Nusrat Bhutto
Encyclopedia
Begum
Begum
Begum, Begam or Baigum is a Turkic title given to female family members of a Baig or 'Beg', a higher official. The term Begum is derived from the word Beg, and means a female member of the Beg's family.Also used Begzadi, for Ex...

 Nusrat Bhutto
was an Iranian-Pakistani
Iranians in Pakistan
There are a large number of Iranians in Pakistan, the vast majority of whom live in Karachi and Lahore. Other colonies can be found in Quetta, Islamabad, Peshawer and in the city of Multan. Most Iranians in Pakistan are Shia Muslims, although a number of Sunnis and Parsis in Pakistan claim Iranian...

 who was the wife of the 9th Prime Minister of Pakistan
Prime Minister of Pakistan
The Prime Minister of Pakistan , is the Head of Government of Pakistan who is designated to exercise as the country's Chief Executive. By the Constitution of Pakistan, Pakistan has the parliamentary democratic system of government...

 Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was 9th Prime Minister of Pakistan from 1973 to 1977, and prior to that, 4th President of Pakistan from 1971 to 1973. Bhutto was the founder of the Pakistan Peoples Party — the largest and most influential political party in Pakistan— and served as its chairman until his...

, serving as the First Lady of Pakistan
First Lady
First Lady or First Gentlemanis the unofficial title used in some countries for the spouse of an elected head of state.It is not normally used to refer to the spouse or partner of a prime minister; the husband or wife of the British Prime Minister is usually informally referred to as prime...

 during his premiership from 1971 until Bhutto's removal
Operation Fair Play
Operation Fairplay was the code-name for the coup d'etat conducted at midnight on July 4, 1977 by the Pakistan Army's 111th Infantry Brigade led by Chief of Army Staff General Zia-ul-Haq against the elected civilian government of then-Prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.-1977 election:The coup was...

 in 1977. She became her husband's successor as the chairman of the Pakistan Peoples Party
Pakistan Peoples Party
The Pakistan Peoples Party , is a democratic socialist political party in Pakistan affiliated with Socialist International. Pakistan People's Party is the largest political party of Pakistan...

 (PPP) from 1979 to 1983. She was also the mother of the first and only female Pakistan Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto
Benazir Bhutto
Benazir Bhutto was a democratic socialist who served as the 11th Prime Minister of Pakistan in two non-consecutive terms from 1988 until 1990 and 1993 until 1996....

. She died on October 23, 2011 in Dubai due a long suffering illness of Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease also known in medical literature as Alzheimer disease is the most common form of dementia. There is no cure for the disease, which worsens as it progresses, and eventually leads to death...

. Nusrat Bhutto was buried next to the grave of her husband Zulfikar Ali Bhutto at Garhi Khuda Bakhsh Bhutto graveyard on October 25, 2011. In Pakistan, Nusrat Bhutto is remembered for her contribution to empowered the women in Pakistan and well as advocating for democracy in Pakistan, for which she is dubbed as "Māder-e-Jamhooriat (English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 Mother of Democracy), a title she was honored by the Parliament of Pakistan following her death.

Background

Nusrat Ispahnie was born in 1929 in Esfahan, Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

, hailing from the wealthy Hariri
Hariri
Hariri is a surname and derivative of harir which indicates a mercantile background at one point in that field.-Lebanon:*Bahia Hariri, Lebanese politician; sister of Rafic Hariri...

 Esfahani family in Esfahan. She was said to be of Kurdish
Kurdish people
The Kurdish people, or Kurds , are an Iranian people native to the Middle East, mostly inhabiting a region known as Kurdistan, which includes adjacent parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey...

 descent. However, there are some claims that despite the fact that her family originates from the Kurdistan province
Kurdistan Province
Kurdistan Province or Kordestan Province or Kurdestan Province is one of the 31 provinces of Iran, not to be confused with the greater geographical area of Iranian Kurdistan. The province of Kurdistan is 28,817 km² in area which encompasses just one-fourth of the Kurdish inhabited areas of Iran or...

 in Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

 the Kurdish connection only comes from her grandmother who had married into the Hariri family. Her father was a wealthy Iranian businessman who migrated to Karachi, Pakistan in 1950. Before emigrating to Pakistan
Immigration to Pakistan
Immigration to Pakistan refers to the movement of non-residents to Pakistan, often in search of asylum. Immigration policy is overseen by the Interior Minister of Pakistan through the Directorate General of Immigration & Passports....

, Nusrat attended and was educated at the University of Isfahan
University of Isfahan
University of Isfahan is a state-operated university in Iran. It is one of the most prominent science and engineering schools in Iran and is the largest university in Isfahan Province in Iran. The university is located in the southern section of the city of Isfahan...

 where she obtained B.A.
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...

 in Humanities
Humanities
The humanities are academic disciplines that study the human condition, using methods that are primarily analytical, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural sciences....

 in 1950. Nusrat met Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in Karachi where they got married on September 8, 1951. She was Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's second wife, and they had four children together: Benazir, Murtaza
Murtaza Bhutto
Dr. Mir Ghulam Murtaza Bhutto was a Pakistani politician and the Member of the Parliament of Pakistan, representing Pakistan People's Party from the Larkana constituency...

, Sanam
Sanam Bhutto
Sanam Bhutto Sindhi: صنم ڀٽو in Karachi city is the younger sister of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. She is the only surviving child of the late former Prime Minister of Pakistan Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and Begum Nusrat Bhutto and the only one whom Nusrat did not outlive...

 and Shahnawaz
Shahnawaz Bhutto
Shahnawaz Bhutto Sindhi: شاھنواز ڀٽو was the son of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and Begum Nusrat Bhutto. Shahnawaz Bhutto was the youngest of Bhutto’s four children...

