Benazir Bhutto

- Destinys Child

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A Star is Born!

Benazir Bhutto was born in Karachi, Dominion of Pakistan on 21 June, 1953 to Begum Nusrat Ispahani and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in a prominent Shia Muslim family...

The Legacy
Bhutto was the eldest child of former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, a Pakistani of Sindhi descent and Shia Muslim by faith, and Begum Nusrat Bhutto, a Pakistani of Iranian-Kurdish descent, similarly Shia Muslim by faith. Her paternal grandfather was Sir Shah Nawaz Bhutto, who came to Larkana District in Sindh before the independence from his native town of Bhatto Kalan, in the Indian stat of Haryana.

Polishing the Diamond

She attended the Lady Jennings Nursery School and then the Convent of Jesus and Mary in Karachi. After two years of schooling at the Rawalpindi Presentation Convent, she was sent to the Jesus and Mary Convent at Murree. She passed her O-level examinations at the age of 15. She then went on to complete her ALevels at the Karachi Grammar School.

After completing her early education in Pakistan, she pursued her higher education in the United States. From 1969 to 1973, she attended Radcliff College at Harvard University, where she obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree with cum laude honors. She was also elected for Phi Beta Kappa. Bhutto would later call her time at Harvard "four of the happiest years of my life" and said it formed "the very basis of her belief in democracy". Later, in 1995, as Prime Minister, she would arrange a gift from the Pakistani government to Harvard Law School.

The next phase of her education took place in the United Kingdom. Between 1973 and 1977, Bhutto studied Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, during which time she completed additional courses in International Law and Diplomacy. After LMH she attended St. Catherine's College, Oxford and in December 1976 she was elected president of the Oxford Union, becoming the first Asian woman to head the prestigious debating society

The Next Generation

On 18 December 1987, she married Asif Ali Zardari in Karachi.

The couple had three children: Bilawal (d.o.b. 21 Sept.,1988), Bakhtawar and Aseefa.

Bhutto and her Foray in Politics

Benazir Bhutto was a Pakistani politician who chaired the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), a centre-left political party in Pakistan. Bhutto was the first woman elected to lead a Muslim state having twice been Prime Minister of Pakistan (19881990; 1993 1996). She was Pakistan's first and to date only female prime minister.

Struggle for Feminism

During the election campaigns the Bhutto government voiced its concern for women's social and health issues, including the issue of discrimination against women. Bhutto announced plans to establish women's police stations, courts, and women's development banks. Despite these plans, Bhutto did not propose any legislation to improve welfare services for women. During her election campaigns, she promised to repeal controversial laws that curtail the rights of women in Pakistan. Bhutto was pro-life and spoke forcefully against abortion, most notably at the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, where she accused the West of "seeking to impose adultery, abortion, intercourse education and other such matters on individuals, societies and religions which have their own social ethos

Policies for Taliban

The Taliban took power in Kabul in September 1996. It was during Bhutto's rule that the Taliban gained prominence in Afghanistan .She, like many leaders at the time, viewed the Taliban as a group that could stabilize Afghanistan and enable trade access to the Central Asian republics, according to author Stephen Coll. He claims that like the United States, her government provided military and financial support for the Taliban, even sending a small unit of the Pakistani army into Afghanistan.
She took an anti-Taliban stance, and condemned terrorist acts allegedly committed by the Taliban and their supporters.

The Barriers Faced

In 2002, Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf amended Pakistan's constitution to ban prime ministers from serving more than two terms. This disqualified Bhutto from ever holding the office again. This move was widely considered to be a direct attack on former Prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif. On 3 August 2003, Bhutto became a member of Minhaj ul Quran International (an international Muslim educational and welfare organization).

After eight years in exile in Dubai and London, Bhutto returned to Karachi on 18 October 2007, to prepare for the 2008 national elections En route to a rally in Karachi on 18 October 2007, two explosions occurred shortly after Bhutto had landed and left Jinnah International Airport. She was not injured but the explosions, later found to be a suicide-bomb attack, killed 136 people and injured at least 450. The dead included at least 50 of the security guards from her PPP who had formed a human chain around her truck to keep potential bombers away, as well as six police officers. A number of senior officials were injured. Bhutto, after nearly ten hours of the parade through Karachi, ducked back down into the steel command center to remove her sandals from her swollen feet, moments before the bomb went off. She was escorted unharmed from the scene.

The Loss of Pakistan

On 27 December 2007, Bhutto was killed while leaving a campaign rally for the PPP at Liaquat National Bagh, where she had given a spirited address to party supporters in the run-up to the January 2008 parliamentary elections. After entering her bulletproof vehicle, Bhutto stood up through its sunroof to wave to the crowds. At this point, a gunman fired shots at her and subsequently explosives were detonated near the vehicle killing approximately 20 people. Bhutto was critically wounded and was rushed to Rawalpindi General Hospital. She was taken into surgery at 17:35 local time, and pronounced dead at 18:16

Bhutto's body was flown to her hometown of Garhi Khuda Bakhsh in Larkana District, Sindh, and was buried next to her father in the family mausoleum at a ceremony attended by hundreds of thousands of mourners. There was some disagreement about the exact cause of death. Bhutto's husband refused to permit an autopsy or postmortem examination to be carried out

The Trauma and its Aftermath

After the assassination, there were initially a number of riots resulting in approximately 20 deaths, of which three were of police officers. Around 250 cars were burnt; angry and upset supporters of Bhutto threw rocks outside the hospital where she was being held. Through December 29, 2007, the Pakistani government said rioters had wrecked nine election offices, 176 banks, 34 gas stations, 72 train cars, 18 rail stations, and hundreds of cars and shops. Nawaz Sharif, the leader of the rival opposition party Pakistan Muslim League (N), stated that "This is a tragedy for her party, and a tragedy for our party and the entire nation. "President Musharraf decreed a threeday period of mourning.

The New Successor

On 30 December 2007, at a news conference following a meeting of the PPP leadership, Bhutto's widower Asif Ali Zardari and son Bilawal Bhutto Zardari announced that 19year-old Bilawal will succeed his mother as titular head of the party, with his father effectively running the party until his son completes his studies at Christ Church, Oxford

Acknowledgement
It gives us immense pleasure in presenting this biography onBenazir Bhutto Destinys Child

With deep sense of honour and gratitude, we acknowledge Ms. Sangeeta Naik for giving us an opportunity to work on this project with her planned and careful guidance for which we are grateful. We also extend our thanks to all of those who provided us the required information about the same.

Thank you!