Is India now set to become a science juggernaut, a leader of the coming "Asian Century"? A nascent superpower of the East? Some Western analysts think so, with the National Intelligence Council, a CIA think-tank, putting India at the very top under the head "availability of scientists and engineers" together with high marks for foreign technology licensing and absorption. But will this be enough? Where is India actually heading?
Few Pakistanis get to visit India, the so-called "enemy country", and fewer still to independently assess the development of science and education across its hugely diverse regions. I had the exceptional good fortune to make such a visit recently, made possible by the award of UNESCO’s Kalinga Prize for the popularization of science. One part of the Prize included a 4-week lecture tour that took me around India: Delhi, Pune, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bhubhaneswar, Cuttack, Calcutta, and then back to Delhi again before I returned home to Islamabad in mid-February. Although the Prize was awarded in 2003, frosty Pakistan-India relations had made my tour impossible until 2005.
It was a relentless schedule from the first day onwards with several lectures daily at schools, colleges, universities, research institutions, and peace groups. I chatted with children from excellent schools as well as those from rather ordinary ones; had long sessions with students and professors from colleges and universities; met with the "junta" (cooks, taxi drivers, and rickshawallas); and was invited to see ministers and chief ministers in several states, as well as the president of India.
Believing that readers might be interested in looking at India’s academic institutions and society through the eyes of a Pakistani, and that answering the crucial questions posed at the beginning will need more than just aggregated statistics, I offer the following observations:
Many Indian universities have a cosmopolitan character and are world class. Their social culture is secular, modern, and similar to that in universities located in free societies across the world. (In Pakistan, AKU and LUMS would be the closest approximations.) Male and female students freely intermingle, library and laboratory facilities are good, seminars and colloquia are frequent, and the faculty engages in research. Entrance exams are tough and competition for grades is intense. Some universities, "deemed universities" and other research institutions I visited (TIFR, IISC, IITs, IMSC, IICT, IUCAA, JNCASR, IPB, Raman Institute, Swaminathan Institute,...) do research work at the cutting edge of science. A strong tradition of mathematics and theoretical science forms a backbone that sustains progress in areas ranging from space exploration and super-computing to nanotechnology and biotechnology.
The rural-urban divide, and the class divide in education, is strong. Schools and colleges in small towns have a culture steeped in religion. Here one sees hierarchy, obedience, and even servility. The national anthem is sung in schools and religious symbols are given much prominence.
Some students I met were bright, but many appeared rather dull. Although most Indian colleges are coeducational (unlike in Pakistan), male and female students sit separately and are not encouraged to intermingle. It is sometimes difficult to understand the English spoken there. Where possible, I spoke in Hindi/Urdu. This enhanced my ability to communicate and also created a certain kind of bonding. There is an evident desire to improve, however, and at least some college principals go out of their way to organize events and invite guest speakers. My lecture at the Basavanagudi National College, a fairly ordinary college in Bangalore, was the 1978th lecture given by academicians over a period of 30 years!
Independent thought in India’s better universities is alive and well. Office bearers of the Jawaharlal Nehru University students union in Delhi were requested by the university’s administration to present flowers to President Abdul Kalam at the annual convocation. They flatly refused, saying that he is a nuclear hawk and an appointee of a Hindu fundamentalist party. Moreover, as young women of dignity they could not agree to act as mere flower girls presenting bouquets to a man. Eventually the head of the physics department, also a woman, somewhat reluctantly presented flowers to Dr. Kalam but said that she was doing so as a scientist honoring another scientist, not because she was a woman. Bravo! I have not seen comparable boldness and intellectual courage in Pakistani students. Student unions in Pakistan have been banned for two decades and so it is a moot question if any union there could have mustered similar independence of thought.
Taking science to the masses has become a kind of mantra all over India. My columnist friend Praful Bidwai - a powerful critic of the Indian state and its militaristic policies - counts among India’s greatest achievements the energisation of its democracy and refers to "our social movements, with their rich traditions of people’s self-organisation, innovative protest and daring questioning of power". These movements have ensured that, unlike in Pakistan, land grabbers in Indian cities have found fierce resistance when they try to gobble up public spaces - parks, zoos, playgrounds, historical sites, etc. Praful should also include in his list the huge number of science popularization movements, sometimes supported by the state but often spontaneous. These are sweeping through India’s towns and villages, seeking to bring about an understanding of natural phenomena, teach simple health care, and introduce technology appropriate to a rural environment. There is not even one comparable Pakistani counterpart. I watched some science communicators, such as Arvind Gupta at IUCAA in Pune, whose infectious enthusiasm leaves children thrilled and desirous of pursuing careers in science. Individual Indian states have funded and created numerous impressive planetariums and science museums, and local organizations are putting out a huge volume of written and audio-visual science materials in the local languages.
Attitudes of Indian scientists towards science are conservative.
Progress through science is an immensely popular notion in India, stressed both by past and present leaders. But what is science understood to be? I was a little jolted upon reading Nehru’s words, written in stone at the entrance to the Jawaharlal Nehru Institute for Advanced Research in Bangalore: "I too have worshipped at the shrine of science". The notion of "worship" and "shrine of science" do not go well with the modern science and the scientific temper. Science is about challenging, not worshipping.
As a secular man, Nehru was not given to worship but his metaphorical allusions to industries and factories as temples of science found full resonance. Indeed, science in India is largely seen as an instrument that enhances productive capabilities, and not as a transformational tool for producing an informed, just, and rational society. Most Indian scientists are techno-nationalists - they put their science at the service of their state rather than the people. In this respect, Pakistan is no different.
India’s nuclear and space programs are nationally venerated as symbols of high achievement. This led to India’s nuclear hero, Dr. Abdul Kalam, becoming the country’s president. When Dr. Kalam received me in his office, after the usual pleasantries, I expressed my regret at India having gone nuclear and causing Pakistan to follow suit. Shouldn’t India now reduce dangers by initiating a process of nuclear disarmament? Dr. Kalam gave me a well-practiced response: India would get rid of its nuclear weapons the very minute that America agreed to do the same. He displayed little enthusiasm for an agreement to cut off fissile material production. However, he did agree to my suggestion that exchange of academics could be an important way to build good relations between Pakistan and India.
Indian society remains deeply superstitious, caste divisions are important, and women still have a long way to go. While I found myself admiring the energetic popular science movements, I was disappointed that they pay relatively little attention to the anti-scientific superstitions widely prevalent in Indian society. After I had given a strong pitch for fighting irrational beliefs at a meeting of science popularization activists from villages in Northern India, a young woman asked me what to do if "koi devi aap pay utr jayai" (if a spirit should descend upon you).
The jyoti (astrologer) dictates the dates when a marriage is possible, and even whether a couple can marry at all. When I was in Bangalore, hundreds of thousands thronged to be cured by an American faith-healer, Benny Hinn.
Inter-caste marriages are still frowned upon, and usually forbidden. In local newspapers one typically reads of tragic accounts such as that of a boy and girl from different castes who jointly commit suicide after their families forbid the match. Although Indian women are freer, more visible, and more confident than their Pakistani counterparts, India is still a strongly male dominated society. However, the rapidly increasing number of bold and well-educated young women gives hope for the future.
Muslims in India remain at the margins of scientific research and higher education. Hamdard University in Delhi is distinctly better than the university bearing the same name on the Pakistani side. Jamia Millia, a largely Muslim university, appears to be doing well and probably better than any Pakistani university in the field of physics. But, although Muslims form 12% of India’s population, I met only a few Muslim scientists in leading Indian research institutes and universities. Discrimination against Muslims does not appear to be the dominant cause. A professor at Jamia told me that an overwhelming number of Muslim students were inclined towards seeking easier (and more lucrative) professions in spite of special incentives offered to them at his university. In general, Muslims in India appear more modern and secular than in Pakistan. However, Hyderabad astonished me. Is it a total exception? In the lecture that I gave at a government women’s college, there was only one young woman without a burqa in an audience of about a hundred. These women were surprised to learn that Pakistan - at least in most places - is more liberal than Hyderabad. The extreme conservatism in the Muslim part of the city reminds one of Peshawar.
There was a remarkable lack of hostility towards Pakistan. Indeed a desire for friendly relations was repeatedly expressed in every forum I went to. This is not to be taken lightly: many of my public lectures were either about (or on) science, but others dealt with deeply contentious issues - nuclear weapons, India-Pakistan relations, and the Kashmir conflict. Various Indian peace groups and NGOs organized public discussions and screenings of the two documentaries that I had made (with my friend Zia Mian): "Pakistan and India under the Nuclear Shadow", and "Crossing the Lines - Kashmir, Pakistan, India". To be sure, my views on Indian policies and actions in Kashmir occasionally provoked knee-jerk nationalistic responses and accusations of pushing "a Pakistani line". But these were infrequent and even heated exchanges always remained within the bounds of civility.
Ignorance about Pakistan is widespread. In most public gatherings, and certainly in every school that I spoke at, people had never seen a Pakistani. A puzzled 12-year old girl asked me: "Sir, are you really a Pakistani?". Many Indians have a misconception of Pakistan as a medieval, theocratic state. In fact, only a few parts of Pakistan are really so. I also encountered the belief that Pakistanis have been totally muzzled and live in a police state. This is untrue - articles in the Pakistani press are often blunter and more critical than in the Indian press. An Indian friend hypothesized that knowledge of the other country is inversely proportional to the geographical distance between our countries.
Unfortunately this will remain true unless there is a substantial exchange of visitors.
Indians are deeply nationalistic and may dislike particular governments but they only rarely criticize the Indian state. This is not difficult to understand: the democratic process has given a strong sense of participation to most citizens and has successfully forged a national identity (except in Kashmir, and parts of the North East) that transcends the immense diversity of Indian cultures. But this has an important downside: nationalism is easy to mobilize and highly dangerous in matters of war and conflict. I found the Indian elite (especially the former heads of nuclear, space, and technology programs) condescending and irritatingly smug. Even if India has done well in many respects, in most others it is still behind the rest of the world. Fortunately, Pakistani intellectuals are less attached to their nation state and therefore more forthright. The reason is rather clear: three decades of military rule have dealt a serious blow to nation building and firming up the Pakistani identity.
Similarities between the two countries exceed the differences. Cities in both countries are poisoned with thick car fumes and grid-locks are frequent; megaslums and exploding populations threaten to swallow up the countryside; electricity supplies are intermittent; and water is fast disappearing from rivers and aquifers. The rural poor are fleeing to the cities, and wretched beggars with amputated limbs are casually accepted as part of the urban scenery. There is little long-term planning, and none at all for coping with the inevitable changes that global warming will soon bring.
India is upbeat about its future and the feeling of optimism is palpable down to the lower middle class. The steady improvement in educational quality and outreach, the growth of social movements that keep excesses of power and authority in check, and a sense of participation among people are among India’s most significant gains. But its problems are no less than its accomplishments. Will India’s poor be able to find a voice, get help in fighting superstitions and notions of caste, and be spared the marginalization that accompanies globalization? Will India’s leadership have the wisdom to arrive at some reasonable accommodation on Kashmir, cease obsessive militarization, and divert resources to pressing social needs? These larger issues, and not just advances in science and technology, will decide just how high India can rise.
Showing posts with label Pakistan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pakistan. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Assessing Pakistani Science
Constitution Avenue in Islamabad, the 8-lane arterial road that goes into the heart of Pakistan’s political establishment and the Presidency, is lined with impressive buildings bearing the names of many scientific institutions. These include the Pakistan Academy of Sciences, Pakistan Science Foundation, Islamic Academy of Sciences, Pakistan Council for Science and Technology, Committee on S&T of Organization of Islamic Countries (COMSTECH), Commission on S&T for Sustainable Development in the South (COMSATS), and others. A short distance from the Presidency is the head office of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, the largest single science-based institution in the country. Other institutions are spread across Islamabad. Their large numbers, astronomically high real estate value, and obvious wealth, shows that Pakistan’s ruling establishment wants to be seen as taking science seriously. The question is: does it, and how far down the road has Pakistan’s science actually come since 1947?
The answer depends considerably upon how one chooses to define scientific accomplishment. In defense technology, which is applied science, it has done relatively well. Pakistan manufactures nuclear weapons and intermediate range missiles that, once upon a time, were considered as cutting-edge technology. There is now also a burgeoning, increasingly export-oriented, Pakistani arms industry that turns out a large range of weapons from grenades to tanks, night vision devices to laser guided weapons, and small submarines to training aircraft. Dozens of industrial sized units in and around Wah, with many subsidiaries, are producing armaments worth hundreds of millions of dollars with export earnings of roughly 100 million dollars yearly. Much of the production is under license from foreign countries, some from CKD kits, and most machinery for the arms factories is imported from the West or China. Chinese assistance in every nuclear area, peaceful and otherwise, has been crucial. Nonetheless, even though Pakistan’s defense production is mostly a triumph of reverse engineering rather than original research and development, its leaders have demonstrated the capability to exercise technical judgment and sufficient understanding of principles at some level.
There is less evidence of success in the civilian technology sector. High technology exports, as a percentage of total exports, amounted to only one percent in 2004. Much of this comes from software exports officially evaluated at $40 million but unofficially estimated at around 150 million dollars. This figure should be compared against India’s 12.5 billion dollars in 2004. The difference of 80 times or more is wholly out of the proportion with the difference in populations, about 6.5 to 1. Although the economy is currently growing well, Pakistan has an economy deeply dependent upon remittances from overseas workers, most of whom constitute unskilled labour in Middle Eastern countries. Instead, low-tech textile exports are the mainstay of Pakistan’s industrial production. According to the Pakistan Council for Science and Technology (PCST), in 43 years Pakistani scientists and technologists have managed to get just eight patents registered internationally.
Disaggregating the Sciences
Pakistan is at its weakest in the area of original scientific research, and the causes of weakness here appear poorly understood. The lack of understanding here has led to fundamentally flawed policies and delusions of achieving a quick turn around.
To engage in a sensible discourse on this important matter requires that, at the outset, we separate pure science from applied science. Pure science seeks to uncover new principles and fathom the inner workings of nature. Its discoveries, such as in cosmology or elementary particle physics, often have little or no relation to any kind of technology or economic need. The famous English pure mathematician and number theorist, G.H. Hardy, took much pride in the lack of application of his discoveries to anything in the real world. Nonetheless, without such foundational works in pure science and mathematics there would be no applied science, and no technology. Maxwell’s equations led to wireless and television, abstract quantum mechanics to the transistor and integrated circuit, and Einstein’s relativity to nuclear power and the bomb.
Pure science and applied science are judged by two different sets of criteria. Good pure science must be current, introduce or employ new concepts or uncover hidden relationships, be intellectually interesting to practitioners of the field, and stimulate further research into the discovering the nature of physical reality. Good applied science, on the other hand, is that which uses known scientific facts in non-obvious ways with the goal of creating technology in the form of processes, devices, pharmaceutical drugs, machines, computing systems, etc.
These elementary distinctions are important to understand now that tens of billions of rupees are suddenly being poured into funding scientific research in Pakistan, and enormous incentives are being given to Pakistani scientists to buy research equipment and publish research papers. This so-called “renaissance” of science in Pakistan owes principally to the chairman of Pakistan’s Higher Education Commission, and a well-known chemist, Dr. Atta-ur-Rahman.
Writing in the prestigious journal “Nature”, Dr. Atta bemoans the state of scientific research in Islamic countries and offers his recipe for improving it. He thinks that the answer lies in increasing the number of scientific publications, and the number of science PhDs. He then proceeds to declare Pakistan as a success story. In his words:
“During the period 2001 to 2003, the sharpest increase has come from Pakistan, with a 40% increase from 636 to 890. This is a result of a system introduced in 2002 that provides researchers with an opportunity to more than quadruple their earnings if they increase the numbers of their papers published in peer-reviewed journals.”
Other claimed successes include a huge increase in the number of PhD students enrolled in Pakistani universities, and a doubling of the number of universities in the public sector over a period of five years or so.
A Disputable Criterion
Does success lie in increasing numbers? Is it a good idea to use the number of published papers as a means to “quadruple their earnings” of scientists, and to go in for whole-sale production of PhDs? On the face of it, this seems eminently sensible. But experience in other countries points in the other direction. Two of Iran’s most distinguished chemists, Dr. Mohamed Yalpani and Dr. Akbar Heydari of Tarbiat Modarres University, argue that such a path is likely to do more harm than good.
Yalpani and Heydari , in a 2005 paper published in the journal “Scientometrics”, argue that this approach has failed in Iran. Intrigued by the fact that publications by Iranian scientists had exploded from a total of 1040 in 1998 to 3277 in 2003 – with over 30% of these in chemistry – these two scientists set about uncovering a number of facts that many had suspected but none had adequately documented.
Working systematically, paper-by-paper, Yalpani and Heydari discovered that:
1. Many scientific papers by Iranian chemists that were claimed as “original” by their authors, and which had been published in internationally peer-reviewed journals, had actually been published twice, and sometimes thrice, by the same authors with identical or nearly identical contents. Trivial changes had been made in the titles, with the contents, graphs, and references being 90% or more similar. These were clear cut-and-paste papers. Others were plagiarized papers that could have been easily detected by any reasonably careful referee.
2. Many Iranian researchers have chosen to repeat the same basic chemical reactions – of dubious practical or scientific value – over and over again. While this generates a lot of data and graphs, it is unlikely to be of much use for anything other than increasing the number of their publications.
3. Interestingly, in some of the papers published by Iranian groups, the exchange of N for O had been represented as acid catalyzed and in some as oxidative! Clearly, the international journal referees were sleeping.
4. Many important details, which ought to be provided by journal authors (such as sample preparation procedures, curing temperatures, etc), were missing. This leads to a suspicion that the experiments were carried out under circumstances that make the results unreliable.
5. While certain international journals are careful and demanding, others are fairly sloppy. Prospective authors, whose work is shoddy, obviously prefer journals which do not require a high degree of proof. Under pressure to publish, or attracted by the incentives offered by the Iranian system, authors often chose to follow the path of least resistance paved for them by the increasingly commercialized policies of many scientific journals. Prospective authors well know that editors are under pressure to produce a journal of a certain thickness every month.
6. Referring to the incentives proposed by Dr. Atta-ur-Rahman in his self-congratulatory Nature article, Yalpani and Heydari show their strong disapproval and note that “significantly, there is no mention of quality in his entire article”. They censure his approach for rewarding the “cut-and-paste” method which his incentives encourage. In their opinion this damages the scientific enterprise because it focuses the attention of the Third World scientist primarily on momentary personal material gain. When reporting a finding in a Western scientific journal, the essence is lost because individuals often attempt only a minimal mimic of the formalism that lies behind true science.
