Tilak Devasher

power flowed from the barrel of the gun that was in the hands of his supposed friend Ayub Khan.

Bhutto met Iskander Mirza in London after the 1965 war. When Mirza asked him: ‘Zulfi, you know the size of India. Pakistan could not have defeated India; then why did you start this war?’ Bhutto’s reply was: ‘There was no other way to weaken Ayub Khan and remove him.’

. He said it did not matter what either of them said. What really mattered was what the public wanted to hear

explosion in spite of the Population Control Centres that Ayub had set up countrywide. According to the governor, the people visited these centres not to procure free contraceptives but rather to get erotic pleasure from hearing about how to use them. Ayub was greatly amused with this explanation of the governor.51

Bhutto would observe sarcastically that it seemed ‘incongruous for an interesting thing like that to happen to such a very dull man’.58

One former American ambassador described Islamabad as ‘rather like a New York cemetery; half the size, but twice as dead’.88

Bhutto agreed but put three conditions: an independent foreign policy, break-up of ‘one unit’ and restoration of the four provinces of West Pakistan, and general elections within a year. Yahya agreed to all of Bhutto’s suggestions.26

Henry Kissinger told him (with reference to the 1970 elections), ‘Everywhere else in the world elections help to solve problems; in Pakistan they seem to create them.’37

Ahmad Raza Kasuri, the killing of whose father would lead Bhutto to the gallows, was the only member of the PPP who braved Bhutto’s diktat and went to Dhaka

At one stage during the visit, Bhutto pointed to a beautiful antique musket hanging from a wall as a decoration piece and said, ‘Go for it