Life
Born in 1898 in the village Pir Baksh Bhutto, the family home in Sindh, Bhutto was the son of Wadero Illahi Baksh Bhutto, a landowner and honorary magistrate of Larkana District, who died under mysterious circumstances in 1910 at the age of twenty-eight. He was educated at the Sindh Madressah, with such men as Mohammed Ayub Khuhro, Omar Bin Mohammed Daudpoto and Khan Sahib Kehar.
Bhutto's father, Illahi Baksh Bhutto, was the youngest son of Doda Khan Bhutto, brother of Khuda Baksh Bhutto and uncle of Ghulam Murtaza Bhutto, who became the father of Sir Shah Nawaz Bhutto and the grandfather of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
In the light of his father's untimely death, the responsibility of looking after the family estates fell on Bhutto at a very young age. An enterprising young man, the family estate increased considerably under the management of late Wahid Baksh Bhutto. He grew to be very popular and close ties and friendships developed with prominent families not only in Sindh, but all over India, particularly the Maharajas of the princely states. These friendships were further cultivated by 'shikar' (hunting) parties which are a common practice in Sindh, and Village Pir Baksh Bhutto was considered to be the 'wado ghar', the prominent home of the Bhutto family.
Being in close contact with the grass-roots and resolving the problems and disputes of tribesmen and people of his 'raj', the late Wahid Baksh Khan earned the trust and respect of the people. Seen as an up-and-comer, Wahid Baksh was made a Sardar by the people of the Bhutto tribe from all over India in 1924. Nobody in the family was Sardar before Wahid Baksh, and therefore the process of selection was egalitarian (democratic) in nature, and not hereditary, essentially a matter of who would lead the tribe, represent it, make decisions on behalf of it, and settle disputes within it, and also a question of who the tribesmen felt they could put their trust in. Sardar Wahid Baksh Bhutto was also the first individual from the Bhutto family to be elected to government by the people, in 1926.
The Morley-Minto Reforms, followed by the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms of 1919 paved the way for increasing native participation in the politics of the subcontinent. Indians could now be elected to the Central Legislative Assembly, the law-making body of India. 1926 saw the first ever election in Sindh, a constituency of the Bombay Presidency. Wahid Baksh Khan contested as the representative of the zamindars and jagirdars of Sindh, and in his campaigning was helped by G. M. Syed. Since Sindh was a constituency and not a province, this meant that campaigning needed to be done across the entire province, from the distant Upper Sindh Frontier region to the far reaches of the Thar desert. Travel was on horse-back and by camel. Wahid Baksh Bhutto won the election by a wide margin. Aged 28, he was the first elected representative from Sindh to the Central Legislative Assembly of India. From 1926 until his untimely death in 1931, Wahid Baksh would gain the highest number of votes in Sindh, while Abdullah Haroon would gain the second highest number of votes.
In the 1930 elections to the Legislative Assembly, Sardar Wahid Baksh contested against Honourable Ali Bux Mohammed Hussain and won. In the same year Wahid Baksh was elected to the Bombay Council, of which Mohammad Ayub Khuhro and Sir Shah Nawaz Bhutto were already members. Wahid Bux was nominated to the Council on the reference of Khan Bahadur Ghulam Mohommad Isran, who was already emember of the Bombay Council and stepped down so that Wahid Bux could be nominated. While Sir Shahnawaz Bhutto was at the Round Table Conference, late Sardar Wahid Baksh organised a reception at Gandhi Garden in Karachi on 1 October 1930, attended by 500 guests. Late Sardar Wahid Baksh opened a maternity home in Naudero and gave many scholarships to the poor in his constituency. Throughout the Larkana District, there were a chain of Madressahs that were on the payroll of Wahid Baksh, providing free education to the locals. Teachers appointed to these Madressahs were distinguished academics and scholars.
Sardar Wahid Baksh Bhutto died on the 25th of December 1931, immediately upon his return from the sessions of the Bombay Council in Poona. He had fallen suddenly ill whilst in Poona and was suffering from a case of double pneumonia. He returned to Sindh, and died in his Larkana house, immediately after receiving injections as form of treatment for the illness. Elderly members of his family and friends believed that he was poisoned by political opponents or even cousins/ distant family members, who saw him as a threat to their own advancement. They believed that it was these same individuals who were responsible for poisoning his father. According to G. M. Syed, if he had lived a full season, he would have had distinguished place in the politics and history of the Subcontinent. After his death, his younger brother, Nawab Nabi Baksh Bhutto, father of Mumtaz Bhutto was the elected representative of Sindh in the Legislative Assembly from 1935 until Partition. Nawab Nabi Baksh Bhutto then gave this constituency (NA 207) to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto when he first entered politics, and then Benazir Bhutto as well.
| Preceded by Wadero Illahi Baksh Bhutto |
Chief of Bhutto Tribe 1924–1931 |
Succeeded by Nawab Nabi Bux Khan Bhutto Mumtaz Bhutto |
Read more about this topic: Wahid Baksh Bhutto
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