When the sun rose over the Margalla Hills, I saw Islamabad for the first time. A planned city of wide avenues rimmed by low green mountains, it is a showcase of midcentury modern architecture and reforestation projects, typical of many of the capital cities that sprang up after national independence, built on neutral soil with good intentions and foreign aid. At first I didn’t feel I was in South Asia at all. But that notion evaporated as soon as I made a courtesy call on Begum Nasreen Leghari, the wife of Pakistan’s President, Farooq Ahmad Khan Leghari.

  An elegantly dressed woman, Mrs. Leghari spoke excellent English with a lilting British accent. She lived in conditions of strict isolation, known as “purdah,” never seen by men outside her immediate family. She had to be fully veiled on the rare occasions she left her house: She did not attend her husband’s inauguration but watched the ceremony on television. When she invited me to her living quarters on the second floor of the presidential residence, I could be accompanied only by female aides and Secret Service agents.

  Mrs. Leghari peppered me with questions about America. I was equally curious about her life and asked whether she wanted change for the next generation of women in her family. I learned that her recently married daughter was on the guest list of a large dinner I was attending the next night in Lahore, and I asked Mrs. Leghari about the contradiction.

  “That is her husband’s choice,” she said. “She’s no longer of our home. So she does whatever he chooses.” She accepted her daughter’s status and mobility because her sonin-law had chosen them on her behalf. The wife of Mrs. Leghari’s son, however, lived with her in purdah, because her son chose the traditional path of his father.

  The contradictions within Pakistan became still more apparent at my next event, a luncheon hosted in my honor by Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and attended by several dozen accomplished women in Pakistan. It was like being rocketed forward several centuries in time. Among these women were academics and activists, as well as a pilot, a singer, a banker and a police deputy superintendent. They had their own ambitions and careers, and, of course, we were all guests of Pakistan’s elected female leader.

  Benazir Bhutto, a brilliant and striking woman then in her midforties, was born into a prominent family and educated at Harvard and Oxford. Her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Pakistan’s Populist Prime Minister during the 1970s, was deposed in a military coup and later hanged. After his death, Benazir spent years under house arrest. In the late 1980s, she emerged as head of his old political party. Bhutto was the only celebrity I had ever stood behind a rope line to see. Chelsea and I were strolling around London during a holiday trip in the summer of 1989. We noticed a large crowd gathered outside the Ritz Hotel, and I asked people what they were waiting for. They said Benazir Bhutto was staying at the hotel and was soon expected to arrive. Chelsea and I waited until the motorcade drove up. We watched Bhutto, swathed in yellow chiffon, emerge from her limousine and glide into the lobby. She seemed graceful, composed and intent.

  In 1990, her government was dissolved over charges of corruption, but her party won again in new elections in 1993. Pakistan was increasingly troubled by rising violence and general lawlessness, particularly in Karachi. Law and order had deteriorated as the rate of ethnic and sectarian murders rose. There were also rampant rumors of corruption involving Asif Zardari, Bhutto’s husband, and supporters.

  At the luncheon she hosted for me, Benazir led a discussion about the changing roles of women in her country and told a joke about her husband’s status as a political spouse.

  “According to newspapers in Pakistan,” she said, “Mr. Asif Zardari is de facto Prime Minister of the country. My husband tells me, ‘Only the First Lady can appreciate it’s not true.’”

  Bhutto acknowledged the difficulties faced by women who were breaking with tradition and taking leading roles in public life. She deftly managed to refer both to the challenges I had encountered during my White House tenure and to her own situation.

  “Women who take on tough issues and stake out new territory are often on the receiving end of ignorance,” she concluded.

  In a private meeting with the Prime Minister, we talked about her upcoming visit to Washington in April, and I spent time with her husband and their children. Because I had heard that their marriage was arranged, I found their interaction particularly interesting.

  They bantered easily together, and seemed genuinely smitten with each other. Only months after my trip, accusations of corruption against them grew more harsh, and in August 1996, Bhutto elevated her husband to a cabinet post. By November 5, 1996, she was ousted amid allegations that Zardari had used his position for personal enrichment.

  He was convicted of corruption and imprisoned; she left her country with her children, under threat of arrest and unable to return.

  I have no way of knowing whether the accusations against Bhutto and her husband are well-founded or baseless. I do know that during the short time I was there, I was drawn into a world of unfathomable contrasts. Nasreen Leghari and Benazir Bhutto came from the same culture. President Leghari put his wife in purdah while Ali Bhutto sent his daughter to Harvard. An arranged marriage seemed to produce genuine delight. Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have all been governed by women elected as Presidents or Prime Ministers in a region where women are so devalued that some newborn girls may be ‘ killed or abandoned.

  I wanted to know what would become of the future generation of ‘! educated Pakistani women, some of whom Chelsea and I met the next “ day at the Islamabad College for Girls, Benazir Bhutto’s high school. Many of their concerns were familiar to the mother of a curious and enterprising young woman. They worried aloud about how they could change their society and where they might fit into it as highly educated women.

  “You’re never going to find the ideal man,” said one girl. “You have to be a lot more realistic.”

