Who is Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Pakistan’s foreign minister, who made controversial remarks on PM Narendra Modi?

Dec 16, 2022 - 21:30

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Who is Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Pakistan’s foreign minister, who made controversial remarks on PM Narendra Modi?

Pakistan foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has stoked a major controversy with his remarks on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, prompting a response from the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA).

Taking objection to the remarks, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) workers today (16 December) protested outside Pakistan’s embassy in Delhi by raising “Pakistan hay hay” and “Bilawal Bhutto maafi maango” slogans, reported India Today.

As per news agency PTI report, the saffron party will also stage nationwide protests against the controversial statements on Saturday (17 December).

But, what did Bhutto say and how has India reacted to his statements? Who is Pakistan’s foreign minister and how has he courted controversies in the past? Let’s take a closer look.

Bilawal Bhutto stirs row

Attacking Modi, Bhutto — who was in New York to participate in the United Nation meetings — said on Thursday (15 December), “Osama bin Laden is dead, but the butcher of Gujarat lives and he is the Prime Minister of India.”

Referring to Modi, Bhutto said he was banned from entering the US until he became the Prime Minister of India. “This is the prime minister of the RSS and the Foreign Minister of the RSS. What is the RSS? The RSS takes inspiration from Hitler’s SS”, the Pakistan foreign minister stated.

These comments came in the wake of his Indian counterpart S Jaishankar calling Pakistan the “epicentre of terrorism”.

A day later, India’s foreign ministry condemned Bhutto’s remarks, calling them an “uncivilised outburst”.

The MEA said in a statement, “These comments are a new low, even for Pakistan. The foreign minister of Pakistan has obviously forgotten this day in 1971, which was a direct result of the genocide unleashed by Pakistani rulers against ethnic Bengalis and Hindus. Unfortunately, Pakistan does not seem to have changed much in the treatment of its minorities. It certainly lacks credentials to cast aspersions at India”.

Bhutto’s “uncivilised outburst” seemed to be a result of Pakistan’s “increasing inability to use terrorists and their proxies”, the MEA added, as per NDTV.

Who is Bilawal Bhutto Zardari?

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the son of former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto, is currently serving as the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman.

In April, he became the country’s “youngest” foreign minister at the age of 33.

Bilawal inherited the reins of the PPP days after the assassination of his mother in 2007.

He was 19 at the time and studying at Oxford University’s Christ Church college.

BBC said that Bilawal succeeding Benazir to head the PPP was “considered a strategic move to consolidate the party using the Bhutto legacy”. It was then that he added his mother’s surname and Bilawal Zardari became Bilawal Bhutto Zardari.

Addressing a press conference where he was announced as Benazir Bhutto’s successor, Bilawal had said that his father Asif Ali Zardari would run the PPP till he finishes his study.

“My mother always said democracy is the best revenge”, the 19-year-old had said at the time, as per BBC.

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He was elected to Pakistan’s National Assembly for the first time in 2018.

ANI reports that Bhutto is seen as one of the “key architects” who helped in overthrowing Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan from the prime ministerial post in April.

Bhutto, who was born in September 1988, has two younger sisters — Bakhtawar and Aseefa.

He has spent his early life outside Pakistan, travelling with his mother who had gone into self-imposed exile in 1999, notes BBC.

Bilawal’s first language is English and he speaks Urdu in an Anglicised accent, says BBC.

Since 2010, he has dedicated most of his time to Pakistan.

As per BBC report, Bhutto is described as a “keen sportsman who enjoys cricket, shooting and horse-riding”.

The politician also possesses a black belt in taekwondo, the report added.

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s past controversies

Since assuming the post of Pakistan’s foreign minister, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has often raked up the Kashmir issue at the UN.

But he has been speaking about it much before that. In 2014, Bhutto had landed in a soup after he said to his party workers in Punjab’s Multan region in Pakistan that PPP would get back the “entire Kashmir” from India.

“I will take back Kashmir, all of it, and I will not leave behind a single inch of it because, like the other provinces, it belongs to Pakistan,” the scion of the Bhutto family had said as per news agency PTI.

Reacting to the remark, then MEA spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin had said: “We are in the process of looking forward and looking forward does not mean that our borders will be changed. We made it very clear that as far as we are concerned, the integrity and unity of India is non negotiable”.

Bhutto has also had controversial stances such as backing former prime minister Imran Khan’s Moscow visit earlier this year which had triggered a row.

Defending Khan, the PPP chairman said there was no possibility that the cricketer-turned-politician would have known about Russia’s plan to invade Ukraine, adding that it was “very unfair to punish Pakistan for such an innocent action”.

Bhutto has also hit headlines for his alleged ‘Urdu gaffes’.

He became meme material in March after he made a slip of tongue in Urdu.

A video went viral where Bilawal allegedly said taking a potshot at the then Imran Khan-led Pakistan government that “Islamabad me kanpen taang rahi hain“, while what he meant was “Islamabad me tangen kanp rahi hain” (Legs are shivering in Islamabad).