WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.799 Welcome back to the deep dive. You know, usually 00:00:02.799 --> 00:00:05.139 when we crack open a new topic, we're looking 00:00:05.139 --> 00:00:07.900 at a specific event or maybe a scientific breakthrough 00:00:07.900 --> 00:00:10.460 or a business trend. Right. Something we can 00:00:10.460 --> 00:00:13.859 kind of put in a box. Exactly. But today, today 00:00:13.859 --> 00:00:16.679 we are unpacking a story that honestly feels 00:00:16.679 --> 00:00:20.059 less like a history lesson and more like a. like 00:00:20.059 --> 00:00:22.320 a high stakes political thriller. Written by 00:00:22.320 --> 00:00:25.059 someone who specializes in Greek tragedies. That 00:00:25.059 --> 00:00:27.219 is the perfect way to frame it. It really does 00:00:27.219 --> 00:00:29.859 have everything. Oh, absolutely. You have immense 00:00:29.859 --> 00:00:33.259 intellect. You have soaring rhetoric, a meteoric 00:00:33.259 --> 00:00:36.920 rise to absolute power, and then a fall. A fall 00:00:36.920 --> 00:00:40.479 that is so steep, so controversial, and so tragic 00:00:40.479 --> 00:00:42.539 that it still defines the politics of the region 00:00:42.539 --> 00:00:45.240 today. We are talking about Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, 00:00:45.460 --> 00:00:48.479 Pakistan's ninth prime minister, its fourth president. 00:00:48.990 --> 00:00:51.570 And a man who quite literally rebuilt a nation 00:00:51.570 --> 00:00:54.689 from what he called very small pieces. Only to 00:00:54.689 --> 00:00:56.750 end up being executed by the very state machinery 00:00:56.750 --> 00:00:59.590 he helped to shape. It's a massive topic. I mean, 00:00:59.590 --> 00:01:02.009 Butoh is a figure of such extreme contradiction. 00:01:02.170 --> 00:01:04.609 He really is. Just look at the visuals of his 00:01:04.609 --> 00:01:07.329 life. Here is this, you know, Western educated 00:01:07.329 --> 00:01:10.150 barrister who wore bespoke Savile Rose suits 00:01:10.150 --> 00:01:13.849 and drank scotch. Right. Yet he became the messiah 00:01:13.849 --> 00:01:17.530 for the rural poor. He was the Democrat who gave 00:01:17.530 --> 00:01:19.950 the country its constitution. Yet he had this 00:01:19.950 --> 00:01:23.150 undeniable, almost feudal authoritarian streak. 00:01:23.329 --> 00:01:25.829 And perhaps most famously, and we will definitely 00:01:25.829 --> 00:01:28.510 get into this, he is the man who said his people 00:01:28.510 --> 00:01:31.290 would eat grass if that's what it took to get 00:01:31.290 --> 00:01:33.950 a nuclear bomb. That quote is legendary for a 00:01:33.950 --> 00:01:35.909 reason. And we are going to get into all of it. 00:01:35.950 --> 00:01:39.209 The Islamic bomb, the tragedy of 1971 and the 00:01:39.209 --> 00:01:41.950 breaking of Pakistan, the secret police and the. 00:01:42.359 --> 00:01:44.420 well, what many call the judicial murder that 00:01:44.420 --> 00:01:46.920 ended his life. We're working off a huge stack 00:01:46.920 --> 00:01:49.780 of historical records, biographies, and even 00:01:49.780 --> 00:01:52.319 some recent legal updates to really get under 00:01:52.319 --> 00:01:54.719 the skin of this man. The mission today isn't 00:01:54.719 --> 00:01:57.140 just to recount dates and times. It's to figure 00:01:57.140 --> 00:02:00.540 out how. How does a man this brilliant end up 00:02:00.540 --> 00:02:02.900 in a death cell? What is the psychology behind 00:02:02.900 --> 00:02:05.060 the father of the nuclear bomb, who was also 00:02:05.060 --> 00:02:07.280 the father of this massive populist movement? 00:02:07.439 --> 00:02:10.240 To understand the end, you really have to look 00:02:10.240 --> 00:02:12.430 at the beginning. You have to look at the paradox 00:02:12.430 --> 00:02:15.550 of his birth, because Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto wasn't 00:02:15.550 --> 00:02:17.870 born into the struggle. He was born into immense 00:02:17.870 --> 00:02:20.030 privilege. Right. The source material mentions 00:02:20.030 --> 00:02:22.669 he was from a wealthy Sindhi family with Rajput 00:02:22.669 --> 00:02:26.530 roots. His father, Sir Shahnawaz Bhutto, wasn't 00:02:26.530 --> 00:02:29.310 just a landowner. No, not at all. He was a major 00:02:29.310 --> 00:02:31.909 player during the British Raj. A huge figure. 00:02:32.189 --> 00:02:35.610 Exactly. His father was the Diwan, which is essentially 00:02:35.610 --> 00:02:38.090 the prime minister of the princely state of Junagadh. 00:02:38.400 --> 00:02:41.180 So Zulfikar grows up in this feudal aristocratic 00:02:41.180 --> 00:02:45.120 environment near Larkana. He's a wadara, a feudal 00:02:45.120 --> 00:02:47.740 lord by birth. So servants, hunting cartridges, 00:02:48.020 --> 00:02:51.240 that kind of life. A life of total comfort. But 00:02:51.240 --> 00:02:53.599 then, and this is the key, look at his education. 00:02:53.919 --> 00:02:55.919 He doesn't just stay on the family estate to 00:02:55.919 --> 00:02:58.620 manage the lands. No, he goes global. He heads 00:02:58.620 --> 00:03:00.699 to the University of Southern California and 00:03:00.699 --> 00:03:04.199 then transfers to UC Berkeley in 1949. And this 00:03:04.199 --> 00:03:05.879 is where the story gets really interesting. I 00:03:05.879 --> 00:03:08.740 mean, think about Berkeley in the late 1940s. 00:03:08.740 --> 00:03:11.000 It must have been a vibe. It was. It was a hotbed 00:03:11.000 --> 00:03:13.560 of political thought. And this is a truthful 00:03:13.560 --> 00:03:16.439 nugget that explains so much of his later politics. 