The two authors note the general decline of the scientific quality of papers published by Iranian chemists although chemical concepts, reagents, instrumentation, and other tools had progressively become more sophisticated. Simply put: there is an explosion of junk scientific papers, perhaps cleverly packaged and capable of getting past referees, but of little use.
No comparable scientometric research, to my knowledge, has ever been done for Pakistani scientists. But these two Iranian chemists, who obviously are not writing for a Pakistani audience, have nevertheless put their fingers on a sensitive spot. They have given enough evidence for everyone to be worried, particularly those concerned with science in Pakistan.
Alternative Criteria
How then is one to judge the state of science, and the individual merit of scientists if not by the number of published papers? To say that published scientific works carry no value is foolish. There is absolutely no doubt that the genuine scientific publication is extremely important to science, both theoretical and experimental. But it has value only if it is strictly preserved as a medium that succinctly and accurately conveys the essence of true scientific discoveries. If this medium is corrupted, either totally or partially, one must search for better achievement indicators. A better, though still imperfect, estimation of scientific quality is to see how many times a scientist’s work is cited by others working in the same field. Citations – excluding self-citations or those made by members of the same group – is a relatively better criterion for assessment of achievement in the pure sciences.
For assessing research in the applied sciences, the task is much simpler. The value to industry of such research must be clear and apparent. This suggests that one must judge the plethora of scientific institutions in Pakistan – which are predominantly applied science institutions – principally by the technology, products, and processes that their work has given birth to. For agricultural research – which is relatively simple science but of immense economic importance – there are some good results to show in terms of cotton and wheat varieties produced, rice and tea strains, etc.
But in non-agricultural fields there is much confusion. It is time to demand clarity. Surely PCSIR, with an annual budget of over 80 million rupees is obliged to tell the nation what that money has produced (beyond a process for making mineral water). The websites of almost all Pakistani S&T institutions are national embarrassments – that of the Centre for Applied and Molecular Biology has pictures of political personalities, starting with General Pervez Musharraf, but links leading to its activities (particularly research) lead nowhere.
One must judge the “miracle” of the HEJ Institute – said to be Pakistan’s premier research institution – by criteria different from the present ones. Papers published on applied chemistry, the large number of PhDs produced, or the impressive international conferences it has organized, are indeed positive achievements. But the real criteria should be: what has it produced in the way of pharmaceutical products, patents, and services to industry. Unfortunately its otherwise elaborate website does not, at least as yet, provide information on this aspect. It is the responsibility of HEJ to provide proof of its success because it consumes the lion’s share of research funding. Dr. Abdullah Riaz, an opposition parliamentarian, has recently pointed out that the HEC had made grants amounting to a massive 1.36 billion rupees over 5 years to HEJ, and that both institutions are headed by the same individual.
As in India, in Pakistan all publicly funded national research institutions in the non-defence sector, as well as universities, should be required by law to put their achievements on the internet so that some level of monitoring is possible. Without transparency, unlimited amounts of money can easily disappear without increasing real scientific productivity.
Future Prospects
The future of science in Pakistan will depend fundamentally upon the kind and quality of education that students receive in their schools and colleges. Fancy equipment for scientific research, or increased access to the internet and various glitzy technologies, are add-ons that acquire meaning and importance only after there is an adequate understanding of fundamental concepts.
Unfortunately, by and large, our school education continues to be based upon rote learning. As such it actively seeks to destroy the questioning mind from early childhood by rewarding obedience and punishing originality. One does not see many positive trends here. A moribund examination system that rewards rote learning continues to resist all reform attempts. The recent decision by the ministry of education to downgrade the importance of science practicals at the matriculation level from 25% of total marks to 15% is an alarming development.
So far, in the absence of a real understanding of the problem, the only prescription for boosting science remains the present one – throw unlimited amounts of money at the problem in the hope that things will turn around some day. The science budget for universities and institutes has shot up 12-15 times over the last 3-4 years.
But money and resources are fake issues. The most powerful engines of science, meaning mathematics and theoretical physics, are exceedingly parsimonious and undemanding of resources. A mathematician or theoretical physicist needs no equipment. Yet, with modest exceptions, high talent has nearly disappeared from Pakistan. Today one cannot count even 10 Pakistani physicists and mathematicians, living in Pakistan, who are good enough to get a job in a reasonable US university. But 30-35 years ago there were probably more than 3 times this number. India has many hundreds in this category, if not a thousand or two.
The dismal situation in Pakistani science is unlikely to change much until there is an understanding that science brings with it a world-view – a weltenschaung within which creativity, freedom, intellectual rigour, and scientific honesty are given the kind of value they receive in the West. The leaders of Pakistan’s scientific establishment, who head a plethora of institutes and academies, never cease to demand more resources. But they never speak of the need for exercising the scientific method, critical thinking, skepticism, or viewing the world rationally. They stood by as if struck deaf and dumb after the October 8 earthquake. Comfortably situated in plush offices and driven around in fancy new cars, not a single one from among them moved to challenge the ridiculous and counter-scientific beliefs, freely propagated over the mass media, that this earthquake was God’s punishment for our sinful behavior.
Let us face the fact squarely: pre-modern societies, or those which dispute the very basis of science, simply cannot produce meaningful science. Scientific progress requires social progress and a battle against superstition and fatalism. The task of bringing science in Pakistan will therefore have to go side-by-side with a much wider struggle to bring modern thought, the arts, philosophy and pluralism. Science cannot prosper under authoritarianism. And authoritarianism runs deep everywhere. It is underlies the conventional family structure that demands absolute obedience, and a tyrannical educational system where the teacher crushes independent thought. But without intellectual and personal freedoms, Pakistan shall continue to suffocate. Today’s orgiastic money-dumping – one which has dazzled the world – will fizzle whenever the country’s political administration changes. Suddenly the party will be over. By that time, the distance from India, and the developed world, will have increased many-fold.
The answer depends considerably upon how one chooses to define scientific accomplishment. In defense technology, which is applied science, it has done relatively well. Pakistan manufactures nuclear weapons and intermediate range missiles that, once upon a time, were considered as cutting-edge technology. There is now also a burgeoning, increasingly export-oriented, Pakistani arms industry that turns out a large range of weapons from grenades to tanks, night vision devices to laser guided weapons, and small submarines to training aircraft. Dozens of industrial sized units in and around Wah, with many subsidiaries, are producing armaments worth hundreds of millions of dollars with export earnings of roughly 100 million dollars yearly. Much of the production is under license from foreign countries, some from CKD kits, and most machinery for the arms factories is imported from the West or China. Chinese assistance in every nuclear area, peaceful and otherwise, has been crucial. Nonetheless, even though Pakistan’s defense production is mostly a triumph of reverse engineering rather than original research and development, its leaders have demonstrated the capability to exercise technical judgment and sufficient understanding of principles at some level.
There is less evidence of success in the civilian technology sector. High technology exports, as a percentage of total exports, amounted to only one percent in 2004. Much of this comes from software exports officially evaluated at $40 million but unofficially estimated at around 150 million dollars. This figure should be compared against India’s 12.5 billion dollars in 2004. The difference of 80 times or more is wholly out of the proportion with the difference in populations, about 6.5 to 1. Although the economy is currently growing well, Pakistan has an economy deeply dependent upon remittances from overseas workers, most of whom constitute unskilled labour in Middle Eastern countries. Instead, low-tech textile exports are the mainstay of Pakistan’s industrial production. According to the Pakistan Council for Science and Technology (PCST), in 43 years Pakistani scientists and technologists have managed to get just eight patents registered internationally.
Disaggregating the Sciences
Pakistan is at its weakest in the area of original scientific research, and the causes of weakness here appear poorly understood. The lack of understanding here has led to fundamentally flawed policies and delusions of achieving a quick turn around.
To engage in a sensible discourse on this important matter requires that, at the outset, we separate pure science from applied science. Pure science seeks to uncover new principles and fathom the inner workings of nature. Its discoveries, such as in cosmology or elementary particle physics, often have little or no relation to any kind of technology or economic need. The famous English pure mathematician and number theorist, G.H. Hardy, took much pride in the lack of application of his discoveries to anything in the real world. Nonetheless, without such foundational works in pure science and mathematics there would be no applied science, and no technology. Maxwell’s equations led to wireless and television, abstract quantum mechanics to the transistor and integrated circuit, and Einstein’s relativity to nuclear power and the bomb.
Pure science and applied science are judged by two different sets of criteria. Good pure science must be current, introduce or employ new concepts or uncover hidden relationships, be intellectually interesting to practitioners of the field, and stimulate further research into the discovering the nature of physical reality. Good applied science, on the other hand, is that which uses known scientific facts in non-obvious ways with the goal of creating technology in the form of processes, devices, pharmaceutical drugs, machines, computing systems, etc.
These elementary distinctions are important to understand now that tens of billions of rupees are suddenly being poured into funding scientific research in Pakistan, and enormous incentives are being given to Pakistani scientists to buy research equipment and publish research papers. This so-called “renaissance” of science in Pakistan owes principally to the chairman of Pakistan’s Higher Education Commission, and a well-known chemist, Dr. Atta-ur-Rahman.
Writing in the prestigious journal “Nature”, Dr. Atta bemoans the state of scientific research in Islamic countries and offers his recipe for improving it. He thinks that the answer lies in increasing the number of scientific publications, and the number of science PhDs. He then proceeds to declare Pakistan as a success story. In his words:
“During the period 2001 to 2003, the sharpest increase has come from Pakistan, with a 40% increase from 636 to 890. This is a result of a system introduced in 2002 that provides researchers with an opportunity to more than quadruple their earnings if they increase the numbers of their papers published in peer-reviewed journals.”
Other claimed successes include a huge increase in the number of PhD students enrolled in Pakistani universities, and a doubling of the number of universities in the public sector over a period of five years or so.
A Disputable Criterion
Does success lie in increasing numbers? Is it a good idea to use the number of published papers as a means to “quadruple their earnings” of scientists, and to go in for whole-sale production of PhDs? On the face of it, this seems eminently sensible. But experience in other countries points in the other direction. Two of Iran’s most distinguished chemists, Dr. Mohamed Yalpani and Dr. Akbar Heydari of Tarbiat Modarres University, argue that such a path is likely to do more harm than good.
Yalpani and Heydari , in a 2005 paper published in the journal “Scientometrics”, argue that this approach has failed in Iran. Intrigued by the fact that publications by Iranian scientists had exploded from a total of 1040 in 1998 to 3277 in 2003 – with over 30% of these in chemistry – these two scientists set about uncovering a number of facts that many had suspected but none had adequately documented.
Working systematically, paper-by-paper, Yalpani and Heydari discovered that:
1. Many scientific papers by Iranian chemists that were claimed as “original” by their authors, and which had been published in internationally peer-reviewed journals, had actually been published twice, and sometimes thrice, by the same authors with identical or nearly identical contents. Trivial changes had been made in the titles, with the contents, graphs, and references being 90% or more similar. These were clear cut-and-paste papers. Others were plagiarized papers that could have been easily detected by any reasonably careful referee.
2. Many Iranian researchers have chosen to repeat the same basic chemical reactions – of dubious practical or scientific value – over and over again. While this generates a lot of data and graphs, it is unlikely to be of much use for anything other than increasing the number of their publications.
3. Interestingly, in some of the papers published by Iranian groups, the exchange of N for O had been represented as acid catalyzed and in some as oxidative! Clearly, the international journal referees were sleeping.
4. Many important details, which ought to be provided by journal authors (such as sample preparation procedures, curing temperatures, etc), were missing. This leads to a suspicion that the experiments were carried out under circumstances that make the results unreliable.
5. While certain international journals are careful and demanding, others are fairly sloppy. Prospective authors, whose work is shoddy, obviously prefer journals which do not require a high degree of proof. Under pressure to publish, or attracted by the incentives offered by the Iranian system, authors often chose to follow the path of least resistance paved for them by the increasingly commercialized policies of many scientific journals. Prospective authors well know that editors are under pressure to produce a journal of a certain thickness every month.
6. Referring to the incentives proposed by Dr. Atta-ur-Rahman in his self-congratulatory Nature article, Yalpani and Heydari show their strong disapproval and note that “significantly, there is no mention of quality in his entire article”. They censure his approach for rewarding the “cut-and-paste” method which his incentives encourage. In their opinion this damages the scientific enterprise because it focuses the attention of the Third World scientist primarily on momentary personal material gain. When reporting a finding in a Western scientific journal, the essence is lost because individuals often attempt only a minimal mimic of the formalism that lies behind true science.
The two authors note the general decline of the scientific quality of papers published by Iranian chemists although chemical concepts, reagents, instrumentation, and other tools had progressively become more sophisticated. Simply put: there is an explosion of junk scientific papers, perhaps cleverly packaged and capable of getting past referees, but of little use.
No comparable scientometric research, to my knowledge, has ever been done for Pakistani scientists. But these two Iranian chemists, who obviously are not writing for a Pakistani audience, have nevertheless put their fingers on a sensitive spot. They have given enough evidence for everyone to be worried, particularly those concerned with science in Pakistan.
Alternative Criteria
How then is one to judge the state of science, and the individual merit of scientists if not by the number of published papers? To say that published scientific works carry no value is foolish. There is absolutely no doubt that the genuine scientific publication is extremely important to science, both theoretical and experimental. But it has value only if it is strictly preserved as a medium that succinctly and accurately conveys the essence of true scientific discoveries. If this medium is corrupted, either totally or partially, one must search for better achievement indicators. A better, though still imperfect, estimation of scientific quality is to see how many times a scientist’s work is cited by others working in the same field. Citations – excluding self-citations or those made by members of the same group – is a relatively better criterion for assessment of achievement in the pure sciences.
For assessing research in the applied sciences, the task is much simpler. The value to industry of such research must be clear and apparent. This suggests that one must judge the plethora of scientific institutions in Pakistan – which are predominantly applied science institutions – principally by the technology, products, and processes that their work has given birth to. For agricultural research – which is relatively simple science but of immense economic importance – there are some good results to show in terms of cotton and wheat varieties produced, rice and tea strains, etc.
But in non-agricultural fields there is much confusion. It is time to demand clarity. Surely PCSIR, with an annual budget of over 80 million rupees is obliged to tell the nation what that money has produced (beyond a process for making mineral water). The websites of almost all Pakistani S&T institutions are national embarrassments – that of the Centre for Applied and Molecular Biology has pictures of political personalities, starting with General Pervez Musharraf, but links leading to its activities (particularly research) lead nowhere.
One must judge the “miracle” of the HEJ Institute – said to be Pakistan’s premier research institution – by criteria different from the present ones. Papers published on applied chemistry, the large number of PhDs produced, or the impressive international conferences it has organized, are indeed positive achievements. But the real criteria should be: what has it produced in the way of pharmaceutical products, patents, and services to industry. Unfortunately its otherwise elaborate website does not, at least as yet, provide information on this aspect. It is the responsibility of HEJ to provide proof of its success because it consumes the lion’s share of research funding. Dr. Abdullah Riaz, an opposition parliamentarian, has recently pointed out that the HEC had made grants amounting to a massive 1.36 billion rupees over 5 years to HEJ, and that both institutions are headed by the same individual.
As in India, in Pakistan all publicly funded national research institutions in the non-defence sector, as well as universities, should be required by law to put their achievements on the internet so that some level of monitoring is possible. Without transparency, unlimited amounts of money can easily disappear without increasing real scientific productivity.
Future Prospects
The future of science in Pakistan will depend fundamentally upon the kind and quality of education that students receive in their schools and colleges. Fancy equipment for scientific research, or increased access to the internet and various glitzy technologies, are add-ons that acquire meaning and importance only after there is an adequate understanding of fundamental concepts.
Unfortunately, by and large, our school education continues to be based upon rote learning. As such it actively seeks to destroy the questioning mind from early childhood by rewarding obedience and punishing originality. One does not see many positive trends here. A moribund examination system that rewards rote learning continues to resist all reform attempts. The recent decision by the ministry of education to downgrade the importance of science practicals at the matriculation level from 25% of total marks to 15% is an alarming development.
So far, in the absence of a real understanding of the problem, the only prescription for boosting science remains the present one – throw unlimited amounts of money at the problem in the hope that things will turn around some day. The science budget for universities and institutes has shot up 12-15 times over the last 3-4 years.
But money and resources are fake issues. The most powerful engines of science, meaning mathematics and theoretical physics, are exceedingly parsimonious and undemanding of resources. A mathematician or theoretical physicist needs no equipment. Yet, with modest exceptions, high talent has nearly disappeared from Pakistan. Today one cannot count even 10 Pakistani physicists and mathematicians, living in Pakistan, who are good enough to get a job in a reasonable US university. But 30-35 years ago there were probably more than 3 times this number. India has many hundreds in this category, if not a thousand or two.
The dismal situation in Pakistani science is unlikely to change much until there is an understanding that science brings with it a world-view – a weltenschaung within which creativity, freedom, intellectual rigour, and scientific honesty are given the kind of value they receive in the West. The leaders of Pakistan’s scientific establishment, who head a plethora of institutes and academies, never cease to demand more resources. But they never speak of the need for exercising the scientific method, critical thinking, skepticism, or viewing the world rationally. They stood by as if struck deaf and dumb after the October 8 earthquake. Comfortably situated in plush offices and driven around in fancy new cars, not a single one from among them moved to challenge the ridiculous and counter-scientific beliefs, freely propagated over the mass media, that this earthquake was God’s punishment for our sinful behavior.
Let us face the fact squarely: pre-modern societies, or those which dispute the very basis of science, simply cannot produce meaningful science. Scientific progress requires social progress and a battle against superstition and fatalism. The task of bringing science in Pakistan will therefore have to go side-by-side with a much wider struggle to bring modern thought, the arts, philosophy and pluralism. Science cannot prosper under authoritarianism. And authoritarianism runs deep everywhere. It is underlies the conventional family structure that demands absolute obedience, and a tyrannical educational system where the teacher crushes independent thought. But without intellectual and personal freedoms, Pakistan shall continue to suffocate. Today’s orgiastic money-dumping – one which has dazzled the world – will fizzle whenever the country’s political administration changes. Suddenly the party will be over. By that time, the distance from India, and the developed world, will have increased many-fold.
South Asia Needs a Bomb-less Deal
For all who have opposed Pakistan’s nuclear program over the years – including myself – the US-India nuclear agreement may probably be the worst thing that has happened in a long time.
