The World We Live In !!

Asif Ali Zardari hails from a feudal background – what that means is his father owned land, probably around a few thousand acres somewhere in rural Sindh. The locals who live and farm on the land pay the landlord a rent, or often times rent + half the produce from the land. Generally, this is the only legal source of income for most landlords.

Asif’s family didn’t have much land as compared to the larger Sindhi landlords, and like every other Pakistani landlord, their farming practices were backwards and highly inefficient, making them in essence relatively poor, as compared to the other much larger land owning families in Sindh. While always immensely rich compared to the average Pakistani, Asif grew up with a chip on his shoulder as the class he measured himeself against was much wealthier. Perhaps thats where his innate desire to go overboard on the pursuit of wealth grew from.

Feudal landholders in Pakistan are generally not very rich, despite impressions to the contrary. Their landholdings don’t generate much income. With the spread of industry and urbanization, a number of landlords have become much richer as their lands were near growing cities, hence increasing their value many fold – which enables them to sell off bits and pieces to add to their income.

Asif Ali Zardari’s father owned a small cinema in Karachi, and Asif used to make money on the side by selling cinema tickets, trading in cars, or selling off assets belonging to his family to make money. A life less ordinary, so to speak, there was never anything about him to suggest much more… till he somehow bumped into Benazir Bhutto.

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