BOTTOMLINE: FORMER PAKISTAN PM TO SPEAK ON WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT

Benazir coming to India on Nov 26

Our Political Bureau

Benazir Bhutto will be in India for three days beginning Monday. The former Pakistan prime minister has been invited by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) to speak to an invited audience here. Her address is on women’s empowerment.

Benazir Bhutto

CII deputy director-general S Sen said the invitation was part of the organisation’s focus on empowerment issues, 2001 being the Year for Women’s Empowerment and Social Development. “Ms Bhutto is acknowledged as a woman achiever...and therefore a perfect candidate to speak on the subject. There’s nothing more to the invitation,” he said.

An interesting dimension to Ms Bhutto’s visit is a press conference soon after her speech. Obvious questions may range from her commitment to the Simla Agreement, her latest position on J&K and her infamous call of ‘azadi, azadi, azadi’, post-Taliban Afghanistan, present Pakistani president Gen Pervez Musharraf and his support to American forces, and indeed, her own chance of political rehabilitation, if Gen Musharraf re-introduces some version of democracy.

Ms Bhutto is also travelling to Ajmer, a journey that Gen Musharraf failed to make. She will also meet the widow of late Congress leader Madhavrao Scindia. “Her other appointments are still being firmed up,” Mr Sen said, on whether Ms Bhutto has been given an audience by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. The PMO’s view point could not be ascertained.

Former foreign secretary JN Dixit said his “speculative assessment” was that the invitation “will send a message that we want to be in touch with the known political faces of Pakistan, and we are open to hearing her views, tinged as they are with her own motivations”.

“But her visit has no operational significance,” though Mr Dixit was interested to hear her views on J&K, “depend as they do on whether she is in or out of power”. The former foreign secretary, who has also dealt with Ms Bhutto as envoy to Islamabad, said the fact that Gen Musharraf has allowed her to retain her passport means he has no objection to her travelling around.