. With the exception of Sanam, she outlived her children. Benazir's widower and Nusrat's son-in-law Asif Ali Zardari
Asif Ali Zardari
Asif Ali Zardari is the 11th and current President of Pakistan and the Co-Chairman of the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party . He is also the widower of Benazir Bhutto, who served two nonconsecutive terms as Prime Minister....

 is currently serving as the President of Pakistan
President of Pakistan
The President of Pakistan is the head of state, as well as figurehead, of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Recently passed an XVIII Amendment , Pakistan has a parliamentary democratic system of government. According to the Constitution, the President is chosen by the Electoral College to serve a...

.

Family and political career

As first lady from 1973–77, she functioned as a political hostess and accompanied her husband on a number of overseas visits. In 1979, after the trial and execution of her husband, she succeeded her husband as leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party
Pakistan Peoples Party
The Pakistan Peoples Party , is a democratic socialist political party in Pakistan affiliated with Socialist International. Pakistan People's Party is the largest political party of Pakistan...

 as chairman for life. She led the PPP's campaign against General Zia Ul Haque's regime. Alongside her daughter Benazir Bhutto
Benazir Bhutto
Benazir Bhutto was a democratic socialist who served as the 11th Prime Minister of Pakistan in two non-consecutive terms from 1988 until 1990 and 1993 until 1996....

, She was arrested numerous times and placed under house arrest and in prison in Sihala. Begum Bhutto was attacked by police with batons while attending a cricket match at Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore, when the crowd began to raise pro Bhutto slogans.

In 1982, ill with cancer, she was given permission to leave the country by the military government of General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq
Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq
General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq , was the 4th Chief Martial Law Administrator and the sixth President of Pakistan from July 1977 to his death in August 1988...

 for medical treatment in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 at which point her daughter, Benazir Bhutto, became acting leader of the party, and, by 1984, the party chairman.

After returning to Pakistan in the late 1980s, she served two terms as a Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 to the National Assembly
National Assembly of Pakistan
The National Assembly of Pakistan is the lower house of the bicameral Majlis-e-Shura, which also compromises the President of Pakistan and Senate . The National Assembly and the Senate both convene at Parliament House in Islamabad...

 from the family constituency of Larkana, Sindh
Larkana District
Larkana or Larkano is a district of Sindh province of Pakistan. According to the 1998 census of Pakistan, it had a population of 1,927,066 of which 28.70% were urban. Its main city is Larkana...

.

During the administrations of her daughter Benazir, she became a cabinet minister and Deputy Prime Minister. In the 1990s, she and Benazir became estranged when Nusrat took the side of her son Murtaza
Murtaza Bhutto
Dr. Mir Ghulam Murtaza Bhutto was a Pakistani politician and the Member of the Parliament of Pakistan, representing Pakistan People's Party from the Larkana constituency...

 during a family dispute but later reconciled after Murtaza's murder. She lived the last few years of her life with her daughter's family in Dubai
Dubai
Dubai is a city and emirate in the United Arab Emirates . The emirate is located south of the Persian Gulf on the Arabian Peninsula and has the largest population with the second-largest land territory by area of all the emirates, after Abu Dhabi...

, United Arab Emirates
United Arab Emirates
The United Arab Emirates, abbreviated as the UAE, or shortened to "the Emirates", is a state situated in the southeast of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia on the Persian Gulf, bordering Oman, and Saudi Arabia, and sharing sea borders with Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and Iran.The UAE is a...

 and later suffered from the combined effects of a stroke and Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease also known in medical literature as Alzheimer disease is the most common form of dementia. There is no cure for the disease, which worsens as it progresses, and eventually leads to death...

.

Illness and death

Bhutto was suspected of suffering from cancer in 1982, the year when she left Pakistan for medical treatment. For the last several years of her life, she had also been suffering from Alzheimer's Disease
Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease also known in medical literature as Alzheimer disease is the most common form of dementia. There is no cure for the disease, which worsens as it progresses, and eventually leads to death...

.
In the mid-1990s, particularly after the death of her son Mir Murtaza Bhutto in 1996, she withdrew from public life. Party sources suggest this may also have coincided with the time that she began to show symptoms of Alzheimer’s.

According to her senior party leader, Bhutto's disease was so advanced that she did not even know of the assassination of her daughter, Benazir. She used a ventilator until her death on October 23, 2011. Her body was flown to her hometown of Garhi Khuda Bakhsh
Garhi Khuda Bakhsh
Garhi Khuda Bakhsh is a village in Ratodero Taluka near Naudero, Sindh, Pakistan. It is notable for containing the graveyard of the Bhutto family and being the burial place of Zulfiqar, Murtaza, and Benazir Bhutto, in the mausoleum. It was founded by Khuda Bakhsh Khan Bhutto...

 in Larkana District the next day, and was buried next to her husband and children in the Bhutto family mausoleum
Mausoleum of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto
Mazar of Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto is situated at Garhi Khuda Bakhsh, in Larkana District, Sindh, Pakistan.The mazar is notable for containing the graves of the Bhutto family and being the burial place of Zulfiqar, Murtaza, , and Benazir Bhutto....

 at a ceremony attended by thousands of mourners.

See also

  • Bhutto family
    Bhutto family
    The Bhutto family is a political family in Pakistan. Bhutto is a Rajput tribe settled in Sindh.-List of family members:* Pir Bakhsh Bhutto* * Khuda Bakhsh Bhutto, Ameer Bakhsh Bhutto, Illahi Bux Bhutto...


External links

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