National
December 25, 2020
American historian Stanley Wolpert in his book “Jinnah of Pakistan” while commending the services of the Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah wrote: “Few individuals significantly alter the course of history. Fewer still modify the map of the world. Hardly anyone can be credited with creating a nation-state. Mohammad Ali Jinnah did all three.”
Not only Stanley Wolpert but many veteran writers, historians, scholars of international repute have acknowledged the towering personality of the founder of Pakistan Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah, who emerged as the heroic personality for the Muslim Ummah in the 20th century.
In the initial years of Pakistan, no effort was made to archive partition history or do some research on the personality of the Quaid, though it was easier at that time when many of the stalwarts of Pakistan movement who worked with him were alive and could have contributed towards penning down the historical account of Pakistan Movem
For the Bhutto dynasty, campaign publicity posters double up as family photos
Political dynasties are ubiquitous in democratic countries, even though many countries democratised to move away from hereditary rule. The Philippines, India, Brazil, Japan and Canada come to mind, and let us not forget the United States of America, which has produced political dynasties in such abundance that Stephen Hess at the Brookings Institution, wrote an op-ed titled ‘Political Dynasties: An American Tradition’. The Adams, the Tafts, the Bushes, the Kennedys, the Clintons, the Browns, and the Cuomos the list is never-ending.
British journalist and former BBC correspondent Owen Bennett-Jones is a regular contributor to Dawn and has just come out with The Bhutto Dynasty: The Struggle for Power in Pakistan. This is an examination of political dynasticism in the Pakistani tradition.