Morning News
30 th October 1967
Mr. Bhutto’s Somersault
An actor used to the footlights feels uncomfortable in the wings; it is rarely that he reconciles himself gracefully to a retired life. Mr. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto strutted about for a while assuming for himself an importance that he never had and perhaps even came to persuade himself that he was important. It is not unusual for an actor to identity himself with the role he has to paly, and in such an identification reason has no place. When Mr. Bhutto was sharply reminded that he was playing a role that was assigned him and he should not exceed his limits, he was piqued. He made himself out to be a martyr and tried to evoke sympathy with his aggrieved air.
When this failed, he lay low for a while. Now he has emerged from the shadow and announced that he would form a new party. He is not satisfied with any of the existing parties, in which he would have a secondary role. A new party alone can suit him. He is an actor who insists on playing a role tailored for him. Yet he is prepared to work with other parties. He wants Opposition parties to desist from indulging in mutual recriminations. He thinks that they can work together in areas of agreement and that on issues of disagreement each party could go its own way.
This would be like a marriage of convenience with only the desire for power holding the disparate partners, if at all, together. But Mr. Bhutto strikes a righteous attitude, which ill suits him. “we do not expect something spectacular,” he says. He cannot, but it is not modesty that prompts him to say this. He does not want anything spectacular. He disdains what cannot be his. “we have certainly chosen the hard way,” he declares. He may still have something of the glamour of a pop singer, but the austere way cannot be his. He accuses the Government of shadow boxing but that is exactly what he is doing. He wants others to believe that he is glad to have unburdened himself of his ministerial responsibilities, but when he was relieved of them he took it to heart and still nurses a grievance. He is critical of the Government’s industrial policy. He is in fact critical of many things he stoutly defended not so long ago. He may well cherish the illusion that the Government is not what it was now that he is no longer a minister, but does he expect others to share his illusion? He claims that he left the Convention Muslim League when it developed ‘a permit mentality’. He says, “When all hopes of rejuvenating the party were gone and when the party acquired all the characteristics contradictory to those of the Muslim League of the Quaid-i-Azam. I decided to leave and I am glad that I unburdened myself.” How long was he actively associated with the Muslim League?
He cannot identify himself with those who are interested only in material gains. The soul too has to be cared for. We would not say that he speaks with his tongue in his cheek, but his naivete is amazing. He has great faith in confrontation. What he does not do is to face himself. He does not still agree fully with Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, but he no longer believes him to be a seccessionist, only last year he challenged Sheikh Mujibur Rahman to go with him anywhere in East Pakistan and discuss the six-point programme from the same platform. He had said then that “any talk about reorganisation of the country would mean another Granada for Islam.’ But he was the Foreign Minister and also the Secretary-General of the Muslim League then. He is eating his own words. That is his first performance in his new role of an opposition leader.
সূত্র: সংবাদপত্রে বঙ্গবন্ধু তৃতীয় খণ্ড: ষাটের দশক॥ দ্বিতীয় পর্ব