Bhutto tomb still draws crowds as Pakistanis bring children to pay respects to slain leader
January 05, 2008
Sonya Fatah
THE TORONTO STAR
GARHI KHUDA BAKHSH, Pakistan–The dust has settled around the Bhutto mausoleum a week after hundreds of thousands flocked here to witness the burial of slain Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.
Inside the elaborate structure reminiscent of Mughal splendour, some 200 people gather around Bhutto’s grave, sprinkling the damp mud with rose petals that spill over onto the speckled marble floor.
The numbers have dwindled since the early days after Bhutto’s assassination, but with one more Bhutto buried here the family’s legendary draw is likely to continue attracting a steady stream of loyalists.
Of those gathered inside yesterday, several were from Garhi Khuda Bakhsh, where the mausoleum stands in Sindh province. Others had walked or hitched rides to get here to pay their final respects.
“I’ve come here every day since Mohtarma Benazir was buried,” said Satora Bibi, 60, who works in the fields and lives in a packed mud house beside the marble edifice that houses the graves of Bhutto family members.
“I’ve been coming here regularly since Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was martyred,” she said, weeping at the memory of the former prime minister and founder of the Pakistan Peoples Party. “I come for (Benazir Bhutto’s brothers) Shah Nawaz and Murtaza as well.”
The village is abuzz every year on April 4, the day in 1979 when Gen. Zia ul Haq hanged Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto.Benazir Bhutto’s Dec. 27 death is likely to become another observed date.
The original mausoleum built to house the senior Bhutto’s family, not far from his home district of Larkana, was constructed quite simply. Later, Benazir Bhutto enlarged the structure significantly, and a miniature Taj Mahal was born.
“I used to come to listen to her speak here,” said Nabi Bakhsh, 60, who is from Sukkur. “She had the ground in front of the mausoleum cleared and she would address the thousands of people gathered here against this magnificent backdrop. It was worth watching.”
In a country with a rich culture of shrines and Sufi saints who are worshipped by communities large and small, Bhutto’s mausoleum has also become something of a shrine. There is always a steady stream of local and other travellers stopping to rest on the cool marble floors under the arched doorways and high ceilings.
“I remember when our martyred leader, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was buried, the military blocked the roads,” said Satora Bibi. “We couldn’t even get near. At least this time we haven’t been stopped.”
Many children followed their weeping parents and grandparents, to stand by Bhutto’s grave yesterday. For this generation, the collective Bhutto legacy will likely be transferred by word of mouth, a kind of oral history.
“I feel sad,” said Saima Ali Gul, 10, talking about Bhutto. “She was so beautiful.”
Beside her, an elderly woman began to wail. “Oh Allah! Oh Allah,” she grieved. “What will we do? What will us poor people do? Benazir is no more.”
Among those gathered, no one questioned their poverty or why their leaders lived mere kilometres away in luxury at the Bhutto mansion in Naudero.
Neither the past nor the future mattered to some who felt Bhutto’s loss has thrown the country into the depths of despair.
“It doesn’t look good,” said Yasir Bhutto, 23, a student at Shah Latif Government College in Shikarpur, about 50 kilometres away.
“I am deeply, deeply sad,” he added as tears welled up in his eyes. “I don’t know what our future is. I feel like my heart is flying out of Pakistan.”
His friend, Mukesh Kumar, a shopkeeper in the same town, laid a blanket of roses strung together with tinsel over Bhutto’s grave. He, too, agreed. “We had complete and total hope in her.”
There were optimists, too.
“I have come here to remember Bhutto,” said Zulfiqar Ali Rahujo from Larkana, who runs the group Liberal Forum Pakistan. “I will keep coming here to remember our leaders so I can have hope and faith in our struggle for democracy, rule of law and tolerance.”
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