Benazir Bhutto Facts & Worksheets

Benazir Bhutto was a Pakistani politician and stateswoman, the country’s 11th and 13th Prime Minister. She was the first woman in a Muslim-majority country to be elected to lead a democratic government.

See the fact file below for more information on Benazir Bhutto, or you can download our 30-page Benazir Bhutto worksheet pack to utilize within the classroom or home environment.

Key Facts & Information

EARLY LIFE

• Benazir Bhutto was born into a renowned political family in Karachi, Pakistan. She left her home country at 16 to attend Harvard’s Radcliffe College. After earning her undergraduate degree at Radcliffe, she studied at Oxford University in England, where she earned a second degree in 1977.
• Bhutto was the first child of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Begum Nusrat Ispahani. She had three younger siblings, namely Murtaza, Sanam, and Shahnawaz.
• Throughout her youth, Bhutto idolized her father, and he, in turn, encouraged her educational development in contravention of traditional approaches to women then pervasive in Pakistan.
• However, relations between her parents were strained during her childhood. Zulfikar embarked on extra-marital affairs with other women, and when Nusrat objected, he had her thrown out of their house. 
• She moved to Iran, but after Zulfikar prevented her children from joining her there, she returned to Pakistan six months later, settling in Karachi.
• Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was the founding chairman of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and the Prime Minister of Pakistan, a center-left, social-democratic political party in Pakistan.
• The PPP used the motto “Islam is our faith, democracy is our policy, socialism is our economy. All power to the people.”
• From 1969 to 1973, Benazir studied for an undergraduate degree at Radcliffe College, Harvard University.
• Zulfikar urged her to join him in New York City in 1971, while she was a student at Harvard, for a United Nations Security Council meeting on the Indo-Pakistani War.
• From 1973 to 1977, she studied at Oxford in the United Kingdom. She took a course in International Law and Diplomacy there.
• In 1977, Benazir returned to Pakistan and was forcibly placed under house arrest after a military coup conducted by Pakistani military chief Mohammad Zia ul-Haq destroyed her father’s government.

ZULFIKAR AND BENAZIR

• Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who had just been re-elected in a general election, was deposed in a military coup headed by General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, the Chief of Army Staff, in July 1977.
• Zia suspended the constitution and initiated a regime that combined military rule with social programs designed to further the Islamisation of Pakistani society according to Islamic fundamentalist principles.
• During Zia’s rule in Pakistan, many socialists, journalists, and people who objected to his reign were arrested. One of the detained figures was Zulfikar. After less than a month, Zulfikar was freed from prison and returned to his political activities.
• Unfortunately, on September 1977, Zulfikar was re-arrested due to a charge of the 1974 murder of Muhammad Ahmed Khan Kasuri, the father of Ahmed Raza Kasuri, a vocal critic of Zulfikar’s government.
• Life was never the same for the Bhutto family since then. Benazir’s brothers were sent abroad to ask for support from the international community. Benazir and her mother were repeatedly detained back in Pakistan.
• Benazir assisted in the preparation of her father’s trial. Former United States Attorney General Ramsey Clark testified at the trial, claiming that it was a kangaroo court and that Zulfikar was not given a fair trial.
• Zulfikar requested his wife and daughter flee Pakistan just before his death, but they refused. He was hanged in April 1979.
• After being imprisoned for six months, Benazir and Nusrat were released and placed under house arrest for another six months. The two women were finally freed in April 1980.

BENAZIR, AFTER THE DEATH OF ZULFIKAR

• From Geneva, Bhutto proceeded to the United Kingdom, undergoing surgery on her mastoid before renting a flat in London’s Barbican Estate. There, she socialized with friends, shopping, hosting dinner parties, and visiting the cinema.
• While in exile, Bhutto became a rallying point for the PPP. Her flat became the unofficial headquarters of the organization’s members in exile, who dedicated themselves to raising international awareness of the political prisoners held by Zia’s administration.
• Even though she was the party’s acting chairman, many of its elderly members were dissatisfied with the situation, believing she was insufficiently dedicated to socialism and afraid that the party might devolve into a Bhutto family domain.
• Back in Pakistan, she accepted an arranged marriage with Asif Ali Zardari, whom her mother had chosen as a suitable husband. He came from a landowning family, and his father made additional money in the building and film sectors.
• The “People’s Wedding” was touted as a de facto political demonstration, with 200,000 people attending a later celebration in a Lyari stadium.
• Bhutto would have known that being married gave her a respectable image, increasing her prospects of being elected.

