Beyond the borders: separated by history, joined by horoscopes

The triumph and tragedies of the families of several Indian and Pakistani politicians are strangely similar

say award winner.

Imran now appears within striking range of the PM’S office; Sharif, his arch rival, felled by his profligate family and the collective wrath of the civil-military establishment. The deposed prime minister’s detractors are aided in full measure by an overzealous head of the judiciary who brooks no constitutionally-drawn jurisdictional boundaries.

Imran doesn’t like being called a Kejriwal clone as his anti-graft movement predates the Aam Aadmi Party. Yet, their whims, work styles and penchant for theatrics show them as separated at birth! However, there’s a distinction. The once rebellious PTI chief looks a conformist, a veritable child of the establishment, while taking guard for polls slated in the second half of July. For his part, Kejriwal remains, in his disregard of hierarchy, the anarchist that he always was.

ZAB and Indira’s great grandsons too have experiences to share. Benazir’s son Bilawal is struggling to revive the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) in the face of an acute leadership deficit and the party’s shrinking support base. In India, Rahul’s task is cut out as much. He also has to restore the Indian National Congress’s diminishing expanse.

On either side of the border, detractors of these fourth-generation politicians are using innuendoes and insinuations to dent their charisma. They paint them as dynasts devoid of political acumen.

In the free-for-all that drives sub-continental politics, there’s little or no empathy for their traumatised childhoods, the tragedies they suffered in their growing years. Their rivals deride and deconstruct them on a daily basis, knowing well that they’re the sheet-anchors without whom their parties would splinter and sink.

The Bhutto name’s identification with the party ZAB founded is as undeniable as that of the Congress with the Gandhis. A testimony to that is the stock war cry of PPP supporters locally referred to as jiyalas: “Ye baazi khoon ki baazi hai, ye baazi tum hi haro ge, har ghar se Bhutto niklega, tum kitne Bhutto maroge.” (The slogan is addressed to and taunts the Pakistani deep state that ‘stage managed’ ZAB’S hanging. It tells them that they will lose the bloody battle they have unleashed: “There will be a Bhutto coming out of every home. How many Bhuttos will you kill?”)

The inspiration, as already explained, is ZAB’S hanging described as ‘judicial murder’ by his daughter, Benazir, who herself fell to an assassin in 2007. Her brothers — Shahnawaz and Murtaza — also had died in mysterious circumstances in the south of France and in Karachi respectively. The latter’s wife, Ghinwa, of Lebanese-syrian origin, is estranged from other members of the extended Bhutto family, as is the case with Sanjay Gandhi’s wife Maneka. Flashback the Indian story and you’d remember that Indira and her elder son, Rajiv, were assassinated. That was after Sanjay, her original political heir, died in a mysterious plane crash.

Fate obviously duplicates horoscopes. Or is it the other way round?