Post agreement:
Pakistan’s ruling elite is confused and bitter. They know that India has overtaken Pakistan in far too many areas for there to be any reasonable basis for symmetry. They see the US is now interested in reconstructing the geopolitics of South Asia and in repairing relations with India, not in mollifying Pakistani grievances. Nevertheless, there were lingering hopes of a sweetener during President George W. Bush’s furtive and unwelcome visit in March 2006 to Islamabad. There was none.
This change in US policy thrilled many in India. Many enjoyed President Musharraf’s discomfiture. But they would do well to restrain their exuberance. The nuclear deal, even if ratified, will not dramatically increase nuclear power production – currently this stands at only 3% of the total production, and can at most double to 6% if currently planned reactors are built and made operational over the next decade. On the other hand, Pakistan is bound to react – and react badly – once US nuclear materials and equipment starting rolling into India.
One certain consequence will be more bombs on both sides of the border. The deal is widely seen in Pakistan as signaling America’s support or acquiescence, or perhaps even surrender, to India’s nuclear ambitions. India will be freely able to import uranium fuel for its safeguarded civilian reactors. This will free up the remainder of its scarce uranium resources for making plutonium. Further, when India’s thorium-fuelled breeder reactors are fully operational, India will be able to produce more bombs in one year than in the last 30.
Not surprisingly, important voices in Pakistan have started to demand that Pakistan match India bomb-for-bomb. Abdus Sattar, ex-foreign minister of Pakistan, advocates “replication of the Kahuta plant to produce more fissile uranium…. to rationalize and upgrade Pakistan’s minimum deterrence capability”. He has also written about the need to “accelerate its [Pakistan’s] missile development programme”.
This is a prescription for unlimited nuclear racing, given that “minimum deterrence” is essentially an open-ended concept. Pakistan has mastered centrifuge technology, and giving birth to more Kahutas would require only a political decision. Moreover, unlike India, Pakistan is not constrained by supplies of natural uranium. Thus, at least in principle, Pakistan can increase its bomb production considerably.
Although nuclear hawks in India and Pakistan had once pooh-poohed the notion of an arms race, there is little doubt that India and Pakistan are solidly placed on a Cold War trajectory. As more bombs are added to the inventory every year, and intermediate range ballistic missiles steadily roll off the production lines, both countries seek ever more potent weaponry.
Many years ago, all three countries crossed the point where they could lay cities to waste and kill millions in a matter of minutes. The fantastically cruel logic, known as nuclear deterrence, requires only the certainty that one nuclear bomb will be able to penetrate the adversary’s defences and land in the heart of a city. No one has the slightest doubt that this capability was crossed multiple times over during the past few decades.
What action would best serve the interest of the peoples of India and Pakistan, as well as of China?
A fissile material cutoff is the easiest and most straightforward way to ease nuclear tensions. It offers the best hope to limit the upwards spiral in warhead numbers. Instead of threatening to create more Kahutas, Pakistan should offer to stop production of highly enriched uranium while India should respond by ceasing to reprocess its reactor wastes. Previous stockpiles possessed by either country should not be brought into issue because their credible verification is extremely difficult and would inevitably derail an agreement. Years of negotiation at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva came to naught for this very reason. A series of “Nuclear Risk Reduction” talks between Pakistan and India have also produced zero results. The cessation of fissile material production is completely absent from the agenda; it must be made a central item now.
If a Pakistan-India bilateral agreement could somehow come through, it would have fantastically positive effects elsewhere. China – which is the major target of US nuclear weapons – may not have enough warheads to match the US but has more than a sufficient number to constitute a nuclear deterrent. Inspired by an Indian cutoff, it could formally declare a moratorium on fissile material production. The US, which no longer produces fissile materials because it has a huge excess, could encourage the Chinese action by offering to suspend work on its Nuclear Missile Defence (NMD) system.
Unfortunately the United States is not acting as a force for peace in South Asia. Confronted by the accusation that it is pumping arms into a region that some of its leaders had once described as a “nuclear tinder box”, US officials have responded defensively with answers such as: you have to deal with the world as it is and the Indian program cannot be rolled back; India is a democracy; India needs to import nuclear fuel and technology and we need to sell them. But such lame replies sweep under the carpet the disturbing history of near-nuclear conflict on the subcontinent for which the US has often taken credit for defusing.
The arms race directly benefits Indian and Pakistan elites. Hence they are tacit collaborators as they woo the US and prove that their states belong to the community of “responsible nuclear states” that are worthy of military and nuclear assistance. The past has been banished by an unwritten agreement. Retired Pakistani and Indian generals and leaders meet cordially at conferences around the world and happily clink glasses together. They emphatically deny that the two countries had even come close to a nuclear crisis in the past. Being now charged with the mission of projecting an image of “responsibility” abroad, none amongst them wants to bring back the memory of South Asian leaders hurling ugly nuclear threats against each other.
But instances of criminal nuclear behaviour are to be found even in the very recent past. For example, India’s Defence Minister George Fernandes told the International Herald Tribune on June 3, 2002 that “India can survive a nuclear attack, but Pakistan cannot.” Indian Defence Secretary Yogendra Narain had taken things a step further in an interview with Outlook Magazine: “A surgical strike is the answer,” adding that if this failed to resolve things, “We must be prepared for total mutual destruction.” On the Pakistani side, at the peak of the 2002 crisis, General Musharraf had threatened that Pakistan would use “unconventional means” against India if necessary.
Tense times may return at some point in the in the future. But Indian and Pakistani leaders are likely to once again abdicate from their own responsibilities whenever that happens. Instead, they will again entrust disaster prevention to the US.
Of course, it would be absurd to lay the blame on the US for all that has gone wrong between the two countries. Surely the US does not want to destabilize the subcontinent, and it does not want a South Asian holocaust. But one must be aware that for the US this is only a peripheral interest – the core of its interest in South Asian nuclear issues stems from the need to limit Chinese power and influence, fear of Al-Qaida and Muslim extremism, and the associated threat of nuclear terrorism.
The Americans will sort out their business and priorities as they see fit. But it is unwise to participate in a plan that leaves South Asian neighbours at each others throats while benefiting a power that sits on the other side of the globe.
Regional tensions will increase because of the deal. Given that the motivation for the US-India nuclear agreement comes partly from the US’s desire to contain China, the Pakistan-China strategic relationship will be considerably strengthened. In practical terms, this may amount to enhanced support for Pakistan’s missile program, or even its military nuclear program. Speaking at Pakistan’s National Defense College in Islamabad a day before Bush’s arrival there, Musharraf declared that “My recent trip to China was part of my effort to keep Pakistan’s strategic options open.”
By proceeding with the nuclear deal with India the US may destabilize South Asia. It will also wreck the NPT, take the heat off Iran and North Korea, open the door for Japan to convert its plutonium stocks into bombs, and bring about global nuclear anarchy.
This articles was published in Economic and Political Weekly (India) and The Friday Times (Pakistan), week of 17 April, 2006.
Post agreement:
Pakistan’s ruling elite is confused and bitter. They know that India has overtaken Pakistan in far too many areas for there to be any reasonable basis for symmetry. They see the US is now interested in reconstructing the geopolitics of South Asia and in repairing relations with India, not in mollifying Pakistani grievances. Nevertheless, there were lingering hopes of a sweetener during President George W. Bush’s furtive and unwelcome visit in March 2006 to Islamabad. There was none.
This change in US policy thrilled many in India. Many enjoyed President Musharraf’s discomfiture. But they would do well to restrain their exuberance. The nuclear deal, even if ratified, will not dramatically increase nuclear power production – currently this stands at only 3% of the total production, and can at most double to 6% if currently planned reactors are built and made operational over the next decade. On the other hand, Pakistan is bound to react – and react badly – once US nuclear materials and equipment starting rolling into India.
One certain consequence will be more bombs on both sides of the border. The deal is widely seen in Pakistan as signaling America’s support or acquiescence, or perhaps even surrender, to India’s nuclear ambitions. India will be freely able to import uranium fuel for its safeguarded civilian reactors. This will free up the remainder of its scarce uranium resources for making plutonium. Further, when India’s thorium-fuelled breeder reactors are fully operational, India will be able to produce more bombs in one year than in the last 30.
Not surprisingly, important voices in Pakistan have started to demand that Pakistan match India bomb-for-bomb. Abdus Sattar, ex-foreign minister of Pakistan, advocates “replication of the Kahuta plant to produce more fissile uranium…. to rationalize and upgrade Pakistan’s minimum deterrence capability”. He has also written about the need to “accelerate its [Pakistan’s] missile development programme”.
This is a prescription for unlimited nuclear racing, given that “minimum deterrence” is essentially an open-ended concept. Pakistan has mastered centrifuge technology, and giving birth to more Kahutas would require only a political decision. Moreover, unlike India, Pakistan is not constrained by supplies of natural uranium. Thus, at least in principle, Pakistan can increase its bomb production considerably.
Although nuclear hawks in India and Pakistan had once pooh-poohed the notion of an arms race, there is little doubt that India and Pakistan are solidly placed on a Cold War trajectory. As more bombs are added to the inventory every year, and intermediate range ballistic missiles steadily roll off the production lines, both countries seek ever more potent weaponry.
Many years ago, all three countries crossed the point where they could lay cities to waste and kill millions in a matter of minutes. The fantastically cruel logic, known as nuclear deterrence, requires only the certainty that one nuclear bomb will be able to penetrate the adversary’s defences and land in the heart of a city. No one has the slightest doubt that this capability was crossed multiple times over during the past few decades.
What action would best serve the interest of the peoples of India and Pakistan, as well as of China?
A fissile material cutoff is the easiest and most straightforward way to ease nuclear tensions. It offers the best hope to limit the upwards spiral in warhead numbers. Instead of threatening to create more Kahutas, Pakistan should offer to stop production of highly enriched uranium while India should respond by ceasing to reprocess its reactor wastes. Previous stockpiles possessed by either country should not be brought into issue because their credible verification is extremely difficult and would inevitably derail an agreement. Years of negotiation at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva came to naught for this very reason. A series of “Nuclear Risk Reduction” talks between Pakistan and India have also produced zero results. The cessation of fissile material production is completely absent from the agenda; it must be made a central item now.
If a Pakistan-India bilateral agreement could somehow come through, it would have fantastically positive effects elsewhere. China – which is the major target of US nuclear weapons – may not have enough warheads to match the US but has more than a sufficient number to constitute a nuclear deterrent. Inspired by an Indian cutoff, it could formally declare a moratorium on fissile material production. The US, which no longer produces fissile materials because it has a huge excess, could encourage the Chinese action by offering to suspend work on its Nuclear Missile Defence (NMD) system.
Unfortunately the United States is not acting as a force for peace in South Asia. Confronted by the accusation that it is pumping arms into a region that some of its leaders had once described as a “nuclear tinder box”, US officials have responded defensively with answers such as: you have to deal with the world as it is and the Indian program cannot be rolled back; India is a democracy; India needs to import nuclear fuel and technology and we need to sell them. But such lame replies sweep under the carpet the disturbing history of near-nuclear conflict on the subcontinent for which the US has often taken credit for defusing.
The arms race directly benefits Indian and Pakistan elites. Hence they are tacit collaborators as they woo the US and prove that their states belong to the community of “responsible nuclear states” that are worthy of military and nuclear assistance. The past has been banished by an unwritten agreement. Retired Pakistani and Indian generals and leaders meet cordially at conferences around the world and happily clink glasses together. They emphatically deny that the two countries had even come close to a nuclear crisis in the past. Being now charged with the mission of projecting an image of “responsibility” abroad, none amongst them wants to bring back the memory of South Asian leaders hurling ugly nuclear threats against each other.
But instances of criminal nuclear behaviour are to be found even in the very recent past. For example, India’s Defence Minister George Fernandes told the International Herald Tribune on June 3, 2002 that “India can survive a nuclear attack, but Pakistan cannot.” Indian Defence Secretary Yogendra Narain had taken things a step further in an interview with Outlook Magazine: “A surgical strike is the answer,” adding that if this failed to resolve things, “We must be prepared for total mutual destruction.” On the Pakistani side, at the peak of the 2002 crisis, General Musharraf had threatened that Pakistan would use “unconventional means” against India if necessary.
Tense times may return at some point in the in the future. But Indian and Pakistani leaders are likely to once again abdicate from their own responsibilities whenever that happens. Instead, they will again entrust disaster prevention to the US.
Of course, it would be absurd to lay the blame on the US for all that has gone wrong between the two countries. Surely the US does not want to destabilize the subcontinent, and it does not want a South Asian holocaust. But one must be aware that for the US this is only a peripheral interest – the core of its interest in South Asian nuclear issues stems from the need to limit Chinese power and influence, fear of Al-Qaida and Muslim extremism, and the associated threat of nuclear terrorism.
The Americans will sort out their business and priorities as they see fit. But it is unwise to participate in a plan that leaves South Asian neighbours at each others throats while benefiting a power that sits on the other side of the globe.
Regional tensions will increase because of the deal. Given that the motivation for the US-India nuclear agreement comes partly from the US’s desire to contain China, the Pakistan-China strategic relationship will be considerably strengthened. In practical terms, this may amount to enhanced support for Pakistan’s missile program, or even its military nuclear program. Speaking at Pakistan’s National Defense College in Islamabad a day before Bush’s arrival there, Musharraf declared that “My recent trip to China was part of my effort to keep Pakistan’s strategic options open.”
By proceeding with the nuclear deal with India the US may destabilize South Asia. It will also wreck the NPT, take the heat off Iran and North Korea, open the door for Japan to convert its plutonium stocks into bombs, and bring about global nuclear anarchy.
This articles was published in Economic and Political Weekly (India) and The Friday Times (Pakistan), week of 17 April, 2006.
What Pakistan’s Bomb Could Not Buy
On the eight anniversary of Pakistan’s nuclear tests, there is little point in debating whether we should have followed India down the nuclear gutter. But there is need for a sober stock-taking that moves us away from the still rampant, chest-thumping, nuclear triumphalism. So far the region’s nuclear “experts” and “strategists”, actively assisted on both sides of the border by their respective states, have effectively monopolized discussion on nuclear policy. But many promises remain unfulfilled and various political and social costs for Pakistan are barely acknowledged. What are these?
The most obvious fact is that testing the Bomb speeded up the subcontinent’s arms race, rather than slowing it down. If you had believed what the nuclear pundits used to say, it should have been the other way around. Their argument was so seductive and simple that even well-meaning people were taken for a ride. They said acquiring the Bomb would assure national security into eternity – the threat of a nuclear response would deter territorial violations by the other, and hence the need for conventional arms would evaporate. Just a few bombs would do. Before the May 1998 tests, and even for several months later, some Pakistanis cheerfully wrote that after going nuclear, little more than salaries for soldiers would be needed. Defence budgets could be slashed, and (at last) funds would go into development and education.
Instead, what have we seen? Today the acquisition of battle tanks, artillery, fighter aircraft, surface ships, submarines, anti-ballistic missile systems, early warning aircraft, and space-based surveillance systems is now claimed – by many of the same people – to be more urgent than ever before. The US-India nuclear deal, if ratified by Congress, will add fuel to the fire. After India’s breeder reactors come on line, it will be able to produce as many nuclear warheads in just one year as it had in the previous 30. Pakistan is sure to react in various ways.
The once-popular concept of “minimal deterrence” died after India’s firm statement that the requirements for a deterrent force will be “dynamically determined” and cannot be explicitly stated. In other words, it will never say how many bombs are enough. That is not how it used to be. I well remember my intervention during a conference in Chicago (1992) which provoked the Indian strategist K. Subramanyam to angrily protest that “arms racing is a Cold War concept invented by the western powers and totally alien to sub-continental thinking”. We Pakistanis and Indians were supposed to be infinitely wiser than the compulsive Americans and Soviets. But one sees that every aspect of Cold War racing has been punctiliously followed on the subcontinent. Tactical nuclear war-fighting, once considered escalatory, is reported to be incorporated into current Indian and Pakistani military doctrines.
The fact is that nuclear racing and doctrines is everywhere and always driven by the same implacable, mad, runaway logic. Should there be the slightest danger of the race slackening, a nuclear “expert” will point to the other side’s latest acquisition and shout wolf. With every passing decade, advances in technology make it easier and cheaper to create ever more deadly nuclear weapons, buy or make longer range and more effective missiles, and go for various hi-tech weapon systems that could not have been imagined just a while ago.
For Pakistan, the nuclear cost – political and social – has been even higher than for India.
First, nuclear weapons led to Pakistan’s Kargil debacle. The 1998 tests gave to the country’s leaders a false sense of security. This was the direct cause of a misadventure that ended in a stunning political and diplomatic defeat for Pakistan. If anything, it made clear that Pakistan can now never hope for a military victory in Kashmir.
The Kargil episode offers the very first example in history where nuclear weapons, by dint of creating a presumed shield for launching conventional covert operations, were responsible for having brought about a war. The unrestrained propagation of false beliefs in nuclear security brought India and Pakistan to the brink of a full-blown confrontation that could well have been the very last one. Arguably it was the BJP that, by ordering Pokhran-II, fathered Kargil.
Second, Pakistan’s acquisition of nuclear weapons has made it effectively a less independent state, rather than the other way around. While Pakistan became popular in Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries after testing, its inability to stand up for real Muslim interests remains as chronically weak as ever. Unlike many European and non-aligned countries – which were vociferous in their opposition to the US war upon Iraq – Pakistan chose the side of pragmatism. One can also be sure that if Iran’s nuclear facilities are bombed by the US, Pakistan’s leaders will do no more than cluck their tongues and shake their heads in mild disapproval. The Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline provides yet another example of nuclear Pakistan unable to assert even its trade preferences.
Although nukes have pushed up Pakistan’s rental value for fighting the wars of other nations, the constraints put upon its behavior have also greatly increased. The danger that our nukes may turn loose is a source of deep discomfort to Pakistan’s chief patron and paymaster, the United States of America. The fiery rhetoric of religious parties, who claim the Bomb for the entire Muslim Ummah rather than just for Pakistan, understandably terrifies many in the West. Moreover, the A.Q.Khan episode – in spite of Pakistan’s repeated assertions that the matter has now closed – is still very much on the minds of the US establishment and media. These reasons account for the US’s flat rejection of any kind of nuclear deal with Pakistan along the lines that it had proposed to India.