PAKISTAN PEOPLE’S PARTY

• The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) is Pakistan’s social-democratic, center-left political party. It is Pakistan’s third-largest party in the National Assembly and second-largest in the Senate.
• The PPP’s platform was formerly socialist, and its priorities include transforming Pakistan into a social-democratic state and promoting secular and egalitarian values.
• During the 1970s, the PPP dominated Pakistani politics, only to experience a brief fall during President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq’s military dictatorship. 
• Following Zia’s death in 1988, a two-party system evolved, consisting of the People’s Party and the Islamic Democratic Alliance, ultimately superseded by the Nawaz League.

BHUTTO ERA

• Following Zia’s death, the Supreme Court declared that the election would be held on a party basis rather than a non-party one, which Zia had requested.
• Amid predictions that the PPP would win, it received 18,000 prospective candidates, many offering the party money for their selection. This influx of new members and candidates caused upset among many established members, who felt that Bhutto was deserting them.
• Amid the controversies surrounding the PPP, it still garnered many votes, giving the party the most significant number of seats. 
• President Ghulam Ishaq Khan was legally required to invite Bhutto to form the new administration, but he declined. He reluctantly agreed two weeks after the election under increasing pressure, especially from the United States, a vital ally.
• To build her government, Bhutto formed a coalition with the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) party, which had 13 seats in parliament, an action that upset the Sindhi nationalist faction within her party.
• Bhutto became the first female Prime Minister in a Muslim-majority country and Pakistan’s second nationally elected Prime Minister.
• Bhutto’s first cabinet was the largest in Pakistan’s history; with herself as the new treasury minister, she assigned her mother as a senior minister without portfolio, and her father-in-law as chairman of the parliamentary public accounts committee, dashed hopes that her administration would break with the country’s entrenched cronyism systems.
• Various members of the PPP old guard, including Mumtaz Ali Bhutto, left the party in frustration at the pro-capitalist direction she had taken.

BENAZIR’S FIRST TERM OF PREMIERSHIP

• Following Bhutto’s victory during the election, there was considerable hostility between Bhutto and the right-wing military leadership; many top military officers saw her, like her father, as a challenge to their hegemonic position in Pakistan’s political arena.
• The country’s three most influential figures—the army chief Aslam Beg, the ISI chief Hamid Gul, and President Khan—all had contempt for her family. This strong resistance led to Bhutto’s inability to pass key legislation during her first time in power.
• Among Pakistan’s problems when Bhutto took the Premiership was soaring employment and high unemployment. Some of the issues faced by Benazir were:
  • The bankruptcy of the Pakistani government was due to high loans made by the government of Zia.
  • Many of the policy pledges she made during her election campaign were not kept since the Pakistani government could not fund them.
  • She had promised a million new homes per year and universal free education and healthcare, none of which were economically realistic for her government to provide.
• Despite the challenges thrown at Benazir, she still had successes during her Premiership. Some of these were:
  • Initiatives to promote civic society development.
  • She oversaw the release of several political prisoners held by the Zia regime.
  • The ban on labor unions and student organizations was repealed.
  • She lifted many of the restrictions placed on non-governmental organizations.
  • She introduced measures to raise the media censorship introduced by Zia’s military administration.

BENAZIR’S FIRST TERM OF PREMIERSHIP

• Following Bhutto’s victory during the election, there was considerable hostility between Bhutto and the right-wing military leadership; many top military officers saw her, like her father, as a challenge to their hegemonic position in Pakistan’s political arena.
• The country’s three most influential figures—the army chief Aslam Beg, the ISI chief Hamid Gul, and President Khan—all had contempt for her family. This strong resistance led to Bhutto’s inability to pass key legislation during her first time in power.
• Among Pakistan’s problems when Bhutto took the Premiership was soaring employment and high unemployment. Some of the issues faced by Benazir were:
  • The bankruptcy of the Pakistani government was due to high loans made by the government of Zia.
  • Many of the policy pledges she made during her election campaign were not kept since the Pakistani government could not fund them.
  • She had promised a million new homes per year and universal free education and healthcare, none of which were economically realistic for her government to provide.
• Despite the challenges thrown at Benazir, she still had successes during her Premiership. Some of these were:
  • Initiatives to promote civic society development.
  • She oversaw the release of several political prisoners held by the Zia regime.
  • The ban on labor unions and student organizations was repealed.
  • She lifted many of the restrictions placed on non-governmental organizations.
  • She introduced measures to raise the media censorship introduced by Zia’s military administration.

