| Re-reading an old diary makes one realise how fallible one’s memory really is. One had forgotten, for example, the exact words Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (then President) had used on 2 January 1972, when nationalizing the first batch of twenty industries units; “As from today, the control and command of the people over the following categories of industries has been asserted”. This was followed by a glib assurance: “It is not the intention of the Government to extend by a glib assurance: It is not the intention of Government to extend control over other categories of industries.” A fortnight later, eleven more were added to the list, and during the remaining five years of Mr Bhutto’s government banks, life insurance, shipping and other industrial and commercial enterprises were also brought into the public domain. |
| To those industrialist who knew Mr Bhutto personally or had festering differences with him, his policy of wholesale nationalization appeared at one level simply vindictive. To other, it gave the impression of being hasty and ill-planned. Wazir Ali Industries (a ghee manufacturing unit at Hyderabad), for example, was included in the first batch of taken-over units and then returned after it was discovered that the target should have been Wazir Ali Engineering Ltd. at West Wharf, Karachi. [EXTRACT] |
Published in THE NATION 4 June 1992, and reprinted in THE ARMLESS QUEEN (1994). |
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