For the time being, with General Musharraf in power, the US is willing to tolerate Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal – and may even satisfy some of its needs for advanced conventional weaponry. But this could be short lived. Many gaming scenarios played in the US strategic war planning institutions indicate that there are well-rehearsed contingency plans if Pakistan’s political situation changes radically after General Musharraf’s departure, planned or otherwise. Clearly, Pakistan is a country that is closely watched and monitored.
Third, and finally, while a connection is sometimes alleged, in fact nuclear weapons have been irrelevant to two of Pakistan’s critical needs – national integration and high technology. If anything, the effect has gone the other way.
National integration remains a distant goal, and the hope that the Bomb would be a rallying call for all Pakistanis has essentially disappeared. The tumultuous, officially inspired, 1999 celebrations of “youm-e-takbir” in all four provinces and dozens of cities were supposed to infuse a new sense of national spirit. Bomb and missile replicas were installed at every other street corner; many still survive. But love for the centralized Islamabad-based Pakistani state, run by military generals with a passion for real-estate and wealth, is conspicuously absent. The ongoing widespread insurgency in Baluchistan and rising bitterness in Sind are sending clear messages of a dangerous disaffection. Nuclear weapons cannot compensate for the absence of a democratic process, which alone can weld Pakistan’s disparate people into a nation.
The failure is evident. Punjab celebrates the Bomb while Baluchistan protests it. It resents the fact that the nuclear test site – now radioactive and put out of bounds – is located upon Baluch soil. Accused of dumping nuclear wastes, the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission is now being increasingly targeted by Baluch nationalists as an instrument of foreign domination. On May 15, 2006 Baluchi insurgents reportedly launched a mortar attack on a Pakistani nuclear establishment controlled by the PAEC in the vicinity of the Dera Ghazi Khan-Quetta highway.
And, what of the Bomb being a technical miracle? Over thirty years ago, fearful of India’s newly acquired nuclear weapons, Pakistan set out on its own quest to become a nuclear weapons state. It lacked a strong technological base. But its secret search of the world’s industrialized countries for nuclear weapons technologies was successful. It now advertises itself as a high-tech state.
But in a world where science moves at super-high speeds, nuclear weapons and missile development is today second-rate science. The undeniable fact is that the technology of nuclear bombs is six decades old. Famine-stricken North Korea, with few other achievements, is probably also a nuclear power and clearly has a very advanced missile program. In fact it had transferred this technology to Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Libya, and other countries. While Pakistani and Indian weapons programs have diverted substantial financial and material resources away from social and scientific needs, they have merely used scientific principles discovered and developed elsewhere. Not surprisingly, there are no worthwhile spin-offs. Surely it is time to drop the pretence that making nuclear weapons and guided missiles is a wonderful thing.
The article was published in The News (Karachi, Lahore,Islamabad) on 28th May 2006, the eight anniversary of Pakistan’s nuclear tests.
The most obvious fact is that testing the Bomb speeded up the subcontinent’s arms race, rather than slowing it down. If you had believed what the nuclear pundits used to say, it should have been the other way around. Their argument was so seductive and simple that even well-meaning people were taken for a ride. They said acquiring the Bomb would assure national security into eternity – the threat of a nuclear response would deter territorial violations by the other, and hence the need for conventional arms would evaporate. Just a few bombs would do. Before the May 1998 tests, and even for several months later, some Pakistanis cheerfully wrote that after going nuclear, little more than salaries for soldiers would be needed. Defence budgets could be slashed, and (at last) funds would go into development and education.
Instead, what have we seen? Today the acquisition of battle tanks, artillery, fighter aircraft, surface ships, submarines, anti-ballistic missile systems, early warning aircraft, and space-based surveillance systems is now claimed – by many of the same people – to be more urgent than ever before. The US-India nuclear deal, if ratified by Congress, will add fuel to the fire. After India’s breeder reactors come on line, it will be able to produce as many nuclear warheads in just one year as it had in the previous 30. Pakistan is sure to react in various ways.
The once-popular concept of “minimal deterrence” died after India’s firm statement that the requirements for a deterrent force will be “dynamically determined” and cannot be explicitly stated. In other words, it will never say how many bombs are enough. That is not how it used to be. I well remember my intervention during a conference in Chicago (1992) which provoked the Indian strategist K. Subramanyam to angrily protest that “arms racing is a Cold War concept invented by the western powers and totally alien to sub-continental thinking”. We Pakistanis and Indians were supposed to be infinitely wiser than the compulsive Americans and Soviets. But one sees that every aspect of Cold War racing has been punctiliously followed on the subcontinent. Tactical nuclear war-fighting, once considered escalatory, is reported to be incorporated into current Indian and Pakistani military doctrines.
The fact is that nuclear racing and doctrines is everywhere and always driven by the same implacable, mad, runaway logic. Should there be the slightest danger of the race slackening, a nuclear “expert” will point to the other side’s latest acquisition and shout wolf. With every passing decade, advances in technology make it easier and cheaper to create ever more deadly nuclear weapons, buy or make longer range and more effective missiles, and go for various hi-tech weapon systems that could not have been imagined just a while ago.
For Pakistan, the nuclear cost – political and social – has been even higher than for India.
First, nuclear weapons led to Pakistan’s Kargil debacle. The 1998 tests gave to the country’s leaders a false sense of security. This was the direct cause of a misadventure that ended in a stunning political and diplomatic defeat for Pakistan. If anything, it made clear that Pakistan can now never hope for a military victory in Kashmir.
The Kargil episode offers the very first example in history where nuclear weapons, by dint of creating a presumed shield for launching conventional covert operations, were responsible for having brought about a war. The unrestrained propagation of false beliefs in nuclear security brought India and Pakistan to the brink of a full-blown confrontation that could well have been the very last one. Arguably it was the BJP that, by ordering Pokhran-II, fathered Kargil.
Second, Pakistan’s acquisition of nuclear weapons has made it effectively a less independent state, rather than the other way around. While Pakistan became popular in Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries after testing, its inability to stand up for real Muslim interests remains as chronically weak as ever. Unlike many European and non-aligned countries – which were vociferous in their opposition to the US war upon Iraq – Pakistan chose the side of pragmatism. One can also be sure that if Iran’s nuclear facilities are bombed by the US, Pakistan’s leaders will do no more than cluck their tongues and shake their heads in mild disapproval. The Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline provides yet another example of nuclear Pakistan unable to assert even its trade preferences.
Although nukes have pushed up Pakistan’s rental value for fighting the wars of other nations, the constraints put upon its behavior have also greatly increased. The danger that our nukes may turn loose is a source of deep discomfort to Pakistan’s chief patron and paymaster, the United States of America. The fiery rhetoric of religious parties, who claim the Bomb for the entire Muslim Ummah rather than just for Pakistan, understandably terrifies many in the West. Moreover, the A.Q.Khan episode – in spite of Pakistan’s repeated assertions that the matter has now closed – is still very much on the minds of the US establishment and media. These reasons account for the US’s flat rejection of any kind of nuclear deal with Pakistan along the lines that it had proposed to India.
For the time being, with General Musharraf in power, the US is willing to tolerate Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal – and may even satisfy some of its needs for advanced conventional weaponry. But this could be short lived. Many gaming scenarios played in the US strategic war planning institutions indicate that there are well-rehearsed contingency plans if Pakistan’s political situation changes radically after General Musharraf’s departure, planned or otherwise. Clearly, Pakistan is a country that is closely watched and monitored.
Third, and finally, while a connection is sometimes alleged, in fact nuclear weapons have been irrelevant to two of Pakistan’s critical needs – national integration and high technology. If anything, the effect has gone the other way.
National integration remains a distant goal, and the hope that the Bomb would be a rallying call for all Pakistanis has essentially disappeared. The tumultuous, officially inspired, 1999 celebrations of “youm-e-takbir” in all four provinces and dozens of cities were supposed to infuse a new sense of national spirit. Bomb and missile replicas were installed at every other street corner; many still survive. But love for the centralized Islamabad-based Pakistani state, run by military generals with a passion for real-estate and wealth, is conspicuously absent. The ongoing widespread insurgency in Baluchistan and rising bitterness in Sind are sending clear messages of a dangerous disaffection. Nuclear weapons cannot compensate for the absence of a democratic process, which alone can weld Pakistan’s disparate people into a nation.
The failure is evident. Punjab celebrates the Bomb while Baluchistan protests it. It resents the fact that the nuclear test site – now radioactive and put out of bounds – is located upon Baluch soil. Accused of dumping nuclear wastes, the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission is now being increasingly targeted by Baluch nationalists as an instrument of foreign domination. On May 15, 2006 Baluchi insurgents reportedly launched a mortar attack on a Pakistani nuclear establishment controlled by the PAEC in the vicinity of the Dera Ghazi Khan-Quetta highway.
And, what of the Bomb being a technical miracle? Over thirty years ago, fearful of India’s newly acquired nuclear weapons, Pakistan set out on its own quest to become a nuclear weapons state. It lacked a strong technological base. But its secret search of the world’s industrialized countries for nuclear weapons technologies was successful. It now advertises itself as a high-tech state.
But in a world where science moves at super-high speeds, nuclear weapons and missile development is today second-rate science. The undeniable fact is that the technology of nuclear bombs is six decades old. Famine-stricken North Korea, with few other achievements, is probably also a nuclear power and clearly has a very advanced missile program. In fact it had transferred this technology to Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Libya, and other countries. While Pakistani and Indian weapons programs have diverted substantial financial and material resources away from social and scientific needs, they have merely used scientific principles discovered and developed elsewhere. Not surprisingly, there are no worthwhile spin-offs. Surely it is time to drop the pretence that making nuclear weapons and guided missiles is a wonderful thing.
The article was published in The News (Karachi, Lahore,Islamabad) on 28th May 2006, the eight anniversary of Pakistan’s nuclear tests.
Waiting for Enlightenment
The centrepiece of Pakistan’s relationship with the West since September 11, 2001, has been dubbed “enlightened moderation” by its president and philosopher-general, Pervez Musharraf. Under his rule, Musharraf claims, Pakistan has rejected the orthodox, militant, violent Islam imposed by the previous chief of army staff to seize power in Pakistan, General Zia ul-Haq (who ruled from 1977-1988), in favour of a more ‘modern’ and ‘moderate’ Islam. But Musharraf’s actions, and those of his government and its allies, are often at odds with this. In fact, after almost five years of ‘enlightened moderation,’ it seems there is more continuity than change. And, with each passing day, it becomes harder to see how such a policy can hope to stem the tide of religious radicalism that is overwhelming Pakistani society.
No one doubts that there have been some changes for the good. There is a perceptible shift in institutional practices and inclinations. Heads of government organizations are no longer required to lead noon prayers as in the 1980’s; female announcers with undraped heads freely appear on Pakistan Television; to the relief of many passengers thickly bearded stewards are disappearing from PIA flights; the first women fighter pilots have been inducted into the Pakistan Air Force. More importantly, in early July 2006, Musharraf directed the Council of Islamic Ideology to draft an amendment to the controversial Hudood Ordinance, put in place by General Zia-ul-Haq and not repealed by any of the civilian governments that ruled from 1988 to 1999. This law gives women a lower legal status and punishes the victims of rape. Repeal of these anti-women laws has been a long standing demand of Pakistani women’s groups. A vastly overdue – but nevertheless welcome – action was taken by the government when it released in July hundreds of women prisoners arrested under the Hudood Ordinance, many of whom had spent years awaiting their trial.
But the force of these pluses cannot outweigh the many more weighty minuses. General Musharraf has formally banned some of many Jihadi groups that the Pakistan army has helped train and arm for over two decades, but they still operate quite freely. After the October earthquake, some of these extremist groups in Kashmir seized the opportunity of relief work to fully reestablish and expand their presence. Exploiting Musharraf’s ambivalence, they openly flaunted their banners and weapons in all major towns of Azad Kashmir and fully advertised their strength. Some obtained relief materials from government stocks to pass off as their own, and used heavy vehicles that could only have been provided by the authorities. Many national and international relief organizations were left insecure by their overwhelming presence. Only recently have the jihadists moved out of full public view into more sheltered places.
Other Pakistani leaders send similar messages. Shaukat Aziz, a former Citibanker and now prime minister of Pakistan, made a call for nation-wide prayers for rain in a year of drought. This effort to improve his Islamic credentials became less laughable when, at an education conference in Islamabad, he proposed that Islamic religious education must start as soon as children enter school. This came in response to a suggestion by the moderate Islamic scholar, Javed Ghamdi, that only school children in their fifth year and above should be given formal Islamic education. Otherwise, said Ghamdi, they would stand in danger of becoming rigid and doctrinaire. The government’s 2006 education policy now requires Islamic studies to begin in the third year of school, a year earlier than in the previous policy.
Other ministers are no less determined to show Islamic zeal. The federal minister for religious affairs, Ijaz ul Haq, speaking at the launch of a book authored by a leading Islamic extremist leader on “Christian Terrorism and The Muslim World,” argued that anyone who did not believe in jihad was neither a Muslim nor a Pakistani. He then declared that given the situation facing Muslims today, he was prepared to be a suicide bomber.
According to a newspaper report, Pakistani health minister, Mohammad Nasir Khan, assured the upper house of parliament that the government could consider banning female nurses looking after male patients at hospitals. This move arose from a motion moved by female parliamentary members of the MMA, the Islamist party that commands majorities in the provincial assemblies of the Frontier and Baluchistan provinces and offered crucial support for Musharraf staying on as president. Women’s bodies are of particular concern to these holy men: “We think that men could derive sexual pleasure from women’s bodies while conducting ECG or ultrasound,” proclaimed Maulana Gul Naseeb Khan, provincial secretary of the MMA. In his opinion women would be able to lure men under the pretext of these medical procedures. Therefore, he said, “to save the supreme values of Islam and the message of the Holy Prophet (PBUH), the MMA has decided to impose the ban.” Destroyed or damaged billboards with women’s faces can be seen in several cities of the Frontier because the MMA deems the exhibition of unveiled women as un-Islamic.
Total separation of the sexes is a central goal of the Islamists, the consequences of which have been catastrophic. For example, on April 9, 2006, 21 women and 8 children were crushed to death, and scores injured, in a stampede inside a three-storey madrassa in Karachi where a large number of women had gathered for a weekly congregation. Male rescuers, who arrived in ambulances, were prevented from moving injured women to hospitals.
One cannot dismiss this as just one incident. Soon after the October 2005 earthquake, as I walked through the destroyed city of Balakot, a student of the Frontier Medical College described to me how he and his male colleagues were stopped by religious elders from digging out injured girl students from under the rubble of their school building. The action of these elders was similar to that of Saudi Arabia’s ubiquitous religious “mutaween” police who, in March 2002, had stopped schoolgirls from leaving a blazing building because they were not wearing their abayas. In rare criticism, Saudi newspapers had blamed the mutaween for letting 15 girls burn to death.
The Saudiization of a once-vibrant Pakistani culture continues at a relentless pace. The drive to segregate is now also being found among educated women. Vigorous proselytizers bringing this message, such as Mrs. Farhat Hashmi, have been catapulted to heights of fame and fortune. Their success is evident. Two decades ago the fully veiled student was a rarity on Pakistani university and college campuses. Now she outnumbers her sisters who still dare show their faces. This has had the effect of further enhancing passivity and unquestioning obedience to the teacher, and of decreasing the self-confidence of female students.
The intensification of religious feelings has had a myriad other more significant consequences. Depoliticization and destruction of all non-religious organizations has lead to the absence of any noticeable public mobilization – even on specifically Muslim causes like US actions against Iraq, Palestine, or Iran. Events in these areas rarely bring more than a few dozen protesters on to the streets – if that. Nevertheless large numbers of Pakistanis are driven to fury and violence when they perceive their faith has been maligned. Mobs set on fire the Punjab Assembly, as well as shops and cars in Lahore, for an act of blasphemy committed in Denmark. Even as religious fanaticism grips the population there is a curious, almost fatalistic, disconnection with the real world which suggests that fellow Muslims don’t matter any more – only the Faith does.
Religious identity has also become increasingly sectarian. A suicide bomber, as yet unidentified, killed 57 people and eliminated the entire leadership of the “Sunni Movement” when he leapt on to the stage at a religious gathering in Karachi in April, 2006. Months earlier, barely a mile down from my university, at the shrine of Bari Imam, 25 Shias were killed in similar attack. In the tribal areas, sectarian tensions have frequently exploded into open warfare: in the villages of Hangu district, Sunnis and Shias exchanged light artillery and rocket fire leaving scores dead. Earlier this year, when I traveled for lecturing in the town of Gilgit, I saw soldiers crouched in bunkers behind mounted machine guns. It looked more like a town under siege than a tourist resort.
The clearest political expression of this shift towards a more violent and intolerant religious identity is the rise of the MMA as a national force, which on key issues both supports and is supported by General Musharraf’s government. A measure of its power, and the threat it poses to society and the state, is the Pakistani Taliban movement that it has helped create, especially in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan. Their success draws in large measure on the lessons they learned when working hand in the hand with the Pakistan army to create and sustain the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Unable to combat the toxic mix of religion with tribalism, the Pakistani government is rapidly losing what little authority it ever had in the tribal parts. Under US pressure, the army has been mounting military offensives against Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters who fled Afghanistan. The convenient fiction that the army is merely combating “foreign militants” from the Arab and Central Asian countries is accepted by no one. Its assaults have taken a heavy civilian toll and local resistance has grown.
The local Taliban, as well as Al-Qaida, are popular and the army is not. In the tribal areas, the local Taliban now run a parallel administration that dispenses primitive justice according to tribal and Islamic principles. A widely available Taliban-made video that I saw shows the bodies of criminals dangling from electricity poles in the town of Miranshah while thousands of appreciative spectators look on. In Wana, a regional capital, about 20 miles from the Afghan border, Taliban supporters have decreed that men are forbidden to shave. A Pathan barber, who migrated to Islamabad, told me last month that many others like him are making their way to the big cities or abandoning their traditional occupation.
The Pakistani Taliban (like their brothers in Afghanistan) see education as insidious. Pakistani newspapers frequently carry news of schools in the tribal regions being attacked destroyed by the Taliban. But rarely are these incidents followed by angry editorials or letters-to-the editor. Implicit sympathy for the Taliban remains strong among urban middle-class Pakistanis because they are perceived as standing up to the Americans, while the government has caved in. In Waziristan, one of the locales of a growing insurgency, the state has essentially capitulated and accepted Talibanic rule over tribal society as long as the army is allowed to maintain a spectator presence.
