‘For a series of people I must be eliminated’

Benazir was always loyal to her friends, open minded and secular. We were friendly for more than 30 years. She fascinated me from the first day I met her as a fellow student at Oxford. She was campaigning for the university to award her father an honorary degree and at that time I led the student opposition disgusted by what we saw as Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s ignoble role in persecuting Sheikh Mujib and his followers.

As associations go, ours started off on the wrong foot with a shouting match outside Wadham College, Oxford. The issue was this honorary degree that she was so determined to secure for her father. For the best part of six months after that exchange there was silence and mutual hostility. Then out of the blue came an invitation to a drinks party hosted jointly by Benazir and Peter Galbraith, another fellow student and the son of the former US ambassador to India, John Kenneth Galbraith.

“So you have stopped speaking to me?” Benazir inquired when I showed up for the reception to help launch her career in Oxford student politics. “Pinky” (her pet name), I replied in Urdu. “Who am I to ignore a Shahzadi?” We remained on friendly terms from then onwards.

A few years later, after her father was hanged and Benazir herself was placed under house arrest and later exiled, I interviewed Pakistan’s military dictator General Zia-ul Haq several times for the London Observer. At the first interview and all subsequent interviews, I always asked when he was going to let Benazir return home to Pakistan.

At our last interview Zia told me, “Mr Bhatia, your wish has finally been granted, Benazir is being allowed to return home.” When I asked him why, he replied, “Democracy is a bitter pill we must swallow.” Someone must have repeated this conversation to Benazir as evidence of my loyalty to her. When she did fly back to Lahore in 1986, she arranged for me to ride with her in the lead lorry that took us to the Minar-e-Pakistan where she addressed a million strong rally, asking the adoring crowd, “Zia avey avey, ya Zia javey, javey?” (should Zia come or should Zia go ?) The crowd roared back, “Javey, javey.”

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