Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated in Pakistan in December last year at the Liaquat Bagh area in Rawalpindi will be remembered as a martyr in the cause of democracy. Born on 21 June 1953, Bhutto was the first woman Prime Minister to lead a post-colonial Muslim state.

Calling herself the ‘Daughter of Destiny’ in her autobiography of the same title, Benazir was fearless in her beliefs; be it taking on the might of military regimes or slamming religious fundamentalists, her turbulent political career had faced extreme challenges. She always led from the front. Despite her easy initiation to the higher echelons of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) founded by her late father Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, she had to be in the mould of a fighter to ensure her survival in the political space of Pakistan.

At the age of 26, she became one of the top leaders of PPP founded by her father, who was executed after a much criticised trial on charges of conspiring to murder a political rival.

Elected twice as Prime Minister of Pakistan, first time in 1988 for a period of 20 months, she was removed by former president Ghulam Ishaq Khan on grounds of alleged corruption. In 1993, Bhutto was re-elected as Prime Minister and again removed in 1996 on similar charges, this time by President Farooq Leghari.

After spending eight years in exile in Dubai and London, Bhutto returned to Karachi in October 2007 to renew her political career with 2008 general elections. But suicide bombers snuffed out her life. She returned to Pakistan after reaching an understanding with General Musharraf who granted her amnesty for alleged corruption.

Ms Bhutto’s determination was in evidence after Gen Zia imprisoned her father in 1977, following a military coup. She too was imprisoned just before her father’s death and spent most of her five-year jail term in solitary confinement. Released in 1984, she went into exile in Britain until martial law was lifted in Pakistan. Ms Bhutto set up a PPP office in London and campaigned against General Zia. In 1986, she returned to Pakistan attracting huge crowds in political rallies and became the Prime Minister of Pakistan.

Education

Benazir was born as the eldest child of former premier Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, a Pakistani of Sindhi extraction, and Begum Nusrat Bhutto, a Pakistani of Iranian-Kurdish extraction.

Highly articulate and politically correct, Bhutto had the best of modern education; she attended the Lady Jennings Nursery School. After two years at the Rawalpindi Presentation Convent, she was sent to the Jesus and Mary Convent at Murree. She passed her O-level examination at the age of 15 and went on to complete her A-Levels from the Karachi Grammar School.

Completing her early education in Pakistan, she moved to the US for higher education. From 1969 to 1973 she attended Radcliffe College, and then Harvard University, and obtained a B.A. degree in comparative government.

President of Oxford Union

Between 1973 and 1977 Bhutto studied Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. She completed a course in International Law and Diplomacy while at Oxford. In December 1976 she was elected president of the Oxford Union and became the first Asian woman to head the prestigious debating society.

Reformist

During her first term, she introduced people’s programmes for economic development of the masses. She lifted the ban on students and trade unions. “If parents are so poor that they cannot educate, house, clothe, feed and provide healthcare for their children and the state fails to provide such basic human needs through public services, they (children) will seek an alternative. The militant madrassas have become, over time, an alternative government for millions of Pakistanis,” she wrote in her autobiography.

Benazir leaves behind her husband Asif Ali Zardari and three children—Bilawal, Bakhtwar, and Aseefa.