Stepping back, the Islamist shift underway in Pakistan becomes yet more evident. According to the Pew Global Survey (2006), the percentage of Pakistanis who expressed confidence in Osama bin Laden as a world leader grew from 45% in 2003 to 51% in 2005. This 6 point increase must be compared against responses to an identical questionnaire in Morocco, Turkey, and Lebanon, where bin Laden’s popularity has sharply dropped by as much as 20 points.
It is worth asking what has changed Pakistan so and what makes it so different from other Muslim countries? What set one section of its people upon the other, created notions of morality centred on separating the sexes, and sapped the country’s vitality? Some well meaning Pakistanis – particularly those who live overseas – think that it is best to avoid such difficult questions. These days they are venturing to “repackage Pakistan” for the media. They want to change negative perceptions of Pakistan in the West while, at the same time, hesitating to call for a change in the structure of the state and its outlook.
But at the heart of Pakistan’s problems lies a truth – one etched in stone – that when a state proclaims a religious identity and mission, it is bound to privilege those who organize religious life and interpret religious text. Since there are many models and interpretations within every religion, there is bound to be conflict between religious forces over whose model shall prevail. There is also the larger confrontation between religious principles and practices and what we now consider to be ‘modern’ ideas of society, which have emerged over the past several hundred years. This truth, for all its simplicity, escaped the attention of several generations of soldiers, politicians, and citizens of Pakistan. It is true that there has been some learning – Musharraf’s call for “enlightened moderation” is a tacit (and welcome) admission that a theocratic Pakistan cannot work. But his call conflicts with his other, more important, responsibility as chief of the Pakistan Army.
Pakistan is what it is because its army finds greater benefit in the status quo. Today the Pakistan Army is vast, and as an institution, has acquired enormous corporate interests that sprawl across real estate, manufacturing, and service sectors. It also receives large amounts of military aid, all of which would be threatened if it comes into direct conflict with the US. In the 1960s and 1980s, and again since 9/11, the army discovered its high rental value when serving the US. Each time the long-term costs to the society and state have been terrible.
The relationship between the army and religious radicals is today no longer as simple as in the 1980’s. To maintain a positive image in the West, the Pakistani establishment must continue to decry Islamic radicalism, and display elements of liberalism that are deeply disliked by the orthodox. But hard actions will be taken only if the Islamists threaten the army’s corporate and political interests, or if senior army commanders are targeted for assassination. The Islamists for their part hope for, and seek to incite, action by zealous officers to bring back the glory days of the military-mullah alliance led by General Zia ul Haq.
Musharraf and his corps commanders well know that they cannot afford to sleep too well. It is in the lower ranks that the Islamists are busily establishing bases. A mass of junior officers and low-ranking soldiers – whose world view is similar to that of the Taliban in most respects – feels resentful of being used as cannon fodder for fighting America’s war. It is they who die, not their senior officers. So far, army discipline has successfully squelched dissent and forced it underground. But this sleeping giant can – if and when it wakes up – tear asunder the Pakistan Army, and shake the Pakistani state from its very foundations.
This article was published in the Economic and Political Weekly (India) and The Friday Times(Pakistan) on 21/22 July 2006.
No one doubts that there have been some changes for the good. There is a perceptible shift in institutional practices and inclinations. Heads of government organizations are no longer required to lead noon prayers as in the 1980’s; female announcers with undraped heads freely appear on Pakistan Television; to the relief of many passengers thickly bearded stewards are disappearing from PIA flights; the first women fighter pilots have been inducted into the Pakistan Air Force. More importantly, in early July 2006, Musharraf directed the Council of Islamic Ideology to draft an amendment to the controversial Hudood Ordinance, put in place by General Zia-ul-Haq and not repealed by any of the civilian governments that ruled from 1988 to 1999. This law gives women a lower legal status and punishes the victims of rape. Repeal of these anti-women laws has been a long standing demand of Pakistani women’s groups. A vastly overdue – but nevertheless welcome – action was taken by the government when it released in July hundreds of women prisoners arrested under the Hudood Ordinance, many of whom had spent years awaiting their trial.
But the force of these pluses cannot outweigh the many more weighty minuses. General Musharraf has formally banned some of many Jihadi groups that the Pakistan army has helped train and arm for over two decades, but they still operate quite freely. After the October earthquake, some of these extremist groups in Kashmir seized the opportunity of relief work to fully reestablish and expand their presence. Exploiting Musharraf’s ambivalence, they openly flaunted their banners and weapons in all major towns of Azad Kashmir and fully advertised their strength. Some obtained relief materials from government stocks to pass off as their own, and used heavy vehicles that could only have been provided by the authorities. Many national and international relief organizations were left insecure by their overwhelming presence. Only recently have the jihadists moved out of full public view into more sheltered places.
Other Pakistani leaders send similar messages. Shaukat Aziz, a former Citibanker and now prime minister of Pakistan, made a call for nation-wide prayers for rain in a year of drought. This effort to improve his Islamic credentials became less laughable when, at an education conference in Islamabad, he proposed that Islamic religious education must start as soon as children enter school. This came in response to a suggestion by the moderate Islamic scholar, Javed Ghamdi, that only school children in their fifth year and above should be given formal Islamic education. Otherwise, said Ghamdi, they would stand in danger of becoming rigid and doctrinaire. The government’s 2006 education policy now requires Islamic studies to begin in the third year of school, a year earlier than in the previous policy.
Other ministers are no less determined to show Islamic zeal. The federal minister for religious affairs, Ijaz ul Haq, speaking at the launch of a book authored by a leading Islamic extremist leader on “Christian Terrorism and The Muslim World,” argued that anyone who did not believe in jihad was neither a Muslim nor a Pakistani. He then declared that given the situation facing Muslims today, he was prepared to be a suicide bomber.
According to a newspaper report, Pakistani health minister, Mohammad Nasir Khan, assured the upper house of parliament that the government could consider banning female nurses looking after male patients at hospitals. This move arose from a motion moved by female parliamentary members of the MMA, the Islamist party that commands majorities in the provincial assemblies of the Frontier and Baluchistan provinces and offered crucial support for Musharraf staying on as president. Women’s bodies are of particular concern to these holy men: “We think that men could derive sexual pleasure from women’s bodies while conducting ECG or ultrasound,” proclaimed Maulana Gul Naseeb Khan, provincial secretary of the MMA. In his opinion women would be able to lure men under the pretext of these medical procedures. Therefore, he said, “to save the supreme values of Islam and the message of the Holy Prophet (PBUH), the MMA has decided to impose the ban.” Destroyed or damaged billboards with women’s faces can be seen in several cities of the Frontier because the MMA deems the exhibition of unveiled women as un-Islamic.
Total separation of the sexes is a central goal of the Islamists, the consequences of which have been catastrophic. For example, on April 9, 2006, 21 women and 8 children were crushed to death, and scores injured, in a stampede inside a three-storey madrassa in Karachi where a large number of women had gathered for a weekly congregation. Male rescuers, who arrived in ambulances, were prevented from moving injured women to hospitals.
One cannot dismiss this as just one incident. Soon after the October 2005 earthquake, as I walked through the destroyed city of Balakot, a student of the Frontier Medical College described to me how he and his male colleagues were stopped by religious elders from digging out injured girl students from under the rubble of their school building. The action of these elders was similar to that of Saudi Arabia’s ubiquitous religious “mutaween” police who, in March 2002, had stopped schoolgirls from leaving a blazing building because they were not wearing their abayas. In rare criticism, Saudi newspapers had blamed the mutaween for letting 15 girls burn to death.
The Saudiization of a once-vibrant Pakistani culture continues at a relentless pace. The drive to segregate is now also being found among educated women. Vigorous proselytizers bringing this message, such as Mrs. Farhat Hashmi, have been catapulted to heights of fame and fortune. Their success is evident. Two decades ago the fully veiled student was a rarity on Pakistani university and college campuses. Now she outnumbers her sisters who still dare show their faces. This has had the effect of further enhancing passivity and unquestioning obedience to the teacher, and of decreasing the self-confidence of female students.
The intensification of religious feelings has had a myriad other more significant consequences. Depoliticization and destruction of all non-religious organizations has lead to the absence of any noticeable public mobilization – even on specifically Muslim causes like US actions against Iraq, Palestine, or Iran. Events in these areas rarely bring more than a few dozen protesters on to the streets – if that. Nevertheless large numbers of Pakistanis are driven to fury and violence when they perceive their faith has been maligned. Mobs set on fire the Punjab Assembly, as well as shops and cars in Lahore, for an act of blasphemy committed in Denmark. Even as religious fanaticism grips the population there is a curious, almost fatalistic, disconnection with the real world which suggests that fellow Muslims don’t matter any more – only the Faith does.
Religious identity has also become increasingly sectarian. A suicide bomber, as yet unidentified, killed 57 people and eliminated the entire leadership of the “Sunni Movement” when he leapt on to the stage at a religious gathering in Karachi in April, 2006. Months earlier, barely a mile down from my university, at the shrine of Bari Imam, 25 Shias were killed in similar attack. In the tribal areas, sectarian tensions have frequently exploded into open warfare: in the villages of Hangu district, Sunnis and Shias exchanged light artillery and rocket fire leaving scores dead. Earlier this year, when I traveled for lecturing in the town of Gilgit, I saw soldiers crouched in bunkers behind mounted machine guns. It looked more like a town under siege than a tourist resort.
The clearest political expression of this shift towards a more violent and intolerant religious identity is the rise of the MMA as a national force, which on key issues both supports and is supported by General Musharraf’s government. A measure of its power, and the threat it poses to society and the state, is the Pakistani Taliban movement that it has helped create, especially in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan. Their success draws in large measure on the lessons they learned when working hand in the hand with the Pakistan army to create and sustain the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Unable to combat the toxic mix of religion with tribalism, the Pakistani government is rapidly losing what little authority it ever had in the tribal parts. Under US pressure, the army has been mounting military offensives against Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters who fled Afghanistan. The convenient fiction that the army is merely combating “foreign militants” from the Arab and Central Asian countries is accepted by no one. Its assaults have taken a heavy civilian toll and local resistance has grown.
The local Taliban, as well as Al-Qaida, are popular and the army is not. In the tribal areas, the local Taliban now run a parallel administration that dispenses primitive justice according to tribal and Islamic principles. A widely available Taliban-made video that I saw shows the bodies of criminals dangling from electricity poles in the town of Miranshah while thousands of appreciative spectators look on. In Wana, a regional capital, about 20 miles from the Afghan border, Taliban supporters have decreed that men are forbidden to shave. A Pathan barber, who migrated to Islamabad, told me last month that many others like him are making their way to the big cities or abandoning their traditional occupation.
The Pakistani Taliban (like their brothers in Afghanistan) see education as insidious. Pakistani newspapers frequently carry news of schools in the tribal regions being attacked destroyed by the Taliban. But rarely are these incidents followed by angry editorials or letters-to-the editor. Implicit sympathy for the Taliban remains strong among urban middle-class Pakistanis because they are perceived as standing up to the Americans, while the government has caved in. In Waziristan, one of the locales of a growing insurgency, the state has essentially capitulated and accepted Talibanic rule over tribal society as long as the army is allowed to maintain a spectator presence.
Stepping back, the Islamist shift underway in Pakistan becomes yet more evident. According to the Pew Global Survey (2006), the percentage of Pakistanis who expressed confidence in Osama bin Laden as a world leader grew from 45% in 2003 to 51% in 2005. This 6 point increase must be compared against responses to an identical questionnaire in Morocco, Turkey, and Lebanon, where bin Laden’s popularity has sharply dropped by as much as 20 points.
It is worth asking what has changed Pakistan so and what makes it so different from other Muslim countries? What set one section of its people upon the other, created notions of morality centred on separating the sexes, and sapped the country’s vitality? Some well meaning Pakistanis – particularly those who live overseas – think that it is best to avoid such difficult questions. These days they are venturing to “repackage Pakistan” for the media. They want to change negative perceptions of Pakistan in the West while, at the same time, hesitating to call for a change in the structure of the state and its outlook.
But at the heart of Pakistan’s problems lies a truth – one etched in stone – that when a state proclaims a religious identity and mission, it is bound to privilege those who organize religious life and interpret religious text. Since there are many models and interpretations within every religion, there is bound to be conflict between religious forces over whose model shall prevail. There is also the larger confrontation between religious principles and practices and what we now consider to be ‘modern’ ideas of society, which have emerged over the past several hundred years. This truth, for all its simplicity, escaped the attention of several generations of soldiers, politicians, and citizens of Pakistan. It is true that there has been some learning – Musharraf’s call for “enlightened moderation” is a tacit (and welcome) admission that a theocratic Pakistan cannot work. But his call conflicts with his other, more important, responsibility as chief of the Pakistan Army.
Pakistan is what it is because its army finds greater benefit in the status quo. Today the Pakistan Army is vast, and as an institution, has acquired enormous corporate interests that sprawl across real estate, manufacturing, and service sectors. It also receives large amounts of military aid, all of which would be threatened if it comes into direct conflict with the US. In the 1960s and 1980s, and again since 9/11, the army discovered its high rental value when serving the US. Each time the long-term costs to the society and state have been terrible.
The relationship between the army and religious radicals is today no longer as simple as in the 1980’s. To maintain a positive image in the West, the Pakistani establishment must continue to decry Islamic radicalism, and display elements of liberalism that are deeply disliked by the orthodox. But hard actions will be taken only if the Islamists threaten the army’s corporate and political interests, or if senior army commanders are targeted for assassination. The Islamists for their part hope for, and seek to incite, action by zealous officers to bring back the glory days of the military-mullah alliance led by General Zia ul Haq.
Musharraf and his corps commanders well know that they cannot afford to sleep too well. It is in the lower ranks that the Islamists are busily establishing bases. A mass of junior officers and low-ranking soldiers – whose world view is similar to that of the Taliban in most respects – feels resentful of being used as cannon fodder for fighting America’s war. It is they who die, not their senior officers. So far, army discipline has successfully squelched dissent and forced it underground. But this sleeping giant can – if and when it wakes up – tear asunder the Pakistan Army, and shake the Pakistani state from its very foundations.
This article was published in the Economic and Political Weekly (India) and The Friday Times(Pakistan) on 21/22 July 2006.
Musharraf’s Coup - Seven Years Later
Some had feared – while others had hoped – that General Pervez Musharraf’s coup of October 12, 1999, would bring the revolution of Kemal Ataturk to a Pakistan firmly in the iron grip of mullahs. But years later a definitive truth has emerged. Like the other insecure governments before it, both military and civilian, the present regime also has a single point agenda – to stay in power at all costs. It therefore does whatever it must and Pakistan falls further from any prospect of acquiring modern values, and of building and strengthening democratic institutions.
The requirements for survival of the present regime are clear: on the one hand the Army leadership knows that its critical dependence upon the West requires that it be perceived abroad as a liberal regime pitted against radical Islamists. But, on the other hand, in actual fact, to preserve and extend its grip on power, it must preserve the status quo.
The staged conflicts between General Musharraf and the mullahs are therefore a regular part of Pakistani politics. This September, nearly seven years later, the religious parties needed no demonstration of muscle power for winning two major victories in less than a fortnight; just a few noisy threats sufficed. From experience they knew that the Pakistan Army and its sagacious leader – of “enlightened moderation” fame – would stick to their predictable pattern of dealing with Islamists. In a nutshell: provoke a fight, get the excitement going, let diplomatic missions in Islamabad make their notes and CNN and BBC get their clips – and then beat a retreat. At the end of it all the mullahs would get what they want, but so would the General.
Examples abound. On 21st April 2000, General Musharraf announced a new administrative procedure for registration of cases under the Blasphemy Law. This law, under which the minimum penalty is death, has frequently been used to harass personal and political opponents. To reduce such occurrences, Musharraf’s modified procedure would have required the local district magistrate’s approval for registration of a blasphemy case. It would have been an improvement, albeit a modest one. But 25 days later – on the 16th of May 2000 – under the watchful glare of the mullahs, Musharraf hastily climbed down: “As it was the unanimous demand of the ulema, mashaikh and the people, therefore, I have decided to do away with the procedural change in the registration of FIR under the Blasphemy Law”.
Another example. In October 2004, as a new system for issuing machine readable passports was being installed, Musharraf’s government declared that henceforth it would not be necessary for passport holders to specify their religion. Expectedly this was denounced by the Islamic parties as a grand conspiracy aimed at secularizing Pakistan and destroying its Islamic character. But even before the mullahs actually took to the streets, the government lost nerve and the volte-face was announced on 24 March, 2005. Information Minister Sheikh Rashid said the decision to revive the religion column was made else, “Qadianis and apostates would be able to pose as Muslims and perform pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia”.
But even these climb downs – significant as they are – are less dramatic than the astonishing recent retreat over reforming the Hudood Ordinance, a grotesque imposition of General Zia-ul-Haq’s government unparalleled both for its cruelty and irrationality.
Enacted into the law in 1979, it was conceived as part of a more comprehensive process for converting Pakistan into a theocracy governed by Sharia laws. These laws prescribe death by stoning for married Muslims who are found guilty of extra-marital sex (for unmarried couples or non-Muslims, the penalty is 100 lashes). The law is exact in stating how the death penalty is to be administered: “Such of the witnesses who deposed against the convict as may be available shall start stoning him and, while stoning is being carried on, he may be shot dead, whereupon stoning and shooting shall be stopped”.
Rape is still more problematic. A woman who fails to prove that she has been raped is automatically charged with fornication and adultery. Under the Hudood Law, she is considered guilty unless she can prove her innocence. Proof of innocence requires that the rape victim must produce “at least four Muslim adult male witnesses, about whom the Court is satisfied” who saw the actual act of penetration. Inability to do so may result in her being jailed, or perhaps even sentenced to death for adultery.
President and Chief of Army Staff General Musharraf, and his Citibank Prime Minister, Shuakat Aziz, proposed amending the Hudood Ordinance. They sent a draft for parliamentary discussion in early September, 2006. As expected, it outraged the fundamentalists of the MMA, the main Islamic parliamentary opposition. MMA members tore up copies of the proposed amendments on the floor of the National Assembly and threatened to resign en masse. The government cowered abjectly and withdrew.
Musharraf’s government proved no more enlightened, or more moderate or more resolute and behaved no differently from the more than half a dozen civilian administrations, including two terms of Benazir Bhutto as Prime Minister and several ‘technocrat’ regimes. None made a serious effort to confront or reform these laws.
But the pattern is broader then deference to the mullahs. General Musharraf has been willing to use the iron fist in other circumstances. Two examples stand out: Waziristan and Balochistan. Each offers instruction.
