The limits of Bushra Bibi’s power

“You have to admit that most women who do something with their lives have been disliked by almost everyone.” — Françoise Gilot, the French painter who loved Picasso, left him on her own terms, and refused to be remembered just as his muse. There are many who would assert that Pakistan’s former first lady Bushra Bibi should be dismissed as a woman of no substance. She did not, they argue, earn a place in the national imagination by winning over crowds with her speeches or marching for the down...

By [email protected] (Aisha Sarwari)