Pakistan People’s Party chief Bilawal Bhutto Zardari took to Twitter today to express his feelings about his first visit to India, saying it was a “shame” that the two countries were spending money on weapons at a time when many people on both sides of the border were living in poverty.
Bilawal also touched a chord in India’s youth, endearing himself to his admirers with his good looks, easy laughter, self-effacing manner and a down-to-earth body language.
Bilawal, 23, who joined his father, President Asif Ali Zardari, on a day-long private visit to India, wrote on the micro-blogging site: “It is such a shame (that two) countries (where) such large segments of our population live in desperate poverty must spend so much on weapons”.
Bilawal expressed his views on nuclear weapons, saying the atomic arsenal of both countries were adequate to “destroy each other multiple times over”. He added, “Surely just once would (be one) time too many”.
The two countries should instead invest in education, healthcare and business so that they could trade, “teach each other” and “heal each other”, he wrote. Earlier in the day, Bilawal announced his arrival in India by tweeting: “(As-salam-o-alaikum India, Peace be with you. I have just landed in Delhi. 1st ever visit”.
He also recalled his slain mother, former premier Benazir Bhutto’s quote that “there is a little bit of India in every Pakistani and a little bit of Pakistan in every Indian”.
Following a meeting between President Zardari and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over lunch, Bilawal tweeted that his father and he had enjoyed the lunch “with Rahul Gandhi and PM Singh. Lovely meal. Much to learn from each other”.
After a visit to the famous Sufi shrine of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti at Ajmer, Bilawal wrote that he had offered a “special prayer for our brave soldiers who lost their lives in the Siachen avalanche tragedy”.
The political scion who stood quietly by his father Asif Ali Zardari’s side and sometime behind him during the day, depending on protocol and the nature of the occasion, was clad in a black and white pathani – the traditional Pathan attire of loose white pants and black kurta.
At the shrine of the Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti in Ajmer in Rajasthan, Bilawal did not bother to change clothes despite the blistering heat.
As a mark of respect to the saint, who had blessed Mughal emperor Akbar with son Jahangir after a pilgrimage, Bilawal draped an “embroidered scarf around his shoulders and tied a pink turban”.
Bilwal in a message on the social media said, “he had found Ajmer spiritual and peaceful”.
His body language changed once he left the capital for Ajmer, a source close at the airport said. “He began to laugh dropping his official silence. He carries striking shades of mother, when he laughs,” the source said.
Born on Sept 21, 1988, he spent his childhood in Dubai and London during his family’s “self-exile”. He later attended the Rashid School for Boys in Dubai. A black belt in taekwondo, Bilwal studied history at Oxford in London and returned to Pakistan after his mother, Benazir Bhutto, was assassinated.