In 2002, presumably on Washington’s instructions, the Pakistan Army established military bases in South Waziristan which had become a refuge for Taliban and Al Qaeda fleeing Afghanistan. It unleashed artillery and US-supplied Cobra gunships. By 2005 heavy fighting had spread to North Waziristan and the army was bogged down.
The generals, safely removed from combat areas, and busy in building their personal financial empires, ascribed the resistance to “a few hundred foreign militants and terrorists”. But the Army was taking losses (how serious is suggested by the fact that casualty figures were not revealed), soldiers rarely ventured out from their forts, morale collapsed as junior officers wondered why they were being asked to attack their ideological comrades – the Taliban – at American instruction. Reportedly, local clerics refused to conduct funeral prayers for soldiers killed in action.
In 2004, the army made peace with the militants in South Waziristan. It conceded the territory to them, which had made the militants immensely stronger. A similar “peace treaty” was signed on 1 September 2006 in the town of Miramshah, in North Waziristan, now firmly in the grip of the Pakistani Taliban.
The Miramshah treaty met all demands made by the militants: the release of all jailed militants; dismantling of army checkpoints; return of seized weapons and vehicles; the right of the Taliban to display weapons (except heavy weapons); and residence rights for fellow fighters from other Islamic countries. As for “foreign militants” – who Musharraf had blamed exclusively for the resistance, the militants were nonchalant: we will let you know if we find any! The financial compensation demanded by the Taliban for loss of property and life has not been revealed, but some officials have remarked that it is “astronomical”. In turn they promised to cease their attacks on civil and military installations, and give the army a safe passage out.
While the army has extricated itself, the locals have been left to pay the price. The militants have closed girls’ schools and are enforcing harsh Sharia laws in all of Waziristan, both North and South. Barbers have been told ‘shave and die’. Taliban vigilante groups patrol the streets of Miramshah. They check such things as the length of beards, whether the “shalwars” are worn at an appropriate height above the ankles, and attendance of individuals in the mosques.
And then there is Balochistan. Eight years ago when the army seized power, there was no visible separatist movement in Balochistan, which makes nearly 44% of Pakistan’s land mass and is the repository of its gas and oil. Now there is a full blown insurgency built upon Baloch grievances, most of which arise from a perception of being ruled from Islamabad and of being denied a fair share of the benefits of the natural resources extracted from their land.
The army has spurned negotiations. Force is the only answer: “They won’t know what hit them”, boasted Musharraf, after threatening to crush the insurgency. The Army has used everything it can, including its American supplied F-16 jet fighters. The crisis worsened when the charismatic 80-year old Baloch chieftain and former governor of Balochistan, Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, was killed by army bombs. Musharraf outraged the Baloch by calling it “a great victory”. Reconciliation in Balochistan now seems, at best, a distant dream.
Musharraf and his generals are determined to stay in power. They will protect the source of their power – the army. They will accommodate those they must – the Americans. They will pander to the mullahs. They will crush those who threaten their power and privilege, and ignore the rest. No price is too high for them. They are the reason Pakistan fails.
The requirements for survival of the present regime are clear: on the one hand the Army leadership knows that its critical dependence upon the West requires that it be perceived abroad as a liberal regime pitted against radical Islamists. But, on the other hand, in actual fact, to preserve and extend its grip on power, it must preserve the status quo.
The staged conflicts between General Musharraf and the mullahs are therefore a regular part of Pakistani politics. This September, nearly seven years later, the religious parties needed no demonstration of muscle power for winning two major victories in less than a fortnight; just a few noisy threats sufficed. From experience they knew that the Pakistan Army and its sagacious leader – of “enlightened moderation” fame – would stick to their predictable pattern of dealing with Islamists. In a nutshell: provoke a fight, get the excitement going, let diplomatic missions in Islamabad make their notes and CNN and BBC get their clips – and then beat a retreat. At the end of it all the mullahs would get what they want, but so would the General.
Examples abound. On 21st April 2000, General Musharraf announced a new administrative procedure for registration of cases under the Blasphemy Law. This law, under which the minimum penalty is death, has frequently been used to harass personal and political opponents. To reduce such occurrences, Musharraf’s modified procedure would have required the local district magistrate’s approval for registration of a blasphemy case. It would have been an improvement, albeit a modest one. But 25 days later – on the 16th of May 2000 – under the watchful glare of the mullahs, Musharraf hastily climbed down: “As it was the unanimous demand of the ulema, mashaikh and the people, therefore, I have decided to do away with the procedural change in the registration of FIR under the Blasphemy Law”.
Another example. In October 2004, as a new system for issuing machine readable passports was being installed, Musharraf’s government declared that henceforth it would not be necessary for passport holders to specify their religion. Expectedly this was denounced by the Islamic parties as a grand conspiracy aimed at secularizing Pakistan and destroying its Islamic character. But even before the mullahs actually took to the streets, the government lost nerve and the volte-face was announced on 24 March, 2005. Information Minister Sheikh Rashid said the decision to revive the religion column was made else, “Qadianis and apostates would be able to pose as Muslims and perform pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia”.
But even these climb downs – significant as they are – are less dramatic than the astonishing recent retreat over reforming the Hudood Ordinance, a grotesque imposition of General Zia-ul-Haq’s government unparalleled both for its cruelty and irrationality.
Enacted into the law in 1979, it was conceived as part of a more comprehensive process for converting Pakistan into a theocracy governed by Sharia laws. These laws prescribe death by stoning for married Muslims who are found guilty of extra-marital sex (for unmarried couples or non-Muslims, the penalty is 100 lashes). The law is exact in stating how the death penalty is to be administered: “Such of the witnesses who deposed against the convict as may be available shall start stoning him and, while stoning is being carried on, he may be shot dead, whereupon stoning and shooting shall be stopped”.
Rape is still more problematic. A woman who fails to prove that she has been raped is automatically charged with fornication and adultery. Under the Hudood Law, she is considered guilty unless she can prove her innocence. Proof of innocence requires that the rape victim must produce “at least four Muslim adult male witnesses, about whom the Court is satisfied” who saw the actual act of penetration. Inability to do so may result in her being jailed, or perhaps even sentenced to death for adultery.
President and Chief of Army Staff General Musharraf, and his Citibank Prime Minister, Shuakat Aziz, proposed amending the Hudood Ordinance. They sent a draft for parliamentary discussion in early September, 2006. As expected, it outraged the fundamentalists of the MMA, the main Islamic parliamentary opposition. MMA members tore up copies of the proposed amendments on the floor of the National Assembly and threatened to resign en masse. The government cowered abjectly and withdrew.
Musharraf’s government proved no more enlightened, or more moderate or more resolute and behaved no differently from the more than half a dozen civilian administrations, including two terms of Benazir Bhutto as Prime Minister and several ‘technocrat’ regimes. None made a serious effort to confront or reform these laws.
But the pattern is broader then deference to the mullahs. General Musharraf has been willing to use the iron fist in other circumstances. Two examples stand out: Waziristan and Balochistan. Each offers instruction.
In 2002, presumably on Washington’s instructions, the Pakistan Army established military bases in South Waziristan which had become a refuge for Taliban and Al Qaeda fleeing Afghanistan. It unleashed artillery and US-supplied Cobra gunships. By 2005 heavy fighting had spread to North Waziristan and the army was bogged down.
The generals, safely removed from combat areas, and busy in building their personal financial empires, ascribed the resistance to “a few hundred foreign militants and terrorists”. But the Army was taking losses (how serious is suggested by the fact that casualty figures were not revealed), soldiers rarely ventured out from their forts, morale collapsed as junior officers wondered why they were being asked to attack their ideological comrades – the Taliban – at American instruction. Reportedly, local clerics refused to conduct funeral prayers for soldiers killed in action.
In 2004, the army made peace with the militants in South Waziristan. It conceded the territory to them, which had made the militants immensely stronger. A similar “peace treaty” was signed on 1 September 2006 in the town of Miramshah, in North Waziristan, now firmly in the grip of the Pakistani Taliban.
The Miramshah treaty met all demands made by the militants: the release of all jailed militants; dismantling of army checkpoints; return of seized weapons and vehicles; the right of the Taliban to display weapons (except heavy weapons); and residence rights for fellow fighters from other Islamic countries. As for “foreign militants” – who Musharraf had blamed exclusively for the resistance, the militants were nonchalant: we will let you know if we find any! The financial compensation demanded by the Taliban for loss of property and life has not been revealed, but some officials have remarked that it is “astronomical”. In turn they promised to cease their attacks on civil and military installations, and give the army a safe passage out.
While the army has extricated itself, the locals have been left to pay the price. The militants have closed girls’ schools and are enforcing harsh Sharia laws in all of Waziristan, both North and South. Barbers have been told ‘shave and die’. Taliban vigilante groups patrol the streets of Miramshah. They check such things as the length of beards, whether the “shalwars” are worn at an appropriate height above the ankles, and attendance of individuals in the mosques.
And then there is Balochistan. Eight years ago when the army seized power, there was no visible separatist movement in Balochistan, which makes nearly 44% of Pakistan’s land mass and is the repository of its gas and oil. Now there is a full blown insurgency built upon Baloch grievances, most of which arise from a perception of being ruled from Islamabad and of being denied a fair share of the benefits of the natural resources extracted from their land.
The army has spurned negotiations. Force is the only answer: “They won’t know what hit them”, boasted Musharraf, after threatening to crush the insurgency. The Army has used everything it can, including its American supplied F-16 jet fighters. The crisis worsened when the charismatic 80-year old Baloch chieftain and former governor of Balochistan, Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, was killed by army bombs. Musharraf outraged the Baloch by calling it “a great victory”. Reconciliation in Balochistan now seems, at best, a distant dream.
Musharraf and his generals are determined to stay in power. They will protect the source of their power – the army. They will accommodate those they must – the Americans. They will pander to the mullahs. They will crush those who threaten their power and privilege, and ignore the rest. No price is too high for them. They are the reason Pakistan fails.
Education Reform: Signs of Hope
There is good news: the “White Paper” to “debate and finalize national education policy”, distributed in December 2006 by the Ministry of Education, though
incomplete and flawed, is an enormous step forward. So is the new school curriculum – which somewhat mysteriously and improperly preceded the White Paper. These may persuade even hardened cynics that the country’s school education system still has a future. One is pleasantly surprised that this comes from a government ministry that has been in shambles for decades and is now headed, rather inauspiciously, by a former ISI general.
Of course, there are problems aplenty. The White Paper, among other things, is manifestly unfair to Pakistan’s minorities because it pretends that they do not exist; it contradicts itself in places; its multiple authors appear not to have communicated well with each other; and the treatment of the problems of higher education – as well as madrassa education – is unsatisfactory. But it is an accomplishment in spite of these failings.
First, a government document that aims to have a debate about policy in consultation with ordinary citizens is a welcome concept. Pakistanis have occasionally had political leaders who were elected, but never a bureaucracy soliciting people’s views on crucial public matters. The invitation given to intellectuals and civil society organizations is novel, as is the apparent willingness to incorporate suggestions which these debates may generate. A revised White Paper in March 2007 will hopefully contain important changes.
Second, the White Paper draws upon new statistical data recently collected in a National Education Census on enrolments, dropout rates, geographical distributions, private schools, etc. This provides a framework for conducting an informed and reasoned debate, rather than vacuous theorizing.
Third, the White Paper Team, headed by a respected retired civil servant, Javed Hasan Aly, starts from the premise that Pakistan seeks progress and prosperity: “Recognizing education as a right of the citizen, it is the aim of the state of Pakistan to provide equal and ample opportunity to all its citizens to realize their full potential as individuals….preparing them for life, livelihood, and nation-building”.
This is in stark contrast with earlier education policies – which saw Pakistani education as a tool to forcibly remake children’s minds. An official document, issued eleven years ago by the same ministry, had required that school children be taught to “make speeches on jihad and shahadat”; be aware of “India’s evil designs against Pakistan”; that they must “demonstrate by actions a belief in the fear of Allah”; go on field trips to “visit police stations”; and must “collect pictures of policemen, soldiers, and National Guards”. [These are direct quotes.]
This grim – if not terrifying – set of goals, has now been replaced with a relatively moderate vision of a Muslim Pakistan in which, “We have to unburden ourselves of the weight of centuries of nostalgia, suffocating our capacities to find our way out from the darkness of ignorance”.
Fine words, but surely real change will need more than vague hopes typed on white sheets of papers. The federal ministry of education and the four provincial education ministries are in a disastrous state. Their inefficiency, disorganization, and corrupt practices are legendary. Are there actually 12,737 non-functional “ghost” schools (as officially stated) or more like 30,000 in fact? Does the latest count of madrassas actually stand at 12,979 or is it closer to 22,000?
The management of educational institutions could not be poorer. The collapse of public schools comes from the inability of the state to deliver even half-decent education, or even to effectively monitor what is happening around it. This is what caused an explosion of private schools which, starting from near zero, now cover about 33% of Pakistan and as much as 70% of its cities.
This is bad news. Mere moralizing or proposing reforms and new curricula to the nation – but not knowing how to implement them – will make us despondent once again. Without reviving the public school system, education will become even more inaccessible to the poor and make it impossible to ever create a just society. Unfortunately, on this matter, the White Paper has no action plan that actually shows the way forward. We really should be told who will do the job. But even more importantly, what exactly needs to be done?
It is therefore time to construct workable plans and address real needs, albeit in ways never considered earlier. As one example, consider the issue of monitoring the country’s schools, without which successful management of a large system is simply impossible.
Imagine a situation where a real (not fictitious) data profile exists on every one of the 245,682 Pakistani schools. These would be public and private, rich and poor, located in the cities or in remote mountainous or desert areas. The more details one has the better, but anything is better than nothing. Individual school profiles could be used to rationally apportion the correct quantum of government and private resources, check wastages, improve school administration and teaching quality, etc.
Such a huge project is impossible by traditional means. But space-age technology is changing the world, and Pakistan can use it to clean up its educational mess. Effective school monitoring, a vital but unfulfilled task, has suddenly become possible.
How? One satellite in geosynchronous orbit over Pakistan can locate every single school and also determine certain crude parameters. Information sent down by its cameras can easily reveal when a certain school opened and closed on a particular day, roughly how many students entered and left, etc. School buildings used as warehouses or cattle sheds could be instantly identified; there would be fewer ghost schools. All information would be stored in that school’s dossier located in a computer system, accessible to the federal and provincial education ministries.
In most cases, school inspectors on the ground could supplement the satellite pictures. There is, of course, nothing new about school inspections. But what if an inspector is required to take pictures of the school he or she periodically visits, as well as to fill in required student and teacher attendance numbers, various assessment forms, the textbook and supplies situation, and then upload the information directly to the satellite above?
GPS technology allows the satellite to know exactly where the inspector is located. It is easy to make a report uploadable only from the school actually being inspected. Fictitious reports, which are the bane of the present system of school inspections, would become much harder. A report would instantly become part of that school’s dossier, accessible in a centralized location. Even for urban schools in posh areas, this form of direct inspection would provide a source of valuable information.
With this kind of technological assistance, the five education ministries could turn into effective watchdogs servicing the needs of schools. The legions of their listless employees, presently occupying vast amounts of building space but doing nothing, could be turned into professionals sitting in front of computers. They would have various data at their fingertips, and be constantly communicating electronically with colleagues, supervisors, and suppliers of books and materials. Surely, the time for new ideas has come.
For the reader who thinks this is utopian: please get yourself a computer, internet connection, and download “Google Earth” for free. A satellite in the sky above you will allow you to see your house, the car standing in front of it, and the general environs. One can, of course, have far clearer pictures by paying appropriate fees.
To be sure, technology must never be considered a panacea. Structural changes in the system of Pakistan’s educational management are essential. Massive teacher training and examination reform are obviously crucial, as is the need to decentralize school administration and turn it over to the town and zila level. These problems are also amenable to technological improvements, albeit to different degrees.
Clarity of purpose, political will, adequate financial resources for education, and willingness to appreciate and use modern technology – arranged in this order – can transform Pakistan’s school system. Should we dare to hope?
incomplete and flawed, is an enormous step forward. So is the new school curriculum – which somewhat mysteriously and improperly preceded the White Paper. These may persuade even hardened cynics that the country’s school education system still has a future. One is pleasantly surprised that this comes from a government ministry that has been in shambles for decades and is now headed, rather inauspiciously, by a former ISI general.
Of course, there are problems aplenty. The White Paper, among other things, is manifestly unfair to Pakistan’s minorities because it pretends that they do not exist; it contradicts itself in places; its multiple authors appear not to have communicated well with each other; and the treatment of the problems of higher education – as well as madrassa education – is unsatisfactory. But it is an accomplishment in spite of these failings.
First, a government document that aims to have a debate about policy in consultation with ordinary citizens is a welcome concept. Pakistanis have occasionally had political leaders who were elected, but never a bureaucracy soliciting people’s views on crucial public matters. The invitation given to intellectuals and civil society organizations is novel, as is the apparent willingness to incorporate suggestions which these debates may generate. A revised White Paper in March 2007 will hopefully contain important changes.
Second, the White Paper draws upon new statistical data recently collected in a National Education Census on enrolments, dropout rates, geographical distributions, private schools, etc. This provides a framework for conducting an informed and reasoned debate, rather than vacuous theorizing.
Third, the White Paper Team, headed by a respected retired civil servant, Javed Hasan Aly, starts from the premise that Pakistan seeks progress and prosperity: “Recognizing education as a right of the citizen, it is the aim of the state of Pakistan to provide equal and ample opportunity to all its citizens to realize their full potential as individuals….preparing them for life, livelihood, and nation-building”.
This is in stark contrast with earlier education policies – which saw Pakistani education as a tool to forcibly remake children’s minds. An official document, issued eleven years ago by the same ministry, had required that school children be taught to “make speeches on jihad and shahadat”; be aware of “India’s evil designs against Pakistan”; that they must “demonstrate by actions a belief in the fear of Allah”; go on field trips to “visit police stations”; and must “collect pictures of policemen, soldiers, and National Guards”. [These are direct quotes.]
This grim – if not terrifying – set of goals, has now been replaced with a relatively moderate vision of a Muslim Pakistan in which, “We have to unburden ourselves of the weight of centuries of nostalgia, suffocating our capacities to find our way out from the darkness of ignorance”.
