Benazir

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This wasn't the post I was sitting down to type up.... I was going to write up a nice chatty little post about my birthday and the strangeness of turning thirty but not feeling at all that old but the local news channels are all reporting that Benazir Bhutto has been killed in a suicide attack in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. I've just seen incredibly disturbing live footage of the carnage so I'm inclined to believe them. [Just as an aside -- I've been meaning to note that while there's censorship of all kinds here in India (Bollywood films, for instance, can be and censored, usually for anything involving a kiss), the most brutal images are shown as part of news footage or even appear on the front pages of newspapers; the other day, I picked up the paper half-asleep only to see a series of pictures of a man who'd been mauled to death by a tiger at a zoo somewhere in Northeastern India -- ugh.]
Benazir. I'm not an avid follower of all South Asian politics -- I confine myself to India! -- but it's been hard to ignore the ruckus going on in Pakistan over the last little while. In fact, I even had a conversation with a friend about whether Benazir was an opportunistic politician or a "patriot" (whatever that may mean). Y'all won't be surprised to find that I came down on the "opportunist politician" side. Be that as it may, her death is an important break in time. Yes, in the sense of every unnecessary death being a tragedy for those involved personally but also because for better or for worse Benazir, as the "Daughter of the East," was a real symbol of defiance in Pakistan. The forces of fundamentalism are on the rise all over South Asia -- I've been meaning to write about the election victory of a particularly virulent form of right wing Hinduvta in Gujurat last week; there was all the rioting over Taslima Nasreen's latest and so on -- and Pakistani politics have been steadily sliding downhill ever since this misconceived "war on terror." I don't think anyone would deny that that "war" has made more visible the backlash to secular politics and (what passes for) democratic governance in Pakistan. And for all of her faults, and I truly believe that Benazir was as venal and conniving and corrupt as every other South Asian politician, she was also a powerful (because she has global recognition) symbol of secular politics and (what passes for) democratic governance.
Benazir's being a woman was also clearly a factor; though I have little respect for politicians in the subcontinent, I am constantly amazed by the women politicians. Life for women here is such a struggle against gendered expectation. Every little act requires extra effort if you are a woman here -- getting a taxi, a rickshaw, buying things, just walking down the street is an activity that I find constantly gendered (because even walking down a street one attracts attention as a woman). And politics, which at the local levels at least, is so completely masculine -- and I'm basing this on the few rallies and marches that I've seen and the many pictures and footage of others that I encounter on a daily basis) -- well, it's not an easy field in which to be a woman on the subcontinent, I don't think. And if it's difficult for women in India, Benazir, I think, had a harder time of it since Pakistan is officially a Muslim country, since there are so many more taboos against women's participation in the public sphere in a land where religion and politics are officially intertwined.
Beyond all this, if, as the news reports already suggest, the Taliban has a hand in this attack, it is easy to see how Benazir is a symbol of all that they oppose: an educated woman, a Western educated woman, rich, independently wealthy, independent (how many of you can name her husband?), speaking out, and trying to speaking to women voters, promising to galvanize them, making promises directly to them... the progressive politics Benazir stood for, whether or not it was a facade, was unique in Pakistani politics. The tragedy of her death -- beyond the personal and the familial -- is that it marks the end of Benazir-as-symbol and that is a national tragedy. And because India and Pakistan are as intertwined as any old married couple, her death will also impact upon India in the future to come.