And today, it is not only a legacy to be inherited but also generational. Second, in India-Pakistan folklore, at least, Bhutto and Gandhi families have enjoyed a rare chemistry.
Whatever might have been his motivations-the young man likely got carried away by the effusive welcome from his American counterpart Antony Blinken-there was no real need to have been so very acerbic. The animosity toward Bilawal was quite out of proportion, but it might have been for two reasons.įirst, there is no question that Bilawal crossed a red line by finger-pointing at Prime Minister Narendra Modi while on a visit to the US instead of doing the right thing by tipping his hat to a senior politician, keeping all options open. From the vicious manner in which External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar tore into Bilawal Bhutto, Delhi may have inadvertently conveyed a preference for the Sharifs. Indeed, what would make the Indian establishment happiest will be whatever provides us with the most net pleasure. Inevitably, the thinking within the security establishment, in particular, will be that the right attitude toward unfolding events-the situation is still evolving-should be, pragmatically speaking, one of hedonistic egoism.
In such a paradigm, the Indian establishment will militate against revisionist thinking. Why would any sensible Indian want a similar fate for Pakistan? In an analogous situation, Iran’s example showed how the ‘fedayeen’ were drawn from groups with both Marxist and religious tendencies-Tudeh Party, in fact, and its various splinter groups even joined the ulama in broad opposition to the Shah’s regime and successfully rallied a society that was at once traditional, conservative, rural and also industrial, modern, and urban-but the leadership of the revolution came into the hands of the religious establishment, which ultimately appropriated state power.
What happens in such uncertain situations is often that the most organised group gains ascendance. How the froth would taste when the fermentation is complete is anybody’s guess. Imran Khan is the charioteer of an unwieldy coalition comprising diverse elements ranging from pro-Taliban Islamists to disenchanted ex-faujis and tens of millions of restive youth heaving with frustrations and fired up by aspirations.
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