Daughter of the East: A review

“Beautiful and charismatic, the daughter of one of Pakistan’s most popular leaders — Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, hanged by General Zia in 1979 — Benazir Bhutto is not only the first woman to lead a post-colonial Muslim state, she achieved a status approaching that of a royal princess, only to be stripped of her power in another example of the bitter political in-fighting that has riven her country. From her upbringing in one of Pakistan’s richest families, the shock of the contrast of her Harvard and Oxford education, and subsequent politicisation and arrest after her father’s death, Bhutto’s life has been full of drama.” – Simon & Schuster, Publishers of Daughter of the East (& In the Line of Fire).

Daughter of the East is a ‘new’ edition, the reason being that it is an updated version of the first edition, published in 1988. In fact the newness extends to just 39 pages of the 431 page-book. That is shocking given that one would have expected the two decades since 1988 to have given Miss Bhutto ample to write about as she has been prime minister twice, lost a brother and celebrated the birth of her three children. That is not to be. Given this and by reasons that I will detail below, I would like to divide this review into two distinct parts.
From 1953- 1987
Benazir Bhutto is certainly a woman of literary talent; I’ll give her that. Her education at Radcliffe/Harvard and the Other Place (a.k.a Oxford) has helped her come out with a very readable book that is in stark contrast to another book released last year: In the Line of Fire. The latter I found quite dull and lost interest somewhere near the 100th page. Khair, that is a discussion best left for another post.
She leads readers through a tumultuous life that can be best described with an image of a mountain climber. It follows well through the ups and downs of her journey, engaging the readers with vivid descriptions of the victimisation of her family by the Zia- led military junta. A majority of the content is dedicated to the lead up to the hanging of her father and the time she spent in solitary confinement afterwards. Certainly, Benazir would be successful in gaining empathy from readers by way of her accounts, unless, the reader is a Pakistani who holds deep suspicions regarding anything to do with the Bhutto clan. What makes the book even more interesting is the fact that she includes accounts of her contemporaries which really does give a good second dimension to the book.
In all, this part of the book is a real page turner and it has resemblance to fictional works, full of conspiracies, death, and a lot of emotion. Further, as works of fictions go, the good can do no evil and the evil…well, can only do evil and Daughter of the East follows this principle to the letter. However, given that this is not a work of fiction but instead an autobiography, the fact that Miss Bhutto is portrayed as the victim of all victims without a faulty gene in her body does mean you have to read it with a bit more than a pinch of salt.From 1988-2007
The new chapter is bitterly disappointing. Having started to write this review in the middle of the book, I thought it would carry on in its engaging fashion. Yet, as I read through this part the fact that it was 39 pages was actually a God-send since it ended the misery of reading it quite quickly. However, it did still manage to leave a bad taste. It almost felt as if Miss Bhutto had worked towards the goal of becoming the leader of our country and the road ended there and that she had no aspirations for the time of her prime-ministership. The only person that would find her accounts from 1988 interesting would be the ardent PPP supporter who finds the ‘I did this…I did that…’ sentences engaging.
As I stated earlier, there is great injustice done to proportionality in the autobiography. One example stands out: Whilst Benazir dedicates an entire chapter to the build- up to the death and the death itself of her brother Shah Nawaz Bhutto (part of the 1988 version), she dedicates less than a paragraph to the death of her other brother Mir Murtaza with whom she had political differences (update).
Conclusion
Therefore, you would not be at fault if you bought the much cheaper, older version of the book and updated yourself by reading the ‘startling revelations’ contained in the articles listed at the bottom of this review. In any case you would be doing Miss Bhutto a favour by fulfilling the reason this book was brought out. The hurry in which the book seems to have been written and its lack of new content only means one thing: it was definitely published to give her publicity. As it is, the timing of the book is suspicious and her recent comments on television do seem to suggest sunnier days ahead for the PPP in Pakistan. For that reason alone, it’s a book (the older one) worth reading.
Benazir’s new book has some starting revelations, by Mariana Baabar, The News.
‘Musharraf wanted to attack Kashmir,’ The Pak Tribune.
11 Responses to “Daughter of the East: A review”
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1 Khuldun
Apr 10th, 2007 at 6:51 pm
Benazir is not fit to lead any entity and for that matter leading a nation is beyond her capabilities. Firstly, she is corrupt and does not possess any vision for the country at large. In addition, her husband, Mr Asif Ali Zardari, is a thug who loots Pakistani exchequer every time his wife attains power. Additionally, Benazir’s feudal background is a disgrace because it is the feudal nexus in Pakistani politics that has kept Pakistan from developing educationally and otherwise. As a result, due to feudal dominance in politics modernity never arrived in Pakistan. Lastly, PPP signifies everything that is wrong with the Pakistani politics–feudalism, corruption, mismanagement, and incompetence. In sum, Benazir and her cabal are not fit and don’t deserve to govern 160 million people of Pakistan.
2 Anwar
Apr 10th, 2007 at 11:27 pm
When I read excerpts of her latest book in NY Times, I could not resist laughing at this opportunist chamelion changing her colors again.Well, are there any alternative leaders? Perhaps Imran Khan.We will have to wait for the political circus to begin.
3 Brother Aziz
Apr 11th, 2007 at 4:02 pm
“Beautiful and charismatic”? Good one.

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