  Her voice would stay with me. She was of a culture where choice in marriage was rarely the woman’s. Yet she knew enough of the realities of modern life to contemplate the uncertain options of women everywhere.

  I continued that conversation about women’s choices when I visited Lahore University of Management Science, where women were studying business. The program was supported in part by Pakistani Americans who understood that Pakistan’s economy and standard of living would never advance unless women were educated and played an active role. No one could doubt the success of South Asian immigrants in America, where they flourished in business and the professions.

  Their successes in our country illustrated the importance of a well-functioning noncorrupt government, a free market, a society that values individuals, including girls and women, a culture that tolerates all religious traditions and an environment free of violence and war.

  No country in South Asia has yet achieved all these conditions. Men and women who could have contributed to their own country’s advancement are instead contributing to ours. Sri Lanka, for example, where I ended my trip, had a high rate of literacy for both men and women, but the country had lived in terror for years because of a guerrilla insurgence by the Hindu Tamil Tigers against the majority Buddhist Sinhalese population and government. The relentless campaign of terror undermined its potential for economic growth and foreign investment.

  Before we left Islamabad, Chelsea and I paid a visit of respect to the Saudi-built Faisal Mosque, named for the former Saudi King and one of the largest mosques in the world. With its nearly three-hundred-foot tall minarets and magnificent canopy, this modem mosque was one of more than 1,500 the Saudi government and private citizens were building on six continents. We removed our shoes and padded around the vast prayer halls and courtyards designed to accommodate up to one hundred thousand believers.

  Chelsea, who had been studying Islamic history and culture in her school, asked our guide well-informed questions. Like the Judeo-Christian Bible, the Quran is open to different interpretations, most of which promote peaceful coexistence with people of other religions; some, like Wahhabism, do not. Wahhabism is an ultraconservative Saudi brand of Islam that is gaining adherents around the world. While I deeply respect the basic tenets of Islam, Wahhabism troubles me because it is a fast-spreading form of Islamic fundamentalism that excludes women from full participation in their societies, promotes religious intolerance and, in its most extreme version, as we learned with Osama bin Laden, advocates terror and violence.

  The next day I visited the embassy to talk to the American and Pakistani staff, who were terribly shaken by the recent murders of their colleagues in Karachi. I wanted to acknowledge their courage in serving our country and reassure them that, despite isolationist voices in Congress, their services were invaluable and appreciated by the President and by millions of American citizens. This was a not so thinly veiled reference to some Republican House members who boasted that they didn’t have passports, never traveled outside our country and planned to slash the State Department budget. I also wanted to thank the embassy staff for all the extra work my trip had required of them. From their perspective, the best part of a VIP visit was the moment the diplomatic plane took off―and they could hold a “wheels up” party to recover. I joked that maybe I would only pretend to leave, then sneak back to celebrate with them.

  Under extraordinary security, we flew to Lahore, the capital of Punjab. The Pakistanis were so afraid of an incident that they positioned hundreds of soldiers along the route from the airport. Unlike modern Islamabad, Lahore is an ancient site with glorious Moghul architecture. The roads had been cleared of all normal traffic, and the ordinarily teeming city seemed depopulated. On parts of our route, colorful printed cloth had been hung on clotheslines to hide the slums alongside the highway. But where the material had fallen down, I could see children and emaciated dogs scrambling around piles of garbage.

  We drove out to a rural village that, despite its lack of electricity, was considered advantaged because it had a health clinic and a school that educated girls. The clinic was a concrete-block building staffed by a handful of doctors and technicians who were responsible for an area with a population of 150,000 people. The staff was heroic in its efforts but lacked many crucial resources. We brought donations of medical supplies and necessities, as we tried to do wherever we visited. Patients, mostly mothers with their children, sat quietly on benches against the wall. They seemed astonished to see so many Americans in their little village but graciously allowed Chelsea and me to hold their babies and ask them questions through an interpreter.

  Another concrete building a hundred yards away housed the primary school for girls.

  That was as far as their education was likely to go, because the nearest secondary school―high school―was for boys only. I spoke to a woman who had ten children, five boys and five girls. She sent her five boys to the secondary school, but her girls had nowhere to go because they couldn’t travel to or attend the nearest girls’ school. She wanted a secondary school nearby for her girls. She talked very openly about birth control and said that if she had known then what she knew now, she wouldn’t have had so many children.

  We visited a multigenerational, crowded family compound just behind the school, with children and animals roaming around the courtyard. The oldest family members sat in hammocks watching the commotion created by my visit, while the male head of the family greeted me warmly and showed me several of the compound’s one-room homes, which contained sleeping and eating areas for individual families. Communal activity took place outdoors, where the women gathered to prepare and cook food. Two young girls showed Chelsea how to use black kohl coloring on her eyes. Fashion is a universal feminine touchstone.