BENAZIR AND INDIA’S NUCLEAR BOMB

• Bhutto initially tried to mend relations with India, rejecting Zia’s offer of a no-war treaty and announcing the 1972 Simla Agreement as the cornerstone of future ties.
• Bhutto invited Rajiv Gandhi, India’s Prime minister, to Islamabad for a three-day visit following the meeting of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation.
• Rajiv returned on a bilateral visit six months later. She pleased him by revoking Zia’s offer of the Nishan-e-Pakistan award to the former Indian leader Morarji Desai.
• The two countries agreed to limit their military presence along the border and refrain from attacking each other’s nuclear installations.
• After being accused of being too soft on India, Bhutto took a harsher approach against them, particularly on the Kashmir conflict.
• The Kashmir conflict is territorial, mainly between India and Pakistan but also between China and India in the region’s northeastern section.
• Amid growing Kashmiri protests against Indian rule, Bhutto expressed support for the Kashmiri Muslim community in interviews. She urged the United Nations to oversee the promised referendum in Kashmir in 1948.
• Bhutto paid a visit to a training camp for pro-independence Kashmiris on the Pakistani side of the border and offered $5 million to their cause, followed by other declarations supporting pro-independence parties.
• In 1990, Major General Pervez Musharraf, a Pakistani military officer, suggested a military invasion of Kargil as part of an attempt to conquer Kashmir; Bhutto declined to support the idea, fearing significant international censure.
• President Khan and some high-ranking military officials were hesitant to inform Bhutto about Pakistan’s nuclear program when she became Prime Minister.
• During her visit to the United States, she informed Congress that “we do not have, and do not intend to have a nuclear device.” While in Washington D.C., she met with CIA Director William Webster, who showed her a mock-up of Pakistan’s nuclear weapon and stated that research on the project had reached a climax in the final years of Zia’s government.
• The United States wanted to prevent Pakistan from developing such a device. President George H. W. Bush notified her that unless Pakistan stopped building nuclear bomb cores, the final step in developing the weapon, U.S. military aid would cease.
• In 1990, soon before leaving office, American Ambassador Robert Oakley notified her that evidence gathered by U.S. satellites suggested that her vow not to create weapons-grade uranium at the Kahuta enrichment plant had been broken.

BENAZIR’S SECOND TERM OF PREMIERSHIP

• In the October 1993 general election, the PPP won the most seats.
• Recognizing the threat an unsympathetic president posed to her leadership, Bhutto ensured that a PPP member, Farooq Leghari, was nominated and legitimately elected to the presidency in November.
• During Benazir’s second term in office, she faced allegations of corruption. She appointed both her husband and mother in her cabinet. Her husband became the investment minister and monopolized the country’s gold imports. 
• The couple also acquired properties that were too expensive for government officials.
• As for her policies during her leadership, she made sure to advance the policies concerning women’s rights. Benazir signed Pakistan to an international treaty known as the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. This was later adopted in 1979 by the United Nations General Assembly.
• Benazir was also one of the founding members of the Council of Women World Leaders, established in 1996.
• Bhutto was prime minister during a period of high racial conflict in Pakistan. Ethnic violence erupted in Sindh as muhajir—mobilized by the MQM—rioted in response to what they viewed as their mistreatment. Kidnappings, bombings, and killings became more regular in Karachi.
• To address the turmoil, Bhutto gave her interior minister, Naseerullah Babar, permission to start Operation Blue Fox, a harsh crackdown on the MQM.
• By the time the Operation was officially completed, the government had announced that 3,000 had been killed in Karachi, although the number may have been far more significant.
• An Amnesty International report commented that while Bhutto had declared that her government would end human rights abuses, torture, rape, and extrajudicial killings remained common in Pakistani prisons.
• Regarding economic aspects, Pakistan faced significant problems in addressing the low rate of GDP. Bhutto attempted to address these issues but failed because she needed help to implement the denationalization program or liberalization of the economy during her first government. No nationalized units were privatized, and few economic regulations were reviewed.
• Overall, people’s living standards in Pakistan fell as inflation and unemployment rose exponentially, mainly once U.N. sanctions took effect. 
• During her first and second terms, the gap between rich and poor became more visible, with the middle class bearing the brunt of the economic inequalities.