00:03:17.120 --> 00:03:19.819 While at Berkeley, completing a degree in political 00:03:19.819 --> 00:03:23.319 science, he became deeply interested in socialism. 00:03:23.800 --> 00:03:26.199 So he's not just, you know, reading Marx in a 00:03:26.199 --> 00:03:28.360 dorm room. No, he was actively engaging with 00:03:28.360 --> 00:03:30.560 it. He was delivering lectures on the feasibility 00:03:30.560 --> 00:03:33.520 of socialism in Islamic countries. Wait, hold 00:03:33.520 --> 00:03:36.360 on. So the seeds of his Islamic socialism platform, 00:03:36.620 --> 00:03:38.379 which becomes his massive calling card later, 00:03:38.479 --> 00:03:40.840 were actually planted way back in his college 00:03:40.840 --> 00:03:44.099 days in California. Precisely. It wasn't just 00:03:44.099 --> 00:03:46.340 some campaign slogan he cooked up to get votes. 00:03:46.479 --> 00:03:49.280 It was an intellectual framework. Yes, one he 00:03:49.280 --> 00:03:52.020 had been building for years. He truly believed 00:03:52.020 --> 00:03:54.780 you could marry the egalitarian principles of 00:03:54.780 --> 00:03:57.500 Islam with the economic redistribution models 00:03:57.500 --> 00:03:59.819 of socialism. And then he tops that off with 00:03:59.819 --> 00:04:01.740 Oxford Christ Church College, where he studies 00:04:01.740 --> 00:04:04.219 jurisprudence. He gets called to the bar at Lincoln's 00:04:04.219 --> 00:04:06.840 Inn. So by the time he returns to Pakistan in 00:04:06.840 --> 00:04:09.699 the 1950s, just look at the package. He has the 00:04:09.699 --> 00:04:11.759 feudal authority of his father, the socialist 00:04:11.759 --> 00:04:14.099 fire of Berkeley, and the legal polish of Oxford. 00:04:14.319 --> 00:04:17.079 He is incredibly articulate, highly educated 00:04:17.079 --> 00:04:19.500 in Western political thought, and... You have 00:04:19.500 --> 00:04:22.720 to assume deeply ambitious. Oh, massively. And 00:04:22.720 --> 00:04:25.120 he wastes no time. He becomes the youngest member 00:04:25.120 --> 00:04:27.519 of the cabinet under President Iskandar Mursa 00:04:27.519 --> 00:04:30.519 and then the military dictator Ayub Khan. Holding 00:04:30.519 --> 00:04:33.860 portfolios like commerce, information. And eventually 00:04:33.860 --> 00:04:36.100 foreign affairs. He was essentially the wonder 00:04:36.100 --> 00:04:38.220 kind of Pakistani politics at that point. OK, 00:04:38.279 --> 00:04:41.160 so as foreign minister starting in 1963, this 00:04:41.160 --> 00:04:43.920 is where we see the first major shift in Pakistan's 00:04:43.920 --> 00:04:46.779 trajectory. Right. A huge shift. Up until then. 00:04:47.259 --> 00:04:49.339 Pakistan was very much in the American camp, 00:04:49.500 --> 00:04:53.819 a loyal anti -Soviet ally. Budo, however, pushed 00:04:53.819 --> 00:04:56.199 for a pivot. He'd look at the map and realize 00:04:56.199 --> 00:04:59.120 that relying solely on the U .S. was, well, it 00:04:59.120 --> 00:05:01.939 was risky. He wanted strategic depth. The sources 00:05:01.939 --> 00:05:04.040 mentioned the Sino -Pakistan agreement. That 00:05:04.040 --> 00:05:06.259 was him. That was Budo. He engineered closer 00:05:06.259 --> 00:05:08.560 ties with China. He realized China was the natural 00:05:08.560 --> 00:05:10.839 counterweight to India. That relationship, which 00:05:10.839 --> 00:05:12.620 is still the cornerstone of Pakistan foreign 00:05:12.620 --> 00:05:15.339 policy today, started with Budo's vision in the 00:05:15.339 --> 00:05:17.850 60s. But this is also where we see the hawk emerge. 00:05:18.230 --> 00:05:20.990 He wasn't just a diplomat shaking hands. He was 00:05:20.990 --> 00:05:23.509 aggressive. Extremely. He was a key architect 00:05:23.509 --> 00:05:26.449 of Operation Gibraltar in 1965. Okay, remind 00:05:26.449 --> 00:05:29.670 us what that was. This was a plan to infiltrate 00:05:29.670 --> 00:05:32.730 covert troops into Indian -administered Kashmir 00:05:32.730 --> 00:05:36.540 to try and incite an uprising. Bhutto convinced 00:05:36.540 --> 00:05:39.379 President Ayub Khan that India wouldn't respond 00:05:39.379 --> 00:05:41.639 with a full -scale war. Which turned out to be 00:05:41.639 --> 00:05:44.980 a massive miscalculation. Huge. India absolutely 00:05:44.980 --> 00:05:48.600 responded. It sparked the 1965 war. And when 00:05:48.600 --> 00:05:50.920 that war ended in a stalemate, though the public 00:05:50.920 --> 00:05:53.879 was told it was a great victory, Ayub Khan went 00:05:53.879 --> 00:05:55.860 to Tashkent to sign a peace treaty with India. 00:05:56.019 --> 00:05:58.540 And this is the moment Bhutto flicks the script. 00:05:58.660 --> 00:06:01.470 Right. The Tashkent Declaration. For Budo, this 00:06:01.470 --> 00:06:03.930 was a betrayal. He felt they had given away at 00:06:03.930 --> 00:06:05.930 the negotiating table what the soldiers had fought 00:06:05.930 --> 00:06:08.290 for on the battlefield. So he resigns. He resigns, 00:06:08.290 --> 00:06:10.029 or was dismissed, depending on who you ask, in 00:06:10.029 --> 00:06:13.120 1966. And this is the turning point. If he stays 00:06:13.120 --> 00:06:15.319 in government, he's just another minister associated 00:06:15.319 --> 00:06:17.980 with a failed war. But by leaving, he becomes 00:06:17.980 --> 00:06:20.800 a martyr. He taps into that anti -Iyub sentiment. 