As another July 5th recedes into Pakistan's collective memory, it remains a symbolic rupture: the night when the populist experiment of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was abruptly terminated by General Zia-ul-Haq's martial law in 1977. Yet beyond the immediate tragedy of democratic collapse lies a deeper contradiction, one embodied in Bhutto himself.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto occupies a uniquely paradoxical position in Pakistan's political history. Revered by many as the architect of Pakistan's first populist revolution, and reviled by others as a feudal masquerading as a socialist, Bhutto's legacy defies simple categorisation. The contradiction between his progressive rhetoric and elite background lies at the heart of both his appeal and his failure.

Bhutto rose to prominence during the waning years of Ayub Khan's "technocratic" dictatorship, a period marked by growing resentment among the middle and working classes. In 1967, he launched the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) with the electrifying slogan of Roti, Kapra Aur Makaan (bread, clothing and home), calling for radical land reforms, industrial nationalisation and workers' rights under the banner of "Islamic socialism".

His early writings, including The Myth of Independence (1969), struck a defiantly anti-imperialist tone, calling for sovereignty and self-reliance in the face........

© The Express Tribune