‘I am the destiny’

Eqbal Ahmad

• The Terrorist Prince: Life and Death of Murtaza Bhutto by Raja Anwar, translated by Khalid Hasan
  Verso, 254 pp, £16.00, January 1997, ISBN 1 85984 886 9
• Memoirs of a Bystander: A Life in Diplomacy by Iqbal Akhund
  Oxford, 500 pp, £15.99, June 1998, ISBN 0 19 577736 0
• Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Pakistan by Rafi Raza
  Oxford, 420 pp, £15.95, April 1998, ISBN 0 19 577697 6

In London last month Benazir Bhutto called on Pakistan’s prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, to respond without delay to India’s nuclear tests. ‘It’s an opportunity for Pakistan to detonate nuclear weapons,’ she said, claiming that her own government had known of India’s intentions and had ‘prepared a contingency plan’ for Pakistan to react ‘immediately’. Returning to Pakistan on 20 May, she called for a government of national unity. Two days later she was leading marches demanding instant nuclear tests or Sharif’s resignation. The glass bracelets worn by South Asian women symbolise effeminacy and cowardice in this macho culture. Benazir took hers off and, tossing them into the crowd, thundered: ‘Go tell Nawaz Sharif to put these on.’ Now that his government has tested no fewer than six nuclear devices, he is being hailed as a national hero while she continues to face a hostile world of prosecutors and judges.