00:06:21.040 --> 00:06:23.079 He goes from being the establishment's golden 00:06:23.079 --> 00:06:25.019 boy to the establishment's biggest nightmare. 00:06:25.180 --> 00:06:27.639 And he launches his own movement. Exactly. The 00:06:27.639 --> 00:06:29.980 Pakistan People's Party, the PPP, is born in 00:06:29.980 --> 00:06:33.720 November 1967. And the slogan he comes up with, 00:06:33.800 --> 00:06:35.879 I mean, it's brilliant in its simplicity and 00:06:35.879 --> 00:06:39.300 power. Islam is our faith. Democracy is our policy. 00:06:39.860 --> 00:06:42.620 Socialism is our economy. All power to the people. 00:06:42.819 --> 00:06:51.319 It resonated because nobody had ever spoken to 00:06:51.319 --> 00:06:53.680 the common man like that before. Pakistani politics 00:06:53.680 --> 00:06:56.509 had always been a... a drawing room affair for 00:06:56.509 --> 00:06:59.089 the elite. Right. Bhutto took it to the streets. 00:06:59.209 --> 00:07:01.629 He unbuttoned his collar, rolled up his sleeves 00:07:01.629 --> 00:07:04.129 and channeled that Berkeley socialism. He united 00:07:04.129 --> 00:07:06.769 leftists, Marxists, students and the rural poor 00:07:06.769 --> 00:07:09.389 under one banner against Ayub Khan. And it worked. 00:07:09.550 --> 00:07:11.410 I mean, it really worked. In the 1970 elections, 00:07:11.670 --> 00:07:14.870 the PPP won a landslide in West Pakistan. But, 00:07:14.910 --> 00:07:16.889 and this is a massive, but they didn't win the 00:07:16.889 --> 00:07:19.990 whole country. No. And this brings us to the 00:07:19.990 --> 00:07:24.220 darkest chapter in this story. The 1970 election 00:07:24.220 --> 00:07:28.240 was the first truly democratic election in Pakistan's 00:07:28.240 --> 00:07:31.699 history. And while Bhutto swept West Pakistan, 00:07:31.980 --> 00:07:35.480 what is Pakistan today? Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's 00:07:35.480 --> 00:07:38.160 Awami League swept East Pakistan. Which is now 00:07:38.160 --> 00:07:41.199 Bangladesh. And because East Pakistan had a larger 00:07:41.199 --> 00:07:43.899 population, Mujib had the absolute majority. 00:07:44.259 --> 00:07:46.899 So by all democratic rules, Sheikh Mujib should 00:07:46.899 --> 00:07:48.699 have been the prime minister of the entire country. 00:07:48.959 --> 00:07:51.790 Yes. But Bhutto... He didn't want to sit on the 00:07:51.790 --> 00:07:53.769 opposition benches. He wouldn't accept it. He 00:07:53.769 --> 00:07:55.569 refused to accept an Awami League government. 00:07:55.810 --> 00:07:58.370 The sources mention some infamous rhetoric here. 00:07:58.769 --> 00:08:01.769 Budo threatened to break the legs of any PPP 00:08:01.769 --> 00:08:03.990 member who dared to go to DACA for the assembly 00:08:03.990 --> 00:08:06.110 session. That is intense. It sounds more like 00:08:06.110 --> 00:08:08.689 a mob boss than a barrister from Oxford. It creates 00:08:08.689 --> 00:08:10.670 a deadlock. Yeah. And there's a famous phrase 00:08:10.670 --> 00:08:14.069 mentioned in the sources. Idhar hum udhartum. 00:08:14.209 --> 00:08:17.129 Meaning, we rule here, you rule there. Essentially 00:08:17.129 --> 00:08:19.449 proposing to partition the government. Before 00:08:19.449 --> 00:08:21.310 the country was even physically partitioned. 00:08:21.310 --> 00:08:24.329 So this deadlock gave the military dictator at 00:08:24.329 --> 00:08:27.389 the time, Yahi Khan, the pretext he needed to 00:08:27.389 --> 00:08:30.170 delay the power transfer. That led to massive 00:08:30.170 --> 00:08:33.230 civil unrest in the east, which led to Operation 00:08:33.230 --> 00:08:36.350 Searchlight. The brutal military crackdown on 00:08:36.350 --> 00:08:39.009 Bengalis. A truly horrific chapter. And the source 00:08:39.009 --> 00:08:41.590 says Budo supported this crackdown initially. 00:08:41.970 --> 00:08:44.250 He was in Dhaka on the night of March 25th when 00:08:44.250 --> 00:08:47.659 the operation started. Reportedly, when he flew 00:08:47.659 --> 00:08:50.740 back to Karachi, he said, Pakistan has been saved. 00:08:50.879 --> 00:08:53.500 Pakistan has been saved. He thought the military 00:08:53.500 --> 00:08:55.679 action would suppress the Bengali nationalist 00:08:55.679 --> 00:08:58.080 movement and preserve the union. Talk about a 00:08:58.080 --> 00:09:00.580 tragic miscalculation. It was catastrophic. Instead 00:09:00.580 --> 00:09:02.759 of saving the union, it led to a full -blown 00:09:02.759 --> 00:09:05.960 civil war, Indian intervention, and a crushing, 00:09:06.100 --> 00:09:09.220 humiliating defeat for Pakistan. The war ends 00:09:09.220 --> 00:09:11.659 with the surrender of the Pakistani army in Dhaka 00:09:11.659 --> 00:09:15.870 in December 1971. The country is split in half. 00:09:16.169 --> 00:09:18.029 It's hard to overstate the trauma of that moment. 00:09:18.090 --> 00:09:20.190 The entire national identity was shattered. And 00:09:20.190 --> 00:09:23.110 Yahi Khan resigns in disgrace. And who is left 00:09:23.110 --> 00:09:26.370 to pick up the pieces? Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. He 00:09:26.370 --> 00:09:28.649 flies back from New York, where he was pleading 00:09:28.649 --> 00:09:31.769 Pakistan's case at the UN, in that very dramatic 00:09:31.769 --> 00:09:34.429 speech where he tears up the papers and storms 00:09:34.429 --> 00:09:36.610 out and lands in Rawalpindi. And on December 00:09:36.610 --> 00:09:39.929 20, 1971, he takes over. He becomes president 00:09:39.929 --> 00:09:42.669 and the first ever civilian chief martial law 00:09:42.669 --> 00:09:45.330 administrator. It's a contradiction in terms, 00:09:45.370 --> 00:09:47.649 but that was the situation. I want to read a 00:09:47.649 --> 00:09:49.710 quote from his address to the nation right after 00:09:49.710 --> 00:09:56.570 he took over. He said, That's a heavy burden. 00:09:56.850 --> 00:10:00.210 The country was demoralized, isolated, and as 00:10:00.210 --> 00:10:03.919 he said, It was his moment of supreme test. And 00:10:03.919 --> 00:10:06.440 honestly, if 1971 was his lowest moral point, 00:10:06.639 --> 00:10:08.879 the diplomatic maneuvering in the years immediately 00:10:08.879 --> 00:10:11.440 following is considered by many to be his masterpiece. 00:10:11.840 --> 00:10:14.179 He had to negotiate with India, the victor. A 00:10:14.179 --> 00:10:17.340 victor who held 93 ,000 Pakistani prisoners of 00:10:17.340 --> 00:10:20.279 war in 5 ,000 square miles of territory. That's 00:10:20.279 --> 00:10:23.139 the Simla Agreement of 1972, right? Yes. And 00:10:23.139 --> 00:10:25.240 just think about the leverage here. India or 00:10:25.240 --> 00:10:27.879 Gandhi holds all the cards. She could have dictated 00:10:27.879 --> 00:10:31.250 any terms. But Bhutto goes to Simla. And he manages 00:10:31.250 --> 00:10:34.110 to negotiate the return of that territory and 00:10:34.110 --> 00:10:37.950 the release of all 93 ,000 POWs without giving 00:10:37.950 --> 00:10:40.730 up much in return. How on earth did he pull that 00:10:40.730 --> 00:10:43.009 off? He played on the psychology of the situation. 00:10:43.269 --> 00:10:46.450 He was brilliant at this. He argued that if India 00:10:46.450 --> 00:10:49.509 humiliated Pakistan too much, his new democratic 00:10:49.509 --> 00:10:51.950 government would fall and the military hawks 00:10:51.950 --> 00:10:53.649 would return. Which wouldn't be good for India 00:10:53.649 --> 00:10:56.389 either. Exactly. He turned his weakness into 00:10:56.389 --> 00:10:58.679 a bargaining chip. He essentially told Gandhi, 00:10:58.840 --> 00:11:00.700 help me stay in power or you'll have to deal 00:11:00.700 --> 00:11:03.059 with someone much worse. It was a psychological 00:11:03.059 --> 00:11:05.460 victory that restored some dignity to a shattered 00:11:05.460 --> 00:11:08.379 nation. OK, so he stabilizes the ship diplomatically, 00:11:08.480 --> 00:11:10.759 but he's also looking at the security situation 00:11:10.759 --> 00:11:14.080 and thinking, never again. This brings us to 00:11:14.080 --> 00:11:16.799 the nuclear program. The Islamic bomb. You have 00:11:16.799 --> 00:11:19.279 to remember the context. Pakistan had just been 00:11:19.279 --> 00:11:21.620 sliced in half by conventional military force. 00:11:21.940 --> 00:11:25.539 Then, in 1974, India tests its first nuclear 00:11:25.539 --> 00:11:28.919 device, codenamed Smiling Buddha. So the threat 00:11:28.919 --> 00:11:32.080 becomes existential for him. Completely. Buddha 00:11:32.080 --> 00:11:35.080 realizes Pakistan cannot compete conventionally 00:11:35.080 --> 00:11:38.200 against India's size. He sees nuclear deterrence 00:11:38.200 --> 00:11:41.460 as the only survival strategy, the only guarantee 00:11:41.460 --> 00:11:43.960 against future dismemberment. This is where that 00:11:43.960 --> 00:11:46.809 famous quote comes in. If India builds the bomb, 00:11:47.029 --> 00:11:49.929 Pakistan will eat grass or leaves, even go hungry, 00:11:50.110 --> 00:11:52.830 but we will get one of our own. And that wasn't 00:11:52.830 --> 00:11:56.070 just rhetoric. He meant every word of it. In 00:11:56.070 --> 00:11:59.429 January 1972, just a month after taking power, 00:11:59.710 --> 00:12:02.350 he convened a secret meeting of scientists in 00:12:02.350 --> 00:12:04.970 Multan. Multan Conference. It sounds like a scene 00:12:04.970 --> 00:12:07.750 from a movie. A secret gathering of the country's 00:12:07.750 --> 00:12:10.309 best scientific minds in a tent. And what does 00:12:10.309 --> 00:12:13.090 he say to them? He looks at them and asks, very 00:12:13.090 --> 00:12:15.549 directly, can you give it to me? When they hesitated, 00:12:15.629 --> 00:12:17.870 talking about costs and technology and timeframes, 00:12:18.049 --> 00:12:20.090 he basically demanded it. He said, I'll find 00:12:20.090 --> 00:12:23.090 the money. You just build it. He mobilized the 00:12:23.090 --> 00:12:25.610 entire state machinery behind this one goal. 00:12:25.990 --> 00:12:27.769 And it's important to clarify something here. 00:12:27.809 --> 00:12:30.190 Popular culture often calls Dr. A .Q. Khan the 00:12:30.190 --> 00:12:32.809 father of the bomb. Right. But the source material 00:12:32.809 --> 00:12:35.649 is very clear. Budo is the true father of the 00:12:35.649 --> 00:12:38.200 program. Why is that distinction made? What's 00:12:38.200 --> 00:12:40.559 the difference? Because A .Q. Khan was a brilliant 00:12:40.559 --> 00:12:42.679 metallurgist who brought the enrichment technology 00:12:42.679 --> 00:12:46.039 from Europe much later. But Budo created the 00:12:46.039 --> 00:12:49.200 political will, the funding, and the administrative 00:12:49.200 --> 00:12:52.080 structure years before Khan was even in the picture. 