Benazir Bhutto
First woman prime minister of a Muslim-majority country, assassinated in 2007.
Benazir Bhutto was born on 21 June 1953 in Karachi, the first child of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Nusrat Ispahani. Her father was a barrister and politician from the aristocratic, landowning Bhutto family of Sindh, while her mother came from a wealthy Kurdish merchant family of Isfahan, Persia. The Bhuttos were Sunni Muslims, though Nusrat had converted from Shia Islam upon marriage. Benazir’s early language was English; she was fluent in Urdu but spoke little Sindhi, and her mother taught her some Persian. She attended the Lady Jennings Nursery School, then the Convent of Jesus and Mary in Karachi, and later a boarding school in Murree. During the 1965 Indo-Pakistani War, she experienced air-raid drills there. She passed her O-levels with high grades in December 1968. Throughout her youth, she idolized her father, who encouraged her education despite traditional attitudes toward women in Pakistan. Her parents’ marriage was strained by her father’s extramarital affairs, leading to a temporary separation, but Bhutto never publicly acknowledged this discord. When she was five, her father became energy minister; at nine, he became foreign minister, exposing her to foreign diplomats from an early age. She later studied at Harvard University and the University of Oxford, where she served as president of the Oxford Union. In 1977, she returned to Pakistan during her father’s socialist government, but he was soon ousted in a military coup and executed. Bhutto and her mother, Nusrat, then took control of the Pakistan People’s Party and led the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy. She was repeatedly imprisoned under Zia-ul-Haq’s military regime and went into self-exile in Britain in 1984. Returning in 1986, she shifted the PPP’s platform from socialism to liberalism, influenced by Thatcherite economics, and led the party to victory in the 1988 election, becoming the first woman to head a democratic government in a Muslim-majority country.
- born
- 21 June 1953, Karachi, Sindh (then Federal Capital Territory), Pakistan
- field
- Politics
- nationality
- Pakistani
- known_for
- First woman elected to head a democratic government in a Muslim-majority country
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Lore & Background
Benazir Bhutto was born into the Bhutto family of Sindh. Her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was a barrister and statesman who served as the fourth president of Pakistan from 1971 to 1973 and as the ninth prime minister from 1973 until his overthrow in 1977. He was controversially tried and executed in 1979, a trial later declared 'unfair' by the Supreme Court of Pakistan. After his execution, Benazir and her mother Nusrat took control of the PPP. Benazir served twice as prime minister, and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, later served twice as president. Her father's legacy remains contentious, praised for nationalist and secular internationalist agenda, yet criticized for economic challenges, political repression and human rights abuses. He is often referred to as the Quaid-e-Awām ('the People's Leader') by his supporters.
Reader's Guide
Benazir Bhutto's significance lies in her role as the first woman to lead a democratic government in a Muslim-majority country, a milestone that made her a global symbol of women's political empowerment. Her career was marked by a struggle between her liberal, secularist agenda and conservative and Islamist forces, including the military and presidency. Her two terms were cut short by dismissals on corruption and nepotism charges, and her later years were overshadowed by corruption inquiries and self-exile. Opinions on her remain deeply divided: critics saw her as inexperienced and corrupt, while supporters praised her as a champion of democracy. Posthumously, she came to be regarded as an icon for women's rights due to her political success in a male-dominated society.
Did You Know?
- Benazir Bhutto was the first woman elected to lead a democratic government in any Muslim-majority country.
- Her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was controversially tried and executed in 1979, a trial later declared 'unfair' by the Supreme Court of Pakistan.
- Her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, later served twice as president of Pakistan.
- She studied at Harvard University and the University of Oxford, where she became president of the Oxford Union.
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