LATER LIFE AND DEATH

• In October 2007, Bhutto returned to Pakistan, landing in Karachi. Although her opponents were significantly more popular than her, it was widely assumed that she had a solid chance of becoming the country’s next Prime Minister in the 2008 national elections.
• Bhutto met Afghan President Hamid Karzai on December 27, 2007. In the afternoon, she spoke at a PPP rally in Rawalpindi’s Liaquat National Bagh. She opened the car’s escape hatch and got up to wave to the crowds as she drove away in a bulletproof vehicle.
• Within two to three meters of the automobile, a man fired three shots at her and exploded a suicide vest filled with ball bearings.
• Benazir was fatally injured and rushed to the hospital. Unfortunately, she was clinically dead on arrival. 
• She was buried next to her father’s grave at their family mausoleum. 
• There were claims that the assassin was a member of the Pakistani Taliban and that the assassination had been masterminded by Baitullah Mehsud, leader of the Pakistani Taliban.
• In her political will, she had designated her son Bilawal, who was 19 then, as her political heir and chair of the PPP. It also specified that her husband should serve as custodial chairman until Bilawal completed his formal education.

Benazir Bhutto Worksheets

This fantastic bundle includes everything you need to know about Benazir Bhutto across 23 in-depth pages. These ready-to-use worksheets are perfect for teaching kids about Benazir Bhutto, a Pakistani politician and stateswoman.

Complete List of Included Worksheets

Below is a list of all the worksheets included in this document.

1. Benazir Bhutto Facts
2. Info about Bhutto
3. My Traits
4. Pakistan’s Struggle
5. Benazir
6. Woman Leader
7. Reflections of a Leader
8. Perspectives
9. Leader of My Generation
10. After I Died
11. An Inspiration

Frequently Asked Questions

Who was Benazir Bhutto?

Benazir Bhutto was a prominent Pakistani politician who served as the Prime Minister of Pakistan from 1988 to 1990 and again from 1993 to 1996. She was the first woman to hold the office of Prime Minister in a Muslim-majority country.

What was Benazir Bhutto’s political party?

Benazir Bhutto was a member of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), which was founded by her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who also served as the Prime Minister of Pakistan. She became the chairperson of the PPP after her father’s execution in 1979.

What were some of Benazir Bhutto’s major achievements?

During her time as Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto implemented various social and economic reforms in Pakistan. She focused on improving education and healthcare, advocating for women’s rights, and promoting democracy. Bhutto also played a key role in Pakistan’s foreign policy, particularly in strengthening relations with neighboring countries.

How did Benazir Bhutto’s political career end?

Unfortunately, Benazir Bhutto’s political career came to a tragic end when she was assassinated on December 27, 2007, during a political rally in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Her assassination shocked the nation and led to widespread condemnation both nationally and internationally.

What was the impact of Benazir Bhutto’s death on Pakistan?

The assassination of Benazir Bhutto had a significant impact on Pakistan’s political landscape. It sparked widespread protests and turmoil across the country, raising concerns about stability and democracy. Her death also created a void in the political arena, leaving a lasting impact on the Pakistani people and the future of the Pakistan Peoples Party.

Link/cite this page

If you reference any of the content on this page on your own website, please use the code below to cite this page as the original source.

<a href="https://kidskonnect.com/people/benazir-bhutto/">Benazir Bhutto Facts & Worksheets: https://kidskonnect.com</a> - KidsKonnect, June 28, 2023

Link will appear as Benazir Bhutto Facts & Worksheets: https://kidskonnect.com - KidsKonnect, June 28, 2023