00:12:52.519 --> 00:12:54.799 He set up the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission. 00:12:55.179 --> 00:12:58.000 He brought in the Nobel laureate Abdus Salam 00:12:58.000 --> 00:13:00.919 to lead the theoretical physics group. He literally 00:13:00.919 --> 00:13:03.039 built the entire infrastructure from scratch. 00:13:03.340 --> 00:13:06.120 So Khan was the engineer, but Budo was the architect. 00:13:06.580 --> 00:13:09.720 A perfect way to put it. Khan provided the key, 00:13:09.860 --> 00:13:12.840 but Budo built the house and the door it unlocked. 00:13:13.259 --> 00:13:15.379 And he paid a heavy price for it diplomatically, 00:13:15.500 --> 00:13:17.879 didn't he? A huge price. Yeah. The U .S. was 00:13:17.879 --> 00:13:20.740 not happy about nuclear proliferation, especially 00:13:20.740 --> 00:13:23.279 in such a volatile region. There's that famous 00:13:23.279 --> 00:13:25.440 account of a meeting with Henry Kissinger in 00:13:25.440 --> 00:13:29.600 1976. Yes. Kissinger reportedly told Butoh that 00:13:29.600 --> 00:13:32.059 if he didn't dismantle the nuclear program, the 00:13:32.059 --> 00:13:34.559 U .S. would make a horrible example of him. Make 00:13:34.559 --> 00:13:36.840 a horrible example of you? That is chilling, 00:13:36.940 --> 00:13:39.200 considering what happens just a year later. It 00:13:39.200 --> 00:13:43.299 is. But Butoh refused to back down. He saw the 00:13:43.299 --> 00:13:46.100 nuclear capability as non -negotiable for Pakistan's 00:13:46.100 --> 00:13:49.059 sovereignty. He even called it the Islamic bomb. 00:13:49.320 --> 00:13:51.559 Was that just branding? It was very clever branding. 00:13:51.720 --> 00:13:54.360 It was a way to garner support and, crucially, 00:13:54.500 --> 00:13:57.059 funding from wealthy Arab nations like Libya 00:13:57.059 --> 00:13:59.980 and Saudi Arabia. He framed it as a deterrent 00:13:59.980 --> 00:14:02.500 not just for Pakistan, but for the entire Muslim 00:14:02.500 --> 00:14:04.919 world. Let's shift gears to what he was doing 00:14:04.919 --> 00:14:07.820 inside the country. He promised, socialism is 00:14:07.820 --> 00:14:09.919 our economy. What did that look like in practice? 00:14:10.590 --> 00:14:13.600 It looked like massive nationalization. In 1972, 00:14:13.940 --> 00:14:16.620 he started taking over key industries, steel, 00:14:16.879 --> 00:14:20.360 chemicals, cement. Then in 1974, he nationalized 00:14:20.360 --> 00:14:22.279 all the private banks. The idea was to break 00:14:22.279 --> 00:14:24.519 the monopoly of the rich, right? The source mentions 00:14:24.519 --> 00:14:26.960 the 22 families who controlled almost all the 00:14:26.960 --> 00:14:29.259 country's wealth. Exactly. He wanted to redistribute 00:14:29.259 --> 00:14:31.580 that wealth. And in some ways, he did empower 00:14:31.580 --> 00:14:33.820 the labor unions. He introduced land reforms, 00:14:34.120 --> 00:14:36.860 setting ceilings on how much land a single person 00:14:36.860 --> 00:14:39.120 could own. Which must have upset his own feudal 00:14:39.120 --> 00:14:41.659 class. Oh, it did. He was a feudal lord taking 00:14:41.659 --> 00:14:44.220 on the feudal... It's another one of his contradictions. 00:14:44.340 --> 00:14:47.279 He also gave workers new rights to pensions and 00:14:47.279 --> 00:14:49.639 Social Security. But there was a downside to 00:14:49.639 --> 00:14:52.960 all this nationalization. A big one. The implementation 00:14:52.960 --> 00:14:55.759 was chaotic. It scared away private investors, 00:14:55.919 --> 00:14:58.559 both domestic and foreign. And then he made a 00:14:58.559 --> 00:15:01.539 critical error. He went after the small flour 00:15:01.539 --> 00:15:04.539 mills, rice husking units, and cotton ginning 00:15:04.539 --> 00:15:08.049 factories. Why was that such a big error? Because 00:15:08.049 --> 00:15:11.149 now he wasn't just hurting the big tycoons. He 00:15:11.149 --> 00:15:13.070 was hurting the middle class and the small business 00:15:13.070 --> 00:15:15.769 owners who formed the backbone of the rural economy. 00:15:15.929 --> 00:15:18.090 And the bureaucracy wasn't ready to run all these 00:15:18.090 --> 00:15:20.629 businesses. Not at all. Production stalled and 00:15:20.629 --> 00:15:22.970 corruption increased. It damaged the economy 00:15:22.970 --> 00:15:25.129 significantly in the long run. But amidst this 00:15:25.129 --> 00:15:27.730 economic turmoil, he managed to pull off something 00:15:27.730 --> 00:15:32.139 no one else had. The 1973 Constitution. This 00:15:32.139 --> 00:15:34.820 is arguably his most enduring positive legacy. 