knew her only as a public figure remembered that she symbolized what Pakistan would like to be. “She was a true liberal and modern and she spent the best years of her youth in jail so committed was she to the cause of democracy.”

While we talked, Musharraf’s first press conference since Benazir’s assassination was telecast live from Islamabad. He was introduced by a smarmy government official who made it sound as if the journalists were being done a huge favour to be given an audience by the country’s President. But the ex-military ruler looked shaken up and unsure and was defensive in his answers. There was a trace of his old, bumptiousness when he said more than once that he was known always to speak the truth. From his early days in the army, he said, they talked of me as someone who speaks bluntly. The journalists were mostly Western and represented important international newspapers and television networks and they asked hard questions. He answered defensively as if aware of the need to clarify that his government cannot be charged with being behind the assassination.

An Indian journalist from Zee TV asked if there is any truth in the rumour that the Americans intend to whisk Pakistan’s nuclear weapons to a safe place to prevent them falling into the hands of terrorists. The President said, “There is no possibility of extremists coming into government in Pakistan and therefore taking over the nuclear assets…every individual Pakistani is one on this issue and we cannot accept any kind of threat on them at all’.

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After the press conference, all of us watching agreed that he looked scared and nervous but not everyone agreed on who killed Benazir. Over dinner, the subject continued to be discussed and we took a poll. The majority opinion was that she was killed by “jehadi elements mixed with the ISI.” There could have been no reason for the government to kill her, they said, because the biggest loser is Musharraf.

He is already in power for another five years and it would have helped his international image to have Benazir as Prime Minister. Especially because it is now widely accepted that she came home as a result of a deal that had the blessings of the United States.

The only person who disagreed was a politician from Nawaz Sharif’s party who said, “The last thing that Pervez Musharraf wants is a Prime Minister with a tendency to independence and an international image.” The sadness of her death permeated the cold, winter evening and made almost all other conversation impossible.

The next morning, I was woken early by the muezzin’s call. So I decided to wander about the bazaars of the old city to get a sense of what the “aam aadmi” felt. I drove past the Badshahi Mosque, magnificent in veils of early morning fog. The old city was awake. Chickens were being slaughtered at street corners and there were people in little restaurants drinking long glasses of steaming tea. Everywhere were posters from the postponed election. Benazir, white veiled and beautiful seemed larger than life and I had to ask who the others were. “The arrow is the PPP symbol,” says a man called Ghulam Qadir “the sher is Nawaz Sharif’s party and the Pakistan Muslim League (Q) doesn’t matter. They are finished. That’s why the election was postponed, to give them a chance.”

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The consensus is that there was no reason to postpone the election. If the PPP, after losing its leader, was prepared to fight now, if Nawaz Sharif is ready for the election to be held as scheduled on January 9, then what reason could there be for a postponement? But it’s almost not about the election any more. It’s about Benazir Bhutto.

On the evening of my second day in Lahore, I went to see Asma Jehangir. I have known Pakistan’s feisty, fearless human rights activist since I first came here to do a story in the ‘80s and no matter how bad things were politically, Asma was always ready to carry on the fight for democracy and basic human rights. This time she said she was “devastated” by the death of Benazir Bhutto. Did she feel any sense of hope that democracy would return in a real sense? “Not in my lifetime,” she said, “maybe in the next generation.”