Since the lapse of the British colonial rule, both India and Pakistan have lost some of their most outstanding leaders to violent death. India was able to contain the adverse impact of such tragedies better because its institutions were much stronger and the roots of democracy in its political class much deeper. In Pakistan, the assassination of the first prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, soon after independence turned out to be a major setback to the nascent nation-building process. In subsequent history, the hanging of Zulfiqar Ali Bhuttto in the wake of a military coup d'etat and the sudden, hitherto unexplained, death of General Zia-ul Haq created crises that have never been resolved.
Now in the tragic death of Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan may have suffered a bigger body blow. She has been cut down when she had, with extraordinary courage, given up her safe and secure exile in UAE to return home in response to a call that she alone could lead her people out of the chaos enveloping them since March 2007.
She was often described as a great political strategist with an uncanny gift of timing her moves. But I know that her decision was above all an act of faith, of acceptance of destiny and of submission to the will of God.
I met her in Dubai on May 16 last year after a long period bereft of a personal opportunity to assess how years of persecution had affected her thinking. There was not the slightest touch of bitterness or of political vendetta. Pakistan, she felt, was heading for destruction and she was not going to watch it idly.
Sensing that her long absence from Pakistan might have stood in the way of a realistic awareness of the perils that awaited her there, I spoke to her about them candidly. She understood them all but wanted me to remember that she was no more afraid of death than her illustrious father. I left her with foreboding which never went away, not even when she signalled her readiness to work with General Pervez Musharraf to usher in a new democratic era in Pakistan. This daughter of Pakistan was also the daughter of Duty and nothing would make her flinch from it.
Perhaps the burden was too heavy to ignore. She alone had the charisma needed to talk to all the peoples of a land facing discord and division. There is a mystical aspect to this strange attribute of human leadership and she had it in great abundance.
Strengthened the covenant
Not even the death of more than 150 of her followers in the ghastly bombing of the historic procession upon her return on October 18 deterred her people from flocking to subsequent addresses in all parts of the country. Each passing day strengthened the covenant with the masses and, as I had warned her, every success increased the danger to her life.
The covenant was not just of those misty heights of imagination and passion where reason gets obscured. It was also rooted in the memory of her politics. Like other human beings she was prone to error but nobody in Pakistan, not even her worst critics, could ever say that she ever weakened in her commitment to the unity of the country.
In a polity that remained brittle, she was a solid symbol of the federation. With her around, Pakistan would never face a crisis like the one in 1970. This is what brought millions to her meetings and made them hang on every word that she uttered.
For her to be the beautiful princess of hope that she was for a vast majority of the 160 million Pakistanis, there was another reason too.
A decade of slander directed against her had made hardly any dent in the perception of the toiling masses of her impoverished nation that she cared for them and that her homecoming meant a better tomorrow for them.
Her legacy, they believed passionately, was that of her father's promise that every member of Pakistan's sprawling under-class could aspire to food, shelter, education and health care. In her return lay an opportunity to peacefully redress the frightening imbalances of the economic elitism of several years. The terrible damage inflicted upon private property, banks and government installations by mobs outraged by her assassination was an index of what happens when this hope perishes.
Benazir Bhutto was expected to bring peace within by promoting national reconciliation and peace abroad by opening a new chapter in relations with neighbours. This expectation was widely shared. Upon her death, President Karzai, who met her hours before she was struck down, ordered the flag of Afghanistan to fly half- mast. Gracious and sympathetic words streamed across the border from India. Pakistan needed her charisma, her unrivalled ability to relate with people, her tireless "sisterly" relationship with the people that became the locus of the political support she asked of them, her openness to the demands of our age, and in no small a measure, her extraordinary diplomatic skills.
I travelled with her to tens of capitals -from our second homes in the Arab world to lands that were not happy with Pakistan's policies - and I saw her modulate her communication to every change of inflection.
I remember her giving a highly professional presentation on India-Pakistan relations to President Hafeez Al Assad. The veteran warrior said that this being done it was time for him to speak to her about war and peace like a father, who had seen far too much of war, to a daughter who he hoped would never have to see it the same way.
This was a moment for a new semantics, a new commitment to peace, and an event which she often recalled in subsequent conversations with me. Pakistan could have it all but lost it in a flash of hell that would haunt it for decades.
Cry my beloved land.
Tanvir Ahmad Khan is a former foreign secretary of Pakistan.
