This Bhutto stands for peace in South Asia

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Fatima Bhutto, writer and niece of former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto, has said that asking her about not joining politics was just like asking why she didn’t want to be a dentist. “In Pakistan, where government is only for a name, it is important to be outside it. I never wanted to take up politics as my career. I always wanted to be a writer,” she said during a media interaction held here on Friday. Fatima is in the city to take part in the ongoing Kovalam Literary Festival. She admitted that she was facing restrictions on her writing after  publicly accusing her uncle and Pakistan president Asif Ali Zardari of having a hand in the death of her father Murtaza Bhutto. Fatima said that her books were, however, published in India. “My book ‘Songs of Blood and Sword’ is available in translation in Italian, English and Hindi, but not Urdu,” she added.  Declaring that she was against countries, whether it be Pakistan or India, accumulating weapons, she said: “I am against weapons, nuclear as well as non-nuclear.” She wanted South Asia to be free of nuclear weapons.  ‘’Pakistan is a young country and has the resources and infrastructure, but bad leadership is hampering its development. By criticising Pakistan government, I am not against democracy. There is no democracy in the absence of a people’s government,’’ she said. Fatima also said that she was against Facebook. “I might be little old-fashioned, but I don’t like people willingly surrender their privacy in Facebook,” she said. Fatima feels that by using Facebook, people are wasting time that could be used for reading books and journals.  Rushdie and Naipaul were her favourite Indian writers, she said.  Fatima also said that she had heard about Kerala as a land of literacy, religious equality, hospitality and ‘good food’. “I feel nothing separates India and Pakistan. However, I wanted to see the other side of India. That’s why I am in Kerala. My experience, so far, has been positive,” Fatima smiled. She will be delivering a lecture on ‘India and Pakistan: Way to peace’ at Kanakakkunnu Palace on Saturday.