Pakistan is now lorded over a by a man Fatima Bhutto calls “my aunt’s oleaginous husband” but she insists that Pakistan is not a failed state. The moment Asif Ali Zardari took over the reins of Pakistan her column in the Nation was discontinued but Ms Bhutto says that Pakistani aspirations have always been democratic.
“Governments might have failed, systems might have failed. But Pakistan is a country that could be immensely rich,” said Ms Fatima Bhutto on Friday. She is here to inaugurate the fourth edition of the Deccan Chronicle Kovalam Literary Festival on October 1. “Don’t mistake what you see in Pakistan today as democracy. The country is notorious for its corruption and mismanagement. While the country is reeling under the onslaught of two consecutive floods, the government has the gall to put out a three million dollar advertisement in the Wall Street Journal. You can’t call this democracy,” she said.
Politics seems to repel this young Bhutto. “I don’t see politics furthering anything progressive. I never wanted to be a politician. I always wanted to be a writer,” she said. She keeps Facebook, too, at an arm’s length. “The intrusion involved is tremendous. Amid all the fun, people willingly surrender their privacy. Facebook is not my favourite medium,” she said.
Fatima has her differences with Benazir Bhutto but she still harbours soft feelings for her aunt. “She was a courageous woman who held steadfastly to certain values. It is these memories of her that I treasure the most,” she said. She has a special place for India, too. Her memoir Songs of Blood and Sword might not have been translated into Urdu but it can be found in Hindi. Among Indian writers in English, she loves Rushdie and V.S. Naipaul.
And on the day, Ms Bhutto was found flaunting the most Indian of symbols: a blazing red bindi. “It’s is the first time I am applying one. The staff at the hotel where I stay did this,” she said.