00:15:35.000 --> 00:15:37.960 Before 1973, Pakistan was running on interim 00:15:37.960 --> 00:15:40.419 arrangements or martial law orders. There was 00:15:40.419 --> 00:15:42.659 no consensus. And he got everyone to agree. He 00:15:42.659 --> 00:15:45.500 managed to get all political parties, the religious 00:15:45.500 --> 00:15:48.240 ones, the secular ones, the regional ones, to 00:15:48.240 --> 00:15:51.320 agree on a single document. It established Pakistan 00:15:51.320 --> 00:15:55.259 as a parliamentary democracy. It's the Constitution 00:15:55.259 --> 00:15:58.200 that, despite all the amendments and suspensions 00:15:58.200 --> 00:16:00.840 over the years, is still in force today. And 00:16:00.840 --> 00:16:03.820 as part of that, he shifts from president to 00:16:03.820 --> 00:16:06.559 prime minister. Yes, he pivots to the parliamentary 00:16:06.559 --> 00:16:09.580 system that he himself created. And he also opened 00:16:09.580 --> 00:16:11.980 up the world to the common man, quite literally, 00:16:12.120 --> 00:16:15.480 with passports. Yes, the passport reform. This 00:16:15.480 --> 00:16:16.639 is one of those things that doesn't get enough 00:16:16.639 --> 00:16:19.320 credit, but it was revolutionary. Before Budo, 00:16:19.480 --> 00:16:22.080 getting a passport was a privilege reserved for 00:16:22.080 --> 00:16:24.480 the elite. You had to be someone important. Right. 00:16:24.600 --> 00:16:27.259 He made it a right for every citizen. This triggered 00:16:27.259 --> 00:16:29.620 a massive wave of labor migration to the Gulf 00:16:29.620 --> 00:16:32.919 states. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, all those places 00:16:32.919 --> 00:16:35.120 were booming. Which created the remittance economy 00:16:35.120 --> 00:16:38.200 that Pakistan relies on even now. Exactly. All 00:16:38.200 --> 00:16:40.059 those workers sending money back home to their 00:16:40.059 --> 00:16:42.259 families, that huge flow to foreign exchange, 00:16:42.600 --> 00:16:45.720 it all started with Budo's simple policy of giving 00:16:45.720 --> 00:16:48.440 everyone a passport. So we have a man who gives 00:16:48.440 --> 00:16:51.360 the country a constitution, a nuclear deterrent, 00:16:51.360 --> 00:16:54.240 and empowers the working class. But then there's 00:16:54.240 --> 00:16:57.100 the Greek tragedy flaw, the authoritarian streak, 00:16:57.340 --> 00:17:00.159 the hubris. It's the classic tragedy of a populist 00:17:00.159 --> 00:17:02.299 leader. He loved the people in the abstract, 00:17:02.419 --> 00:17:04.579 but he didn't tolerate dissent from individuals. 00:17:05.259 --> 00:17:08.059 And to enforce his will, he created the Federal 00:17:08.059 --> 00:17:11.819 Security Force, the FSF. What was the FSF? Ostensibly, 00:17:11.880 --> 00:17:13.759 it was to help the police with law and order. 00:17:13.859 --> 00:17:16.799 In reality, it became a paramilitary force under 00:17:16.799 --> 00:17:19.220 his direct control, completely loyal to him. 00:17:19.319 --> 00:17:21.480 So his personal muscle. His personal muscle. 00:17:21.640 --> 00:17:23.500 They were used to harass political opponents, 00:17:23.779 --> 00:17:26.079 break up protests, and intimidate journalists. 00:17:26.640 --> 00:17:30.079 And then there's Balochistan. Yes. In 1973, he 00:17:30.079 --> 00:17:31.859 dismissed the elected provincial government in 00:17:31.859 --> 00:17:34.480 Balochistan, which was run by an opposition party. 00:17:34.680 --> 00:17:37.700 This triggered a massive insurgency. And how 00:17:37.700 --> 00:17:40.099 did he respond? He responded with the full force 00:17:40.099 --> 00:17:43.160 of the military. It was a brutal, bloody conflict 00:17:43.160 --> 00:17:47.200 that lasted from 1973 to 1977 and created deep 00:17:47.200 --> 00:17:49.799 scars that still haven't healed. The source mentions 00:17:49.799 --> 00:17:51.940 a really specific incident involving the Iraqi 00:17:51.940 --> 00:17:54.099 embassy that just sounds wild. Tell us about 00:17:54.099 --> 00:17:56.490 that. This is that spy thriller element of his 00:17:56.490 --> 00:18:00.829 story again. In 1973, Budo's intelligence discovered 00:18:00.829 --> 00:18:03.230 that Iraq which was then under Saddam Hussein, 00:18:03.410 --> 00:18:06.289 was secretly smuggling weapons to the Baloch 00:18:06.289 --> 00:18:09.349 separatists to destabilize Pakistan. So what 00:18:09.349 --> 00:18:12.069 did he do? Send a diplomatic note? No, no. He 00:18:12.069 --> 00:18:13.630 didn't just send an angry letter. He ordered 00:18:13.630 --> 00:18:16.789 an armed raid on the Iraqi embassy in Islamabad. 00:18:17.009 --> 00:18:19.730 A raid on a foreign embassy? That's a huge diplomatic 00:18:19.730 --> 00:18:22.509 breach. It is, but it paid off. They broke in 00:18:22.509 --> 00:18:25.069 and found crates and crates of Soviet submachine 00:18:25.069 --> 00:18:27.450 guns and ammunition destined for the rebels. 00:18:27.670 --> 00:18:30.250 And he didn't keep it quiet. Of course not. This 00:18:30.250 --> 00:18:33.190 is Budo. He paraded the weapons on national television. 00:18:33.369 --> 00:18:36.430 It humiliated Iraq, and more importantly, it 00:18:36.430 --> 00:18:38.690 cemented Budo's alliance with the Shah of Iran, 00:18:38.950 --> 00:18:41.470 who was also terrified of Balak separatism on 00:18:41.470 --> 00:18:43.690 his border. So the Shah then helped him crush 00:18:43.690 --> 00:18:46.690 the insurgency. Exactly. The Shah provided financial 00:18:46.690 --> 00:18:49.230 aid and even Cobra helicopters. Budo was playing 00:18:49.230 --> 00:18:51.710 4D chess on the international stage. Speaking 00:18:51.710 --> 00:18:53.950 of the international stage, he also hosted that 00:18:53.950 --> 00:18:57.690 massive Islamic summit in Lahore in 1974. The 00:18:57.690 --> 00:19:00.970 OIC summit. That was Budo at his absolute peak. 00:19:01.309 --> 00:19:05.049 He gathered heads of state from 37 Muslim countries. 