  I had given a lot of thought to how Chelsea and I should dress on the trip. We wanted to be comfortable, and under the sun’s heat, I was glad for the hats and cotton clothes I had packed. I didn’t want to offend people in the communities I was visiting, but I was also wary of appearing to embrace customs reflecting a culture that restricted women’s lives and rights. On Jackie Kennedy’s historic tour of India and Pakistan in 1962, she was photographed wearing sleeveless shifts and knee-length skirts―not to mention a midriffbaring sari that caused an international sensation. Public opinion seemed to have grown more conservative in South Asia since then. We consulted State Department experts, who offered tips on how to behave in foreign countries without embarrassing ourselves or offending our hosts. The South Asia briefing papers warned against crossing legs, pointing fingers, eating with the “unclean” left hand or initiating physical contact with the opposite sex, including a handshake.

  I made sure to pack several long scarves that I could throw around my shoulders or put over my head if I entered a mosque. I had noticed the way Benazir Bhutto covered her hair with a light scarf. She wore a local form of dress called shalwar kameez, a long, flowing tunic over loose pants that was both practical and attractive. Chelsea and I decided to try out this style. For the extravaganza at the Lahore Fort that night, I wore a red silk shalwar kameez, and Chelsea donned one in a turquoise green that complemented her eyes. The Governor of Punjab had invited five hundred guests to the red sandstone fortress, once headquarters of the medieval Moghul empire, that loomed on a hill overlooking the city. We arrived on a clear, starry evening and stepped out of our cars into a scene from the Arabian Nights. Beneath a fireworks display, troupes of musicians and dancers greeted us on either side of a long red carpet. Camels and horses draped in jeweled robes and headdresses shuffled and spun to flute music. Chelsea and I were entranced and squeezed each other’s hands in wonder. Two huge wind-carved turrets guarded the entrance to the inner fort, where thousands of flickering oil lamps lit the courtyards and passageways, and the air was fragrant with rose petals. I looked at my enchanting, suddenly grown-up daughter wrapped in brilliant silk, and wished Bill were there to see her, too.

  The evening ended in a dash to the airport and a flight to New Delhi. I had wanted to visit India ever since I was a freshman in college and Margaret Clapp, the President of Wellesley College, left to head a women’s college in Madurai, India. Before she went, she made the rounds to our dormitories, describing what she would be doing. I was intrigued.

  Before I decided on law school, I had considered going to India to study or teach.

  A quarter-century later, I was making my first trip there, representing my country. Bill had asked me to go because he wanted to oversee the development of good relations with India after forty years of the Indian policy of non-alignment and its ties with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. I wanted to see for myself the world’s largest democracy and learn more about grassroots efforts to spur development and women’s rights. I was excited about what I’d be seeing, even though I knew my time and exposure would be limited.

  My first day, I had a crowded schedule that included a visit to one of Mother Teresa’s orphanages, where girls far outnumbered boys because daughters were not as valued as sons by their families. Mother Teresa was traveling outside India, but Sister Priscilla gave us a tour. Well-cared-for babies reached out their arms, and Chelsea and I picked them up while Sister Priscilla told us about each one. Some infant girls had been abandoned in the streets; more often they were left at the orphanage by mothers who couldn’t care for them or said that their fathers didn’t want them. Some babies had club feet or cleft lips or other physical disabilities and were abandoned by families too poor to pay for medical treatment.

  Many of the children would be adopted by Westerners, although adoption within India was becoming more common. Sister Priscilla told me my visit had caused the local government to pave the dirt road, which she laughingly deemed a minor miracle.

  I lunched with a group of Indian women at Roosevelt House, the Ambassador’s residence, and dined with President Shanker Dayal Sharma. The next day, I was scheduled to meet with Prime Minister E V Narasimha Rao. It was important to duplicate whatever I had done in Pakistan, lest I offend either country since I knew that both kept score.

  I had agreed to make a major speech on women’s rights at the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, but I was having trouble writing it. I was looking for one clear image that would express what I wanted to say. At the women’s luncheon, Meenakshi Gopinath, the principal of Lady Sri Ram College, a secondary school, presented me with my inspirationa handprinted poem written by one of her students, Anasuya Sengupta. It was called “Silence,”

  and it began:

  Too many women

  In too many countries

  Speak the same language.

  Of silence …

  I couldn’t get the poem out of my head. As I worked on my speech late into the night, I realized that I could use the poem to convey my belief that issues affecting women and girls should not be dismissed as “soft” or marginal but should be integrated fully into domestic and foreign policy decisions. Denying or curtailing education and basic health care for women is a human rights issue. Restricting women’s economic, political and social participation is a human rights issue. For too long, the voices of half the world’s citizens have not been heard by their governments. The voices of women became my theme, and I decided to end my speech by quoting the poem.

  The Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, named for the assassinated Prime Minister, was established by his widow, Sonia, who had invited me to speak. A soft-spoken, Italian-born woman, Sonia Gandhi had fallen in love with Rajiv, the handsome son of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, when they were students at Cambridge University in England. They married and moved to India. From all accounts, Sonia was happily raising two children when catastrophe struck her family. First, her brother-in-law, Sanjay―whom many believed would follow his mother and grandfather, Jawaharlal Nehru, into politics―was killed in a plane crash. Then, in 1984, Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her own security guards.