Begum Nusrat Bhutto
Begum Nusrat Bhutto (Urdu: بیگم نصرت بھٹو) (March 23 1929 – October 23 2011) was an Iranian-Pakistani who was the former First Lady of Pakistan and widow of former Prime minister of Pakistan Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. She became her husband’s successor as the chairman of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) from 1979-1983. She was also the mother of the late PPP chairman and former Pakistani Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto and mother-in-law of Pakistan’s president Asif Ali Zardari.
Nusrat Bhutto was born on March 23, 1929, in Esfahan, Iran . She comes from the wealthy Hariri Esfahani family in Esfahan, Iran. Nusrat Bhutto was of Kurdish descent, despite the fact of her family originating from the Kurdistan province in Iran some claim that the Kurdish connection only comes from her grandmother who had married into the Hariri family. Nusrat Bhutto is the daughter of a wealthy Iranian businessman who settled in Karachi, Pakistan. Nusrat met Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in Karachi where they got married on September 8, 1951. She was Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s second marriage, and they had four children together, three of whom she has outlived.
Family and Political Career
As first lady from 1973–1977, Begum Nusrat Bhutto 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 as chairman for life. In 1982, ill with cancer, she was given permission to leave the country by the military government of General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq for medical treatment in London at which point her daughter, Benazir Bhutto, became acting leader of the party and by 1984 Benazir became party chairman.
After returning to Pakistan in the late 1980s, she served several terms as a Member of Parliament to the National Assembly from the family constituency of Larkana in Sindh. Also, 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 during a family dispute, but later reconciled after Murtaza’s murder.
Nusrat Bhutto, twice elected a member of the Pakistan parliament, had a difficult political career.
She resided with her daughter’s family in Dubai, and suffered from the combined effects of a stroke and Alzheimer’s Disease before she died of protracted illness on Sunday October 23, 2011.
Death
Pakistan’s former first lady Nusrat Bhutto, 82, and mother of assassinated former prime minister Benazir Bhutto died in Dubai on Sunday after a protracted illness.
Her body is said to be buried in Garhi Khuda Bux, the ancestral graveyard of the Bhutto family in southern Sindh province.
Nishan-e-Imtiaz
On recommendations of Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilanié Acting President Farooq H Naik conferred the highest civil award of the country Nishan-e-Imtiaz (posthumously).
Government of Pakistan has also given her the title of “Mother-e-Jamhooriat” for her exceptional services for revival of democracy.
Begum Nusrat Bhutto also earned unique titles of “Iron lady of Pakistan” & “Mother of Democracy” for her valiant struggle against dictatorship.
Bhuttos in News
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