Why You Should Read Daughter of Destiny: An Autobiography

Benazir Bhutto was one of the towering and ground-breaking political figures of the late-20th and early-21st centuries. As the first female to be elected as the leader of any Islamic nation, she and her party brought reform to Pakistan and fought for the equality of many groups. I decided to read Daughter of Destiny over spring break to learn more about her life and although its not a perfect literary masterpiece, there are many reasons why one should read this book. I will also highlight some of the flaws that this book has but please do not let that discourage you from reading this book.

Daughter of Destiny  is a political memoir written by Benazir Bhutto about her life starting from her youth to her election as Prime Minister of Pakistan in 1988. The book starts off with Benazir's childhood and details about her aristocratic family. She grew up surrounded by politics and societal change - her own mother, an Iranian Shia Muslim, was modern for her day and didn't make Benazir follow and succumb to many of the oppressive practices there are towards girls in South Asia. Her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was a politician who would later become Prime Minister of Pakistan engaged Benazir in politics from an early age and she grew up in his shadow. Benazir goes to Radcliffe College, a sister college of Oxford, at there mere age of 16 to study government. While she's there, we learn of how aloof many of the American students are to different parts of the world and they don't even know where Pakistan is on the world map! Benazir's political agressivness also comes shining through as we learn about her arguments with her professor's views of her country. One of the important moments in the book is when Benazir travels with her father, then Prime Minister, to resolve the 1971 war between Pakistan and India. The title of the book really does feel justified in many parts of the story like this, as Benazir is indeed the daughter of destiny - taking calls from UN officials for her father during times of political turmoil and being beyond her years in coping with the challenges that come with being a politician at a large scale. 

Majority of the book is dedicated to the coup and military regime that overthrows Benazir's father and installs a dictator in Pakistan, everything which went against the ideology of the PPP, the political party led by the Bhutto family. Benazir's father is hanged after an unfair trial, and she and her mother spend years in the most rotten conditions with horrible food. The descriptions in this part of the book shook me to the core, and her descriptive style of writing gives solid imagery to the readers, which make us feel even more for her. Her experiences as being a female head of a conservative Muslim country, where many women don't have the smallest freedoms is engrossing, as she had to prove to so many people that a woman can hold power and do what a man can. Being an international diplomat and pleasing the people of your own country is not easy, especially when you have to prove that you are worthy of your position in a male-dominated field, and Benazir does do a good job of showing that she is capable of doing this, even if many of the things she did with her power was not ok. 

Benazir Bhutto, like all politicians, had her own flaws and so does her book. Benazir and her family did many things which are controversial, including some humanitarian violations, especially against the Ahmadiyya sect of Muslims. There was also a lot of corruption in their governments and despite making lots of political promises, the poor of Pakistan didn't benefit much from her government, or any other government. She was eventually assassinated in 2007, after living in exile in London. Her books has many problems as well - it paints her father's life in a glorious way and portrays him as more of a humanitarian than he actually was. A lot of the facts in there are wrong and glorify Benazir more than she should be. If you are going to read this book, I would suggest that you fact-check many of the details that are given as this book was written in 1988 and part of the reason was to help Benazir Bhutto get elected and have a positive image on the international stage as well.  Despite these flaws, it is definitely a gripping narrative and is a different style of writing than I'm used to. This is one of the few memoirs I've come by that really made me feel for someone. 

I would recommend this book to people with a variety of interests as it has a distinct style of writing, interesting structure, and most importantly, there is a lot to be learned both from what people of the past have done correctly as well as their flaws. Benazir Bhutto was not perfect (and neither is anyone else) but her tale is gripping and makes anyone feels for her cause. Even if you generally do not read non-fiction, I would recommend that you give this book a try because it is an exciting tale of loss, tragedy, grief, success, and triumph.