00:19:05.910 --> 00:19:08.650 Gaddafi, King Faisal, Yasser Arafat, they were 00:19:08.650 --> 00:19:11.390 all there in Lahore. It was a huge moment. It 00:19:11.390 --> 00:19:13.890 was. He was positioning Pakistan not just as 00:19:13.890 --> 00:19:16.369 a South Asian country, but as the leader of the 00:19:16.369 --> 00:19:19.609 entire Islamic world. It was a moment of immense 00:19:19.609 --> 00:19:22.250 national pride and put him on the global map 00:19:22.250 --> 00:19:25.269 as a major statesman. So he's on top of the world 00:19:25.269 --> 00:19:29.329 in 1974. But by 1977, things start to crumble. 00:19:29.509 --> 00:19:32.769 What happened? The 1977 elections. Budo called 00:19:32.769 --> 00:19:35.109 for elections, confident he would win. And honestly, 00:19:35.269 --> 00:19:36.490 he probably would have won a fair fight anyway. 00:19:36.509 --> 00:19:38.250 He was still very popular. But he got paranoid. 00:19:38.549 --> 00:19:41.640 His party operatives did. The opposition, a nine 00:19:41.640 --> 00:19:44.200 -party coalition called the PNA, Pakistan National 00:19:44.200 --> 00:19:47.039 Alliance, was gaining ground. They were a mix 00:19:47.039 --> 00:19:49.500 of religious and secular parties united only 00:19:49.500 --> 00:19:51.640 by their hatred of Budo. And the results come 00:19:51.640 --> 00:19:54.279 in? And they show a massive, unbelievable landslide 00:19:54.279 --> 00:19:57.099 for the PPP. The PNA alleged massive systematic 00:19:57.099 --> 00:19:59.319 rigging. They pointed to constituencies where 00:19:59.319 --> 00:20:01.660 Budo's people won with impossible margins, where 00:20:01.660 --> 00:20:04.039 the number of votes cast was more than the number 00:20:04.039 --> 00:20:06.339 of registered voters. So the opposition cried 00:20:06.339 --> 00:20:09.319 foul. They did more than that. They launched 00:20:09.319 --> 00:20:12.420 a nationwide agitation. Street protests, violence, 00:20:12.599 --> 00:20:14.839 burning cars. They called for Budo's resignation. 00:20:15.500 --> 00:20:17.859 The country was paralyzed for months. And when 00:20:17.859 --> 00:20:20.019 there's chaos in Pakistan, usually the military. 00:20:20.259 --> 00:20:23.099 The military steps in. And this is where we meet 00:20:23.099 --> 00:20:26.200 General Zia -ul -Haq. Now, this is a crucial 00:20:26.200 --> 00:20:29.319 detail. Budo had appointed Zia as army chief 00:20:29.319 --> 00:20:32.640 over several more senior generals. Why? He picked 00:20:32.640 --> 00:20:35.420 him because he thought Zia was apolitical, pious, 00:20:35.559 --> 00:20:38.950 and most importantly, completely loyal. He saw 00:20:38.950 --> 00:20:41.809 him as a sycophant. Budo reportedly even referred 00:20:41.809 --> 00:20:44.609 to him as his monkey. Big mistake. Never underestimate 00:20:44.609 --> 00:20:48.710 the quiet ones. A fatal mistake. On July 5, 1977, 00:20:49.150 --> 00:20:51.569 Zia launched Operation Fair Play. Fair Play. 00:20:51.750 --> 00:20:55.250 The irony is rich. He declared martial law, arrested 00:20:55.250 --> 00:20:57.390 Budo and the opposition leaders, and promised 00:20:57.390 --> 00:20:59.890 to hold elections in 90 days. A promise he didn't 00:20:59.890 --> 00:21:01.950 keep. Zia never held those elections in 90 days. 00:21:02.109 --> 00:21:04.390 He quickly realized something very simple. If 00:21:04.390 --> 00:21:06.769 he released Budo, Budo would likely win the election. 00:21:07.150 --> 00:21:08.950 And if Bhutto won, he would almost certainly 00:21:08.950 --> 00:21:11.509 try Zia for treason for launching the coup. So 00:21:11.509 --> 00:21:13.430 it became a zero -sum game. One of them had to 00:21:13.430 --> 00:21:16.230 go. Exactly. The mission changed from holding 00:21:16.230 --> 00:21:19.730 elections to eliminating Bhutto. But they couldn't 00:21:19.730 --> 00:21:21.329 just shoot him. That would make him a martyr 00:21:21.329 --> 00:21:23.710 instantly. They needed to do it through the courts 00:21:23.710 --> 00:21:26.650 to give it a veneer of legitimacy. This leads 00:21:26.650 --> 00:21:28.769 us to the trial. The charge wasn't corruption 00:21:28.769 --> 00:21:32.609 or treason. It was murder. Yes. The murder of 00:21:32.609 --> 00:21:36.009 Nawab Mohammed Ahmed Khan Kasuri. He was the 00:21:36.009 --> 00:21:39.589 father of a dissident PPP politician, Ahmed Raza 00:21:39.589 --> 00:21:42.789 Kasuri. The car they were in was ambushed in 00:21:42.789 --> 00:21:46.890 1974. The target was supposedly the son, who 00:21:46.890 --> 00:21:49.230 was a vocal critic of Bhutto, but the father 00:21:49.230 --> 00:21:51.089 was killed in the attack. And they pinned this 00:21:51.089 --> 00:21:53.490 on Bhutto. They charged him with authorizing 00:21:53.490 --> 00:21:55.609 the hit, based on the testimony of the former 00:21:55.609 --> 00:21:57.829 head of his FSF, who had turned state's witness. 00:21:58.089 --> 00:22:00.410 And the trial itself. It's widely regarded as 00:22:00.410 --> 00:22:03.029 a sham. The source calls it a judicial murder. 