Record numbers

According to Home Ministry records, some 30,000 freedom fighters are alive. Considering that any freedom fighter who is alive today would be at least 75 years old and probably older, the number seems suspiciously large. In fact there is a joint secretary in the Ministry to handle the desk for freedom fighters and rehabilitation of refugees. During Indira Gandhi’s tenure the government had bestowed a Tamra Patra to each freedom fighter to commemorate their service to the nation. The present government has a scheme of Samman Patras—handicraft gifts from Andhra Pradesh. Why the government feels the need to hand out fresh awards at this late stage, however, remains unclear.

Sonia’s spirited genes

In a crisis and under attack, Sonia Gandhi is known to remark, “They don’t know the stuff I am made of.” Rashid Kidwai in his recently updated biography of Sonia Gandhi cites an example of the fighting spirit of Sonia’s father, Stefano Maino, to make the point that such determination runs in her blood. In 2005, Sonia Gandhi was on a visit to Russia along with Natwar Singh. She made a special trip to two prisons in Russia, where her father had been kept a prisoner of war. Sonia proudly informed Singh and President Vladimir Putin, who accompanied her, that her father had escaped from this jail and traveled 5,000 miles in adverse conditions to get back home to Italy.

Then there were none

Sherry Rehman, who stepped down recently as Minister of Information and Broadcasting, is almost the last of Benazir Bhutto’s close confidantes and friends to be eased out of Pakistan’s power structure after falling out with President Asif Ali Zardari. Before Rehman, Zardari sidelined other key figures in the Pakistan People’s Party. Aitaz Ahsan was suspended from the PPP for siding with the lawyers for the reinstatement of the Chief Justice. Nahid Khan, Benazir’s personal secretary for decades and in whose lap Benazir breathed her last, joined the anti-Zardari protests last week. Makhdoom Amin Fahim, who was co-chairperson of the PPP at one point and ran the party while Benazir was in exile, is another former favourite to fall form grace. Israr Shah, who lost a leg during the Karachi bombings and was part of the party’s executive committee, has distanced himself from the party and joined the opposition. The only one from Benazir’s inner coterie who is still around is Farahtullah Babbar, once a powerful PPP party manager. She is now Zardari’s spokesperson, but has little influence.