Fine words, but surely real change will need more than vague hopes typed on white sheets of papers. The federal ministry of education and the four provincial education ministries are in a disastrous state. Their inefficiency, disorganization, and corrupt practices are legendary. Are there actually 12,737 non-functional “ghost” schools (as officially stated) or more like 30,000 in fact? Does the latest count of madrassas actually stand at 12,979 or is it closer to 22,000?
The management of educational institutions could not be poorer. The collapse of public schools comes from the inability of the state to deliver even half-decent education, or even to effectively monitor what is happening around it. This is what caused an explosion of private schools which, starting from near zero, now cover about 33% of Pakistan and as much as 70% of its cities.
This is bad news. Mere moralizing or proposing reforms and new curricula to the nation – but not knowing how to implement them – will make us despondent once again. Without reviving the public school system, education will become even more inaccessible to the poor and make it impossible to ever create a just society. Unfortunately, on this matter, the White Paper has no action plan that actually shows the way forward. We really should be told who will do the job. But even more importantly, what exactly needs to be done?
It is therefore time to construct workable plans and address real needs, albeit in ways never considered earlier. As one example, consider the issue of monitoring the country’s schools, without which successful management of a large system is simply impossible.
Imagine a situation where a real (not fictitious) data profile exists on every one of the 245,682 Pakistani schools. These would be public and private, rich and poor, located in the cities or in remote mountainous or desert areas. The more details one has the better, but anything is better than nothing. Individual school profiles could be used to rationally apportion the correct quantum of government and private resources, check wastages, improve school administration and teaching quality, etc.
Such a huge project is impossible by traditional means. But space-age technology is changing the world, and Pakistan can use it to clean up its educational mess. Effective school monitoring, a vital but unfulfilled task, has suddenly become possible.
How? One satellite in geosynchronous orbit over Pakistan can locate every single school and also determine certain crude parameters. Information sent down by its cameras can easily reveal when a certain school opened and closed on a particular day, roughly how many students entered and left, etc. School buildings used as warehouses or cattle sheds could be instantly identified; there would be fewer ghost schools. All information would be stored in that school’s dossier located in a computer system, accessible to the federal and provincial education ministries.
In most cases, school inspectors on the ground could supplement the satellite pictures. There is, of course, nothing new about school inspections. But what if an inspector is required to take pictures of the school he or she periodically visits, as well as to fill in required student and teacher attendance numbers, various assessment forms, the textbook and supplies situation, and then upload the information directly to the satellite above?
GPS technology allows the satellite to know exactly where the inspector is located. It is easy to make a report uploadable only from the school actually being inspected. Fictitious reports, which are the bane of the present system of school inspections, would become much harder. A report would instantly become part of that school’s dossier, accessible in a centralized location. Even for urban schools in posh areas, this form of direct inspection would provide a source of valuable information.
With this kind of technological assistance, the five education ministries could turn into effective watchdogs servicing the needs of schools. The legions of their listless employees, presently occupying vast amounts of building space but doing nothing, could be turned into professionals sitting in front of computers. They would have various data at their fingertips, and be constantly communicating electronically with colleagues, supervisors, and suppliers of books and materials. Surely, the time for new ideas has come.
For the reader who thinks this is utopian: please get yourself a computer, internet connection, and download “Google Earth” for free. A satellite in the sky above you will allow you to see your house, the car standing in front of it, and the general environs. One can, of course, have far clearer pictures by paying appropriate fees.
To be sure, technology must never be considered a panacea. Structural changes in the system of Pakistan’s educational management are essential. Massive teacher training and examination reform are obviously crucial, as is the need to decentralize school administration and turn it over to the town and zila level. These problems are also amenable to technological improvements, albeit to different degrees.
Clarity of purpose, political will, adequate financial resources for education, and willingness to appreciate and use modern technology – arranged in this order – can transform Pakistan’s school system. Should we dare to hope?
Teaching Science Badly – and Well
A normal, intelligent and curious child – particularly if he or she is Pakistani – must think science to be the most wretched of subjects at school. A few lucky exceptions aside, this is the fate of most. Very
few children will actually encounter science in a manner that they enjoy and deserve.
This is sad. Science is taught in schools for a good enough reason – we owe the modern world to it. The prosperity or poverty of nations, and of individuals, has become contingent upon their ability to understand and control science. Take its products away, and we would be back in the dark days of our ancestors when a child at birth was more likely to die than live.
But there is another excellent reason to study science. Far from being a cold and soulless collection of facts, it is delicately beautiful with principles that are amazingly simple and precise. Yet, they are also incredibly powerful and universal. Exactly the same laws explain why stars shine, the blue of the sky, the beating of the human heart, and the flight of birds. Science grips the imagination and fascinates endlessly. It has certainly engaged me for most of my life and I, like most scientists, will never tire of it.
If it is so wonderful, why then do only a few students in Pakistan want to become scientists? The problem is the prevalence of false notions of science. This, in turn, leads to teaching that ranges from bad to terrible, and thus to students who despise what they must study and memorize.
In contrast, a recent survey in India revealed that a majority of school students see science as the most glamorous and interesting career to pursue. Many go on to becoming the world’s top scientists. This is a key factor in the emergence of India as a major world power, in scientific as well as economic terms.
A science-phobic younger generation in Pakistan is bad news. This must change else we shall be stuck with low technological prowess, small potentials for future economic growth, and perpetual dependency. These are inescapable penalties for any country without a large scientifically trained workforce. It would be a terrible mistake to dismiss the term “knowledge economy” as a mere clich.
But what is it exactly that we do so wrong? And, what needs to be put right? To answer these questions needs a clear understanding of what science is. We must also know how it functions, and what it values. Pedagogical style and techniques will follow naturally once we properly clarify and define.
My definition: science is a body of knowledge, together with a very definite way of accumulating and validating that knowledge. Note the phrase “a very definite way”. This indicates that science must be distinguished from art, humanities, religion, etc. Their definitions of acceptable knowledge, and the paths leading to it, are totally different.
Science has no place for subjective experiences and, instead, to distinguish between true and false it relies exclusively on logic, reason, and experiment. Hypothesis, theory, fact, observation, and experiment are at the roots of what is known as the “scientific method”.
All this sounds a bit abstract, so back to plain talk: science demands proof using things that we can measure. There cannot be airy-fairy discussions of things. Science refuses to offer an opinion on things that are unobservable, or whose existence is impossible to verify even in principle. What you cannot see may still actually be there, but science is going to be mum about it. It’s as simple as that.
Every discipline has values and norms. Science certainly does too. Its central tenet is that one’s evidence, logic, and claims will be questioned, and that one’s experiments will be subjected to replication. Therefore a high premium is put upon skepticism and there is a deep distaste for dogmatism. Successful scientists, mathematics, and engineers are valued because of the institutionalized skepticism they imbibed during their education.
With all this philosophy now behind us, we can now ask what constitutes good pedagogic content for science, the teaching style, and the mistakes that are commonly made. Most importantly we need to ask: what are good science teachers actually supposed to do in class?
I. First, they should help students to simultaneously acquire scientific knowledge of the world, as well as cultivate scientific habits of mind. These are two completely different things. One is providing data and information about the physical world, the other is creating a mindset needed to properly interpret this data.
Therefore, science education must begin with simple things such as exploring the chemical properties of common substances, plants and animals, and systematic observations of the social behavior of humans and other animals. This requires that teachers show students to dissect, sort, count, collect, catalogue, compute, graph, and make sensible notes. Use of simple equipment like rulers, lenses, thermometers, cameras, etc. is important. Many students are fearful of using laboratory instruments and other tools. This fear is often from the lack of opportunity, but girls also suffer from the mistaken notion that boys are naturally more adept at using tools.
II. Second, good teachers must emphasize learning rather than teaching. The two are different. Learning is a process that progresses from the concrete to the abstract as cognitive abilities slowly improve. But students first need to get acquainted with the things around them such as devices, organisms, materials, shapes, and numbers. They must observe them, collect them, handle them, describe them, become puzzled by them, ask questions about them, argue about them, and then to try to find answers to their questions. Abstractions develop after these experiences, not before.
Good teaching starts with using tangible things. One does not need a Ph.D in cognitive studies to know that young people learn best when they deal with visual, auditory, tactile, and kinesthetic objects. As their experience grows, they learn to understand abstract concepts, manipulate symbols, reason logically, solve theorems, and generalize. These abilities are destroyed, or left woefully undeveloped, by rote memorization.
Parsimony is essential. A good teacher picks the most important concepts and skills and concentrates on the quality of understanding, not on the quantity of information presented. In some expensive private O- and A- level Pakistani schools lots of scientific drilling exercises are given for exam grade improvement. Even when successful, this does not necessarily create mindsets for doing good scientific work at a later stage.
Similarly, overemphasizing vocabulary can be dangerous. Understanding is the main purpose of science teaching but many teachers think that their job is to make students learn big words. This detracts from science as a process and jeopardizes learning, particularly in a linguistically fractured country like ours.
III. Third, good science pedagogy happens when the spirit of healthy questioning is deliberately cultivated in the classroom. The scientific mindset starts developing naturally when students encounter questions that engage their mind rather than memory.
It should therefore be normal practice for teachers to raise such questions as: How do we know? What is important to measure? How to check the correctness of measurements? What is the evidence? How to make sense out of your results? Is there a counter explanation, or perhaps a simpler one? The aim should be to get students into the habit of posing such questions and framing answers.
Dogmatism kills science. Students should therefore experience science as a process for extending understanding, not as unalterable truth. Never should the teacher say X or Y is true just because that’s what the textbook says. (I grind my teeth whenever a student in my university class gives me this argument! But this is what these over-grown children have inevitably become.)
Equally importantly, teachers should never portray themselves as absolute authorities whose conclusions are always correct. Of course, there has to be a delicate balance here. As a teacher, I do know more than my students and I should not hide that. Was this untrue, my salary should rightfully be stopped. But the point is that I am occasionally wrong, and do make a mistake in class now and then. This can be turned to excellent advantage, as I have often discovered.
How? In traditional societies like ours, the student is told that his teacher “tumharay baap ki tarah hai”, an autocratic and tyrannical figure whose word is the law. This attitude is simply incompatible with the relative student-teacher equality that science teaching requires. Therefore I use the occasion provided by my mistake – if it genuinely is one – to prove that my authority is not absolute. It gives confidence to the student who points out my mistake and strengthens the spirit of scientific inquiry in my class.
It is wrong to say that science requires no faith. It does, albeit of a certain kind. Personally, I have never seen the 60 moons of Jupiter but am willing to accept their existence on faith because I know that, at least in principle, someone else can do it. In general, science teachers must help students achieve a delicate kind of balance between this kind of faith and skepticism. Teachers must also be able to explain coherently what caused the overturn of accepted scientific beliefs, and what to make out of disagreements among scientists. It is extremely important to keep an open mind and challenge when necessary.
Such open-mindedness is good not just for science pedagogy, but also for changing the stultifying cultural conditions of our society. The inability to deal with, or comprehend, scientific and technological matters has steadily lead to its dangerous “loser” mentality and a lurch towards extra-scientific, magical, and hodge-podge solutions.
Examples abound. Through programs produced and popularized by scientific illiterates, a virulently anti-scientific Pakistani television culture has emerged. It bashes science without knowing what it is about. Flipping through the channels, you can see TV programs trashing evolution, discussing strange fiery creatures in the sky, ascribing earthquakes and calamities to divine retribution, and containing laughable mish-mashes of science and religion.
Bad science teaching in our schools and wide-spread scientific illiteracy has made the siren song of unreason ever more sonorous and attractive. In older times the idiocy of the “aamils”, pirs, and mullahs and assorted soothsayers was accepted by just the ignorant and illiterate. But today college graduates, as well as the rich and powerful, now calmly accept this as high wisdom.
Good science education alone can change this. The demons of superstition can only be chased away by those who have learned science the correct way. But for that we may first need a major cultural and attitudinal change that permits real science to be taught in our schools.
few children will actually encounter science in a manner that they enjoy and deserve.
This is sad. Science is taught in schools for a good enough reason – we owe the modern world to it. The prosperity or poverty of nations, and of individuals, has become contingent upon their ability to understand and control science. Take its products away, and we would be back in the dark days of our ancestors when a child at birth was more likely to die than live.
But there is another excellent reason to study science. Far from being a cold and soulless collection of facts, it is delicately beautiful with principles that are amazingly simple and precise. Yet, they are also incredibly powerful and universal. Exactly the same laws explain why stars shine, the blue of the sky, the beating of the human heart, and the flight of birds. Science grips the imagination and fascinates endlessly. It has certainly engaged me for most of my life and I, like most scientists, will never tire of it.
If it is so wonderful, why then do only a few students in Pakistan want to become scientists? The problem is the prevalence of false notions of science. This, in turn, leads to teaching that ranges from bad to terrible, and thus to students who despise what they must study and memorize.
In contrast, a recent survey in India revealed that a majority of school students see science as the most glamorous and interesting career to pursue. Many go on to becoming the world’s top scientists. This is a key factor in the emergence of India as a major world power, in scientific as well as economic terms.
A science-phobic younger generation in Pakistan is bad news. This must change else we shall be stuck with low technological prowess, small potentials for future economic growth, and perpetual dependency. These are inescapable penalties for any country without a large scientifically trained workforce. It would be a terrible mistake to dismiss the term “knowledge economy” as a mere clich.
But what is it exactly that we do so wrong? And, what needs to be put right? To answer these questions needs a clear understanding of what science is. We must also know how it functions, and what it values. Pedagogical style and techniques will follow naturally once we properly clarify and define.
My definition: science is a body of knowledge, together with a very definite way of accumulating and validating that knowledge. Note the phrase “a very definite way”. This indicates that science must be distinguished from art, humanities, religion, etc. Their definitions of acceptable knowledge, and the paths leading to it, are totally different.
Science has no place for subjective experiences and, instead, to distinguish between true and false it relies exclusively on logic, reason, and experiment. Hypothesis, theory, fact, observation, and experiment are at the roots of what is known as the “scientific method”.
All this sounds a bit abstract, so back to plain talk: science demands proof using things that we can measure. There cannot be airy-fairy discussions of things. Science refuses to offer an opinion on things that are unobservable, or whose existence is impossible to verify even in principle. What you cannot see may still actually be there, but science is going to be mum about it. It’s as simple as that.
Every discipline has values and norms. Science certainly does too. Its central tenet is that one’s evidence, logic, and claims will be questioned, and that one’s experiments will be subjected to replication. Therefore a high premium is put upon skepticism and there is a deep distaste for dogmatism. Successful scientists, mathematics, and engineers are valued because of the institutionalized skepticism they imbibed during their education.
With all this philosophy now behind us, we can now ask what constitutes good pedagogic content for science, the teaching style, and the mistakes that are commonly made. Most importantly we need to ask: what are good science teachers actually supposed to do in class?
I. First, they should help students to simultaneously acquire scientific knowledge of the world, as well as cultivate scientific habits of mind. These are two completely different things. One is providing data and information about the physical world, the other is creating a mindset needed to properly interpret this data.
Therefore, science education must begin with simple things such as exploring the chemical properties of common substances, plants and animals, and systematic observations of the social behavior of humans and other animals. This requires that teachers show students to dissect, sort, count, collect, catalogue, compute, graph, and make sensible notes. Use of simple equipment like rulers, lenses, thermometers, cameras, etc. is important. Many students are fearful of using laboratory instruments and other tools. This fear is often from the lack of opportunity, but girls also suffer from the mistaken notion that boys are naturally more adept at using tools.
II. Second, good teachers must emphasize learning rather than teaching. The two are different. Learning is a process that progresses from the concrete to the abstract as cognitive abilities slowly improve. But students first need to get acquainted with the things around them such as devices, organisms, materials, shapes, and numbers. They must observe them, collect them, handle them, describe them, become puzzled by them, ask questions about them, argue about them, and then to try to find answers to their questions. Abstractions develop after these experiences, not before.
Good teaching starts with using tangible things. One does not need a Ph.D in cognitive studies to know that young people learn best when they deal with visual, auditory, tactile, and kinesthetic objects. As their experience grows, they learn to understand abstract concepts, manipulate symbols, reason logically, solve theorems, and generalize. These abilities are destroyed, or left woefully undeveloped, by rote memorization.
Parsimony is essential. A good teacher picks the most important concepts and skills and concentrates on the quality of understanding, not on the quantity of information presented. In some expensive private O- and A- level Pakistani schools lots of scientific drilling exercises are given for exam grade improvement. Even when successful, this does not necessarily create mindsets for doing good scientific work at a later stage.
Similarly, overemphasizing vocabulary can be dangerous. Understanding is the main purpose of science teaching but many teachers think that their job is to make students learn big words. This detracts from science as a process and jeopardizes learning, particularly in a linguistically fractured country like ours.
III. Third, good science pedagogy happens when the spirit of healthy questioning is deliberately cultivated in the classroom. The scientific mindset starts developing naturally when students encounter questions that engage their mind rather than memory.
It should therefore be normal practice for teachers to raise such questions as: How do we know? What is important to measure? How to check the correctness of measurements? What is the evidence? How to make sense out of your results? Is there a counter explanation, or perhaps a simpler one? The aim should be to get students into the habit of posing such questions and framing answers.
Dogmatism kills science. Students should therefore experience science as a process for extending understanding, not as unalterable truth. Never should the teacher say X or Y is true just because that’s what the textbook says. (I grind my teeth whenever a student in my university class gives me this argument! But this is what these over-grown children have inevitably become.)
Equally importantly, teachers should never portray themselves as absolute authorities whose conclusions are always correct. Of course, there has to be a delicate balance here. As a teacher, I do know more than my students and I should not hide that. Was this untrue, my salary should rightfully be stopped. But the point is that I am occasionally wrong, and do make a mistake in class now and then. This can be turned to excellent advantage, as I have often discovered.
How? In traditional societies like ours, the student is told that his teacher “tumharay baap ki tarah hai”, an autocratic and tyrannical figure whose word is the law. This attitude is simply incompatible with the relative student-teacher equality that science teaching requires. Therefore I use the occasion provided by my mistake – if it genuinely is one – to prove that my authority is not absolute. It gives confidence to the student who points out my mistake and strengthens the spirit of scientific inquiry in my class.
It is wrong to say that science requires no faith. It does, albeit of a certain kind. Personally, I have never seen the 60 moons of Jupiter but am willing to accept their existence on faith because I know that, at least in principle, someone else can do it. In general, science teachers must help students achieve a delicate kind of balance between this kind of faith and skepticism. Teachers must also be able to explain coherently what caused the overturn of accepted scientific beliefs, and what to make out of disagreements among scientists. It is extremely important to keep an open mind and challenge when necessary.