00:22:03.549 --> 00:22:05.630 The witnesses were pressured. The judges were 00:22:05.630 --> 00:22:08.150 handpicked by Zia. The chief judge even had a 00:22:08.150 --> 00:22:11.750 known personal vendetta against Butoh. Ramsey 00:22:11.750 --> 00:22:13.769 Clark, the former U .S. Attorney General, observed 00:22:13.769 --> 00:22:15.730 the proceedings and called it unjust. And the 00:22:15.730 --> 00:22:18.930 verdict? Guilty. But it was incredibly close. 00:22:19.589 --> 00:22:21.890 The Lahore High Court sentenced him to death, 00:22:22.009 --> 00:22:24.349 and the Supreme Court upheld the sentence by 00:22:24.349 --> 00:22:27.450 a narrow split decision of four to three. Four 00:22:27.450 --> 00:22:30.890 to three. One vote decided the fate of a prime 00:22:30.890 --> 00:22:33.690 minister. One vote. It's staggering. The descriptions 00:22:33.690 --> 00:22:35.650 of his time in the death cell are heartbreaking. 00:22:36.069 --> 00:22:39.049 The source mentions torture, poor conditions, 00:22:39.430 --> 00:22:42.009 him wasting away. It was designed to break him. 00:22:42.089 --> 00:22:44.890 He was made of immense vanity and dignity, always 00:22:44.890 --> 00:22:47.109 well -dressed, always in control, and they stripped 00:22:47.109 --> 00:22:49.549 all of that away. He was kept in a stinking damp 00:22:49.549 --> 00:22:52.730 cell, yet he refused to beg for mercy. He wouldn't 00:22:52.730 --> 00:22:55.210 appeal for clemency? He refused to do it personally. 00:22:55.529 --> 00:22:58.279 World leaders pleaded for his life. Brezhnev 00:22:58.279 --> 00:23:00.819 from the Soviet Union, the Pope, President Jimmy 00:23:00.819 --> 00:23:03.980 Carter, but Zia was unmoved. Zia famously said, 00:23:04.059 --> 00:23:06.599 there is one grave for two bodies. He knew it 00:23:06.599 --> 00:23:10.519 was him or Butoh. And on April 4th, 1979, he 00:23:10.519 --> 00:23:13.059 was hanged in Rolpindi District Jail. His final 00:23:13.059 --> 00:23:15.400 words were reportedly, oh Lord, help me for I 00:23:15.400 --> 00:23:17.839 am innocent. It's such a heavy ending. But the 00:23:17.839 --> 00:23:20.019 story didn't end there, did it? Decades later, 00:23:20.119 --> 00:23:21.920 the legal system actually admitted they got it 00:23:21.920 --> 00:23:24.630 wrong. That's the incredible postscript. In March 00:23:24.630 --> 00:23:27.849 2024, just recently, the Supreme Court of Pakistan 00:23:27.849 --> 00:23:30.670 finally issued an opinion on a presidential reference 00:23:30.670 --> 00:23:34.009 filed years earlier. They officially acknowledged 00:23:34.009 --> 00:23:37.230 that Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto did not get a fair trial. 00:23:37.450 --> 00:23:40.490 It was an institutional mea culpa. A mea culpa. 00:23:40.690 --> 00:23:44.029 45 years too late. But it was a formal recognition 00:23:44.029 --> 00:23:46.609 that the state had committed a historic injustice. 00:23:47.089 --> 00:23:49.589 So what does this all mean when you put it all 00:23:49.589 --> 00:23:52.339 together? We have a man who gave the country 00:23:52.339 --> 00:23:55.059 the constitution it still uses, who built the 00:23:55.059 --> 00:23:57.119 nuclear program that defines its security policy, 00:23:57.380 --> 00:23:59.960 who awakened the political consciousness of the 00:23:59.960 --> 00:24:02.599 poor. But he also played a key role in the breaking 00:24:02.599 --> 00:24:05.839 of the country in 1971, ruled like a feudal lord 00:24:05.839 --> 00:24:08.740 with a private army, and left a legacy of deep, 00:24:08.819 --> 00:24:11.559 bitter polarization that his own daughter Benazir 00:24:11.559 --> 00:24:14.829 inherited. That is the Buddha paradox. You can't 00:24:14.829 --> 00:24:17.089 separate the builder from the destroyer. He was 00:24:17.089 --> 00:24:20.089 a Shakespearean figure in the truest sense, immensely 00:24:20.089 --> 00:24:22.750 talented, but deeply flawed by his own hubris. 00:24:22.910 --> 00:24:25.029 He empowered the masses with his voice, with 00:24:25.029 --> 00:24:28.690 that slogan, Roti Capra Makan, but he crushed 00:24:28.690 --> 00:24:30.329 individuals with his power. And there's that 00:24:30.329 --> 00:24:33.009 lingering, what if? That's the question historians 00:24:33.009 --> 00:24:35.930 still debate. If Buddha hadn't been executed, 00:24:36.250 --> 00:24:39.009 if he'd been allowed to live, even in exile. 00:24:39.579 --> 00:24:42.599 Would Pakistan have avoided the long, dark years 00:24:42.599 --> 00:24:46.019 of Zia's dictatorship that followed? The Islamization, 00:24:46.319 --> 00:24:49.259 the involvement in the Afghan jihad. All of that 00:24:49.259 --> 00:24:51.380 happened because Boud was removed from the picture. 00:24:51.559 --> 00:24:54.940 Or was Boud's own authoritarianism the very thing 00:24:54.940 --> 00:24:57.220 that weakened the civilian institutions enough 00:24:57.220 --> 00:24:59.380 for the military to walk right back in? Exactly. 00:24:59.559 --> 00:25:01.220 Did he plant the seeds of his own destruction? 00:25:01.660 --> 00:25:03.740 It's a question without an easy answer. The question 00:25:03.740 --> 00:25:05.980 will leave you to mull over. It's been a heavy, 00:25:06.000 --> 00:25:08.039 deep dive, but a necessary one to understand 00:25:08.039 --> 00:25:10.299 the region today. Thanks for listening. Thank 00:25:10.299 --> 00:25:10.460 you