Such open-mindedness is good not just for science pedagogy, but also for changing the stultifying cultural conditions of our society. The inability to deal with, or comprehend, scientific and technological matters has steadily lead to its dangerous “loser” mentality and a lurch towards extra-scientific, magical, and hodge-podge solutions.
Examples abound. Through programs produced and popularized by scientific illiterates, a virulently anti-scientific Pakistani television culture has emerged. It bashes science without knowing what it is about. Flipping through the channels, you can see TV programs trashing evolution, discussing strange fiery creatures in the sky, ascribing earthquakes and calamities to divine retribution, and containing laughable mish-mashes of science and religion.
Bad science teaching in our schools and wide-spread scientific illiteracy has made the siren song of unreason ever more sonorous and attractive. In older times the idiocy of the “aamils”, pirs, and mullahs and assorted soothsayers was accepted by just the ignorant and illiterate. But today college graduates, as well as the rich and powerful, now calmly accept this as high wisdom.
Good science education alone can change this. The demons of superstition can only be chased away by those who have learned science the correct way. But for that we may first need a major cultural and attitudinal change that permits real science to be taught in our schools.
Preventing More Lal Masjids
Many well-known Pakistani political commentators seem bent upon trivializing Lal Masjid. Although its bloody siege now enters into its fifth day, for them the comic sight of the bearded Maulana Abdul Aziz fleeing in a burqa is proof that this episode was mere puppet theatre. They say it was enacted by
hidden hands within the government, expressly created to distract attention away from General Musharraf’s mounting problems, as well as to prove to his supporters in the West that he remains the last bulwark against Islamic extremism. The writers conclude that this is a contrived problem, not a real one. They are dead wrong. Lal Masjid underscores the danger of runaway religious radicalism in Pakistan. It calls for urgent and wide-ranging action.
That the crisis could have been averted is beyond doubt. The Lal Masjid militants were given a free hand by the government to kidnap and intimidate. For months, under the nose of Pakistan’s super-vigilant intelligence agencies, large quantities of arms and fuel were smuggled inside to create a fearsome fortress in the heart of Pakistan’s capital. Even after Jamia Hafsa students went on their violent rampages in February 2007, no attempt was made to cut off the electricity, gas, phone, or website – or even to shut down their illegal FM radio station. Operating as a parallel government, the mullah duo, Maulana Abdul Rashid Ghazi and Maulana Abdul Aziz, ran their own Islamic court. They received the Saudi Arabian ambassador on the mosque premises, and negotiated with the Chinese ambassador for the release of his country’s kidnapped nationals. But for the outrage expressed by China, Pakistan’s all-weather ally, the status quo would have continued.
For a state that has not shied from using even artillery and airpower on its citizens, the softness on the mullahs was astonishing. Even as the writ of the state was being openly defied, the chief negotiator appointed by Musharraf, Chaudhry Shujaat Husain, described the burqa brigade militants as “our daughters” with whom negotiations would continue and against whom “no operation could be contemplated”.
But this still does not prove that the fanatics were deliberately set up, or that radicalism and extremism is a fringe phenomenon. The Lal Masjid mullahs, even as they directed kidnappings and vigilante squads, continued to lead thousands during Friday prayers. Uncounted thousands of other radically charged mullahs daily berate captive audiences about immoralities in society and dangle promises of heaven for the pious. What explains the explosive growth of this phenomenon?
Imperial America’s policies in the Muslim world are usually held to blame. But its brutalities elsewhere have been far greater. In tiny Vietnam, the Americans had killed more than one million people. Nevertheless, the Vietnamese did not invest in explosive vests and belts. Today if one could wipe America off the map of the world with a wet cloth, mullah-led fanaticism will not disappear. I have often asked those of our students at Quaid-e-Azam University who toe the Lal Masjid line why, if they are so concerned about the fate of Muslims, they did not join the many demonstrations organized by their professors in 2003/4 against the immoral US invasion of Iraq. The question leaves them unfazed. For them the greater sin is for women to walk around bare faced, or the very notion that they could be considered the equal of men.
Extremism is often claimed to be the consequence of poverty. But deprivation and suffering do not, by themselves, lead to radicalism. People in Pakistan’s tribal areas, now under the grip of the Taliban, have never led more than a subsistence existence. Building more roads, supplying electricity and making schools – if the Taliban allow – is a great idea. But it will have little impact upon militancy.
Lack of educational opportunity is also not a sufficient cause. It is a shame that less than 65% of Pakistani children have schools to go to, and only 3% of the eligible population goes to universities. But these are improvements over 30 years ago when terrorism was not an issue. More importantly, violent extremism has jumped the educational divide. The 911 hijackers and the Glasgow airport doctors were highly educated men and were supported in spirit by thousands of similarly educated Muslims in Pakistan and the world at large. It is not clear to me whether persons with degrees are relatively more or less susceptible to extremist versions of Islam.
The above, as I have argued, are insufficient causes although they are significant as contributory reasons. There are more compelling explanations: the official sponsorship of jihad by the Pakistani establishment in earlier times; the poison injected into students through their textbooks; and the fantastic growth of madrassas across Pakistan.
But most of all, it has been the cowardly deference of Pakistani leaders to the blackmail by mullahs. Their instinctive response has been to seek appeasement. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had suddenly turned Islamic in his final days as he made a desperate, but ultimately unsuccessful, attempt to save his government and life. A fearful Benazir Bhutto made no attempt to challenge the horrific Hudood and blasphemy laws during her premierships. And Nawaz Sharif went a step further by attempting to bring the Shariah to Pakistan.
Such slavish kow-towing had powerful consequences. The crimes of mullahs, because they are committed in the name of Islam, go unpunished today. The situation in Pakistan’s tribal areas is dire and deteriorating. Inspired by the fiery rhetoric from mosques, fanatics murder doctors and health workers administering polio shots. They blow up video shops and girls schools, kill barbers who shave beards, stone alleged adulterers to death, and destroy billboards with women’s faces. No one is caught or punished. Pakistan’s civil society has chosen to remain largely silent, unmoved by this barbarism.
This silence has allowed tribal extremism to migrate effortlessly into the cities. Except for the posh areas of the largest metropolises, it is now increasingly difficult for a woman to walk bare-faced through most city bazaars. Reflections of Jamia Hafsa can be found in every public university of Pakistan. Here, as elsewhere, a sustained campaign of proselytizing and intimidation is showing results. In fact, it would do little harm to rename my university, now a city of walking tents, as Jamia Quaid-e-Azam.
On April 12, to terrify the last few hold-outs, the Lal Masjid mullahs declared in their FM radio broadcast that Quaid-e-Azam University had turned into a brothel. They warned that Jamia Hafsa girls could throw acid on the faces of those female university students who refuse to cover their faces. There should have been instant outrage. Instead, fear and caution prevailed. The university administration was silent, as was the university’s chancellor, General Musharraf. A university-wide meeting of about 200 students and teachers, held in the physics department, eventually concluded with a condemnation of the mullahs threat and a demand for their removal as head clerics of a government-funded mosque. But student opinion on burqas was split: many felt that although the mullahs had gone a tad too far, covering of the face was indeed properly Islamic and needed enforcement. Twenty years ago this would have been a minority opinion.
The Lal Masjid crisis is a direct consequence of the ambivalence of General Musharraf’s regime towards Islamic militancy. In part it comes from fear and follows the tradition of appeasement. Another part comes from the confusion of whether to cultivate the Taliban – who can help keep Indian influence out of Afghanistan – or whether to fight them. One grieves for the officers and jawans killed in the on-going battle with fanatics. It must feel especially terrible to be killed by one’s former friends and allies.
What should the government do after the guns stop firing and the hostages are out, whether dead or alive? At least two immediate actions are needed.
First, those who publicly preach hatred in mosques and call for violence against the citizens of Pakistan should be denied the opportunity to do so. The government should announce that any citizen who hears such sermons should record them, and lodge a charge in the nearest designated complaint office. The guilty should be dealt with severely under the law. In the tribal areas, using force if necessary, the dozens of currently operating illegal FM radio stations should be closed down. Run by mullahs bitterly hostile to each other on doctrinal or personal grounds, they incite bitter tribal and sectarian wars.
Second, one must not minimize the danger posed by madrassas. It is not just their gun-toting militants, but the climate of intolerance they create in society. Where and when necessary, and after sufficient warning, they must be shut down. Establishment of new madrassas must be strictly limited. Apologists say that only 5-10 percent of madrassas breed militancy, and thus dismiss this as a fringe phenomenon. But if the number of Pakistani madrassas is 20,000 (give or take a few thousand; nobody knows for sure) this amounts to 1000-2000. Although all are not equally lethal, this is surely a lot of dangerous fringe.
The government’s madrassa reform program has fallen flat on its face, and future efforts will do no better. It was absurd to have assumed that introducing computers or teaching English could have transformed the character of madrassa education away from brain-washing and rote memorization towards logical behaviour and critical thinking. Did the adeptness with which Lal Masjid managed its website really bring it into the 21st century? Madrassas are religious institutions; they cannot be changed into normal schools. It is time to give up wasting money and effort in attempting to reform them and, instead, to radically improve the public education system and make it a viable alternative.
The Lal Masjid battle is part of the wider civil war within the Islamic world waged by totalitarian forces that seek redemption through violence. Their cancerous radicalism pits Muslims against Muslims, and the world at large. It is only peripherally directed against the excesses of the corrupt ruling establishment, or inspired by issues of justice and equity.
Note that the Lal Masjid ideologues – and others of their ilk – do not rouse their followers to action on matters of poverty, unemployment, poor access to justice, lack of educational opportunities, corruption within the army and bureaucracy, or the sufferings of peasants and workers. Instead their actions are concentrated entirely on improving morality, where morality is interpreted almost exclusively in relation to women and perceived Western cultural invasion. They do not consider as immoral such things as exploiting workers, cheating customers, bribing officials, beating their wives, not paying taxes, or breaking traffic rules. Their interpretation of religion leads to bizarre failures in logic, moral reasoning, and appreciation of human life.
hidden hands within the government, expressly created to distract attention away from General Musharraf’s mounting problems, as well as to prove to his supporters in the West that he remains the last bulwark against Islamic extremism. The writers conclude that this is a contrived problem, not a real one. They are dead wrong. Lal Masjid underscores the danger of runaway religious radicalism in Pakistan. It calls for urgent and wide-ranging action.
That the crisis could have been averted is beyond doubt. The Lal Masjid militants were given a free hand by the government to kidnap and intimidate. For months, under the nose of Pakistan’s super-vigilant intelligence agencies, large quantities of arms and fuel were smuggled inside to create a fearsome fortress in the heart of Pakistan’s capital. Even after Jamia Hafsa students went on their violent rampages in February 2007, no attempt was made to cut off the electricity, gas, phone, or website – or even to shut down their illegal FM radio station. Operating as a parallel government, the mullah duo, Maulana Abdul Rashid Ghazi and Maulana Abdul Aziz, ran their own Islamic court. They received the Saudi Arabian ambassador on the mosque premises, and negotiated with the Chinese ambassador for the release of his country’s kidnapped nationals. But for the outrage expressed by China, Pakistan’s all-weather ally, the status quo would have continued.
For a state that has not shied from using even artillery and airpower on its citizens, the softness on the mullahs was astonishing. Even as the writ of the state was being openly defied, the chief negotiator appointed by Musharraf, Chaudhry Shujaat Husain, described the burqa brigade militants as “our daughters” with whom negotiations would continue and against whom “no operation could be contemplated”.
But this still does not prove that the fanatics were deliberately set up, or that radicalism and extremism is a fringe phenomenon. The Lal Masjid mullahs, even as they directed kidnappings and vigilante squads, continued to lead thousands during Friday prayers. Uncounted thousands of other radically charged mullahs daily berate captive audiences about immoralities in society and dangle promises of heaven for the pious. What explains the explosive growth of this phenomenon?
Imperial America’s policies in the Muslim world are usually held to blame. But its brutalities elsewhere have been far greater. In tiny Vietnam, the Americans had killed more than one million people. Nevertheless, the Vietnamese did not invest in explosive vests and belts. Today if one could wipe America off the map of the world with a wet cloth, mullah-led fanaticism will not disappear. I have often asked those of our students at Quaid-e-Azam University who toe the Lal Masjid line why, if they are so concerned about the fate of Muslims, they did not join the many demonstrations organized by their professors in 2003/4 against the immoral US invasion of Iraq. The question leaves them unfazed. For them the greater sin is for women to walk around bare faced, or the very notion that they could be considered the equal of men.
Extremism is often claimed to be the consequence of poverty. But deprivation and suffering do not, by themselves, lead to radicalism. People in Pakistan’s tribal areas, now under the grip of the Taliban, have never led more than a subsistence existence. Building more roads, supplying electricity and making schools – if the Taliban allow – is a great idea. But it will have little impact upon militancy.
Lack of educational opportunity is also not a sufficient cause. It is a shame that less than 65% of Pakistani children have schools to go to, and only 3% of the eligible population goes to universities. But these are improvements over 30 years ago when terrorism was not an issue. More importantly, violent extremism has jumped the educational divide. The 911 hijackers and the Glasgow airport doctors were highly educated men and were supported in spirit by thousands of similarly educated Muslims in Pakistan and the world at large. It is not clear to me whether persons with degrees are relatively more or less susceptible to extremist versions of Islam.
The above, as I have argued, are insufficient causes although they are significant as contributory reasons. There are more compelling explanations: the official sponsorship of jihad by the Pakistani establishment in earlier times; the poison injected into students through their textbooks; and the fantastic growth of madrassas across Pakistan.
But most of all, it has been the cowardly deference of Pakistani leaders to the blackmail by mullahs. Their instinctive response has been to seek appeasement. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had suddenly turned Islamic in his final days as he made a desperate, but ultimately unsuccessful, attempt to save his government and life. A fearful Benazir Bhutto made no attempt to challenge the horrific Hudood and blasphemy laws during her premierships. And Nawaz Sharif went a step further by attempting to bring the Shariah to Pakistan.
Such slavish kow-towing had powerful consequences. The crimes of mullahs, because they are committed in the name of Islam, go unpunished today. The situation in Pakistan’s tribal areas is dire and deteriorating. Inspired by the fiery rhetoric from mosques, fanatics murder doctors and health workers administering polio shots. They blow up video shops and girls schools, kill barbers who shave beards, stone alleged adulterers to death, and destroy billboards with women’s faces. No one is caught or punished. Pakistan’s civil society has chosen to remain largely silent, unmoved by this barbarism.
This silence has allowed tribal extremism to migrate effortlessly into the cities. Except for the posh areas of the largest metropolises, it is now increasingly difficult for a woman to walk bare-faced through most city bazaars. Reflections of Jamia Hafsa can be found in every public university of Pakistan. Here, as elsewhere, a sustained campaign of proselytizing and intimidation is showing results. In fact, it would do little harm to rename my university, now a city of walking tents, as Jamia Quaid-e-Azam.
On April 12, to terrify the last few hold-outs, the Lal Masjid mullahs declared in their FM radio broadcast that Quaid-e-Azam University had turned into a brothel. They warned that Jamia Hafsa girls could throw acid on the faces of those female university students who refuse to cover their faces. There should have been instant outrage. Instead, fear and caution prevailed. The university administration was silent, as was the university’s chancellor, General Musharraf. A university-wide meeting of about 200 students and teachers, held in the physics department, eventually concluded with a condemnation of the mullahs threat and a demand for their removal as head clerics of a government-funded mosque. But student opinion on burqas was split: many felt that although the mullahs had gone a tad too far, covering of the face was indeed properly Islamic and needed enforcement. Twenty years ago this would have been a minority opinion.
The Lal Masjid crisis is a direct consequence of the ambivalence of General Musharraf’s regime towards Islamic militancy. In part it comes from fear and follows the tradition of appeasement. Another part comes from the confusion of whether to cultivate the Taliban – who can help keep Indian influence out of Afghanistan – or whether to fight them. One grieves for the officers and jawans killed in the on-going battle with fanatics. It must feel especially terrible to be killed by one’s former friends and allies.
What should the government do after the guns stop firing and the hostages are out, whether dead or alive? At least two immediate actions are needed.
First, those who publicly preach hatred in mosques and call for violence against the citizens of Pakistan should be denied the opportunity to do so. The government should announce that any citizen who hears such sermons should record them, and lodge a charge in the nearest designated complaint office. The guilty should be dealt with severely under the law. In the tribal areas, using force if necessary, the dozens of currently operating illegal FM radio stations should be closed down. Run by mullahs bitterly hostile to each other on doctrinal or personal grounds, they incite bitter tribal and sectarian wars.
Second, one must not minimize the danger posed by madrassas. It is not just their gun-toting militants, but the climate of intolerance they create in society. Where and when necessary, and after sufficient warning, they must be shut down. Establishment of new madrassas must be strictly limited. Apologists say that only 5-10 percent of madrassas breed militancy, and thus dismiss this as a fringe phenomenon. But if the number of Pakistani madrassas is 20,000 (give or take a few thousand; nobody knows for sure) this amounts to 1000-2000. Although all are not equally lethal, this is surely a lot of dangerous fringe.
The government’s madrassa reform program has fallen flat on its face, and future efforts will do no better. It was absurd to have assumed that introducing computers or teaching English could have transformed the character of madrassa education away from brain-washing and rote memorization towards logical behaviour and critical thinking. Did the adeptness with which Lal Masjid managed its website really bring it into the 21st century? Madrassas are religious institutions; they cannot be changed into normal schools. It is time to give up wasting money and effort in attempting to reform them and, instead, to radically improve the public education system and make it a viable alternative.
The Lal Masjid battle is part of the wider civil war within the Islamic world waged by totalitarian forces that seek redemption through violence. Their cancerous radicalism pits Muslims against Muslims, and the world at large. It is only peripherally directed against the excesses of the corrupt ruling establishment, or inspired by issues of justice and equity.
Note that the Lal Masjid ideologues – and others of their ilk – do not rouse their followers to action on matters of poverty, unemployment, poor access to justice, lack of educational opportunities, corruption within the army and bureaucracy, or the sufferings of peasants and workers. Instead their actions are concentrated entirely on improving morality, where morality is interpreted almost exclusively in relation to women and perceived Western cultural invasion. They do not consider as immoral such things as exploiting workers, cheating customers, bribing officials, beating their wives, not paying taxes, or breaking traffic rules. Their interpretation of religion leads to bizarre failures in logic, moral reasoning, and appreciation of human life.
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