Is there any other country more beautiful than Pakistan? And Higher Education Commision

And is there any other nation as cruel as our nation about itself? This is the question that has been circling my mind unusually frequently these past few days. I bet many amongst those who will be reading this blog travel quite frequently within and outside Pakistan. And I am also very much sure that all of them realize why this question is haunting my mind so much. That is because the same question haunts them too.

Unfortunately, haunting don't matter really unless we have cures for these nightmares and that is exactly what lacks. We have the questions but we are really not ready to speak the answer which speaks itself within ourselves but we are not ready to even listen to it let alone speak aloud. I, like many others, have heard the answer and spoken it many times. Is there anyone who is willing to own it?

Just travel around and see what we are blessed with. We are blessed with rich fertile plains, exuberant weathers, exotic customs, flowing rivers, snow capped mountains, wonderful locations, natural resources...we may be downtrodden but we are still envy of the earth. Can any other nation be more fortunate? And these are just the very insignificant blessings of God almighty upon us. The biggest blessing for our nation is 180 million rugged, content but highly intelligent people that God was so generous to give to us. Has anyone amongst those reading it ever thought that out of these 180 million, you were the chosen ones, you were one out of a million whom God gave the opportunity to excel in your lives. You excelled and there is no problem with it. But did you return the favor? To day my question is not towards the Corrupt politicians, self centered bureaucrats, news hungry media journalists, ruthless feudals, aimless military and visonless judiciary. We talk a lot about them...that has become our pastime. For us the whole malaise lies with one person or a bunch of persons and that is absolutely wrong thinking. That is not the answer that you hear within yourselves. That is not the cure. These are but just a reflection of ourselves. My question is to all of us. What have we done to ourselves and this gifted land that was given to our ancestors as a reward of their sacrifices. Mind you, our ancestors, not the ancestors of these greedy folks I just mentioned above.

We, the nation is also corrupt. Anyone, in any position is behaving dishonestly in everything that we do daily. We scream about injustice, lack of governance, corruption etc but resort to same things when we are confronted with same dilemma without any hint of conscience. We are ready to earn money through any source possible. We buy the items from market which were supposed to be for flood and earthquake victims. We force young children to do domestic labor in our homes. We bunk our classes, we don't teach what we should, we don't struggle, we find shortcuts, we break lines, we give bribes, we accept bribes, we grab lands, we invest in shady deals, we don't have courage to elect honest people, we tolerate foreign invaders in the name of liberty, we tolerate terrorists in the name of struggle for religion, we impose our ideology upon others, we don't speak out for the truth, we celebrate the killings....the list is endless...We, the nation's chosen ones are rotting ourselves.

And this is the answer. This answer speaks within ourselves, we don't own it. The answer was told centuries ago by our prophet. The answer was again and again reminded by our own scholars. The answer is written everywhere but we have become so blind to it that it even surprises us when we are confronted with this answer. We were the chosen 10, 20 million people of this land...educated, employed, bright etc etc. God almighty and this nation invested so much in all of us. Will the remaining 160 million not ask us what we owed and what we returned? Are not we as much culprits as all those greedy, power hungry so called stakeholders that I mentioned afew paragraphs above? Don't we deserve to be punished?

I again ask all of us (including myself)....have we ever looked in the eyes of the children on street? How bright, how full of life, how intelligent they are. They are scattered everywhere. They are our children. They did not choose their parents and neither did us. They did not choose their nation and neither did us. But we got the fairer deal which they did not. We still whine but they don't. They need very little from us. They don't need Grameen banks, KASHF foundation, Alkhidmat or even EDHI and Shaukat Khanum from us. All they need from us is for us to be honest and to be forthright. Are we willing to do that?

There may be many amongst us who may be thinking that this doesn't apply to them. They are very honest. They preach good. They are practicing Muslims. They studied with dedication and found job on merit. They have achieved everything through belief in God and their effort. However, I will still say, you (myself included again) are not honest and you know I am saying truth. Move beyond your personal self. Preach good, become unbiased, struggle to become good citizen not just a good self which suits your personality. Become balance, become moderate. Don't impose and don't be budged. Don's accept anything wrong because it suits the mindset that is close to you. Think of this nation and what really really suits it.

Higher Education Commission was and is one such moderate success story where some people like us thought and made efforts to bring some good changes in their domain of work. Hats off to Dr. Atta ur Rehman for his vision. He worked under a dictator but none can doubt his sincerity and passion for Pakistan. He brought meaningful change literally in Pakistan. Quality of education improved significantly. Quality research emerged. As a nation, we were for the first time exposed to highest level of international research within Pakistan solely through his efforts. Today more than 10 thousand Pakistanis are serving in various universities all around the world as a consequence of his and HEC efforts. Within 10 years, HEC has been able to change international landscape which was once occupied by Indian scholars but today, they have to compete with scholars from Pakistan. I know from personal experience that South Korea and Italy prefer Pakistani scholars and scientists over Indian scientists due to their intelligence and breadth of knowledge. I don't this this is a trivial feat. Then look at the quality of studies and research improvement within national universities. It is easy to sit in an easy chair and give talks about so called fictitious research. Matter of the fact is that the only group who worked tirelessly in this past decade to bring any meaningful change in the society was academia and the students. The teachers went back to their class rooms and labs and students followed them. This was also mainly due to efforts of Dr. Atta and his team at HEC. They improved infrastructure of national universities. Brought the idea of sponsored research projects. Encouraged the concept of rewarding the ingenuity. Today, there is at least some awareness of conducting meaningful research within the universities. Many think producing PhDs was actually a non achievement and I can simply laugh at their small sightedness. Each PhD produced by HEC made at least ten internationally reputable scientists and researchers know about the potential of Pakistan through participation in international conferences, journal publications in their highly cited journals, thesis evaluations and finally thesis defense. If one PhD scholar supported by HEC was able to make ten influential scientists of the world know about Pakistan and still, we were not able to take advantage of it, is it the fault of PhD scholars and HEC? Or, it is a grim reality check to all policy makers of this country about how pathetic their planning has been that they have absolutely ruined the ten years struggle and effort of these motivated researcher in utter disregard to national interest?

HEC is not perfect. It is again a mirror of us. It may have committed several errors and misdeeds which should be investigated. It is after all run by humans like us. It should be answerable to public accounts committee like all other watch dogs. But the way, HEC is being used for political mileage, the way academia is being ridiculed by ignorant policy makers, headline greedy media anchors and those few politicians who have no vision of themselves (I am speaking about all those politicians who are either opposing HEC in the foolish tone or even supporting it without any logic only to gain sympathies) is devastating. As memebrs of academia, I am so proud of the fact that we never craved for media limelight. We always preferred to perform our duties without any wish to be recognized. That is moral strength of our tribe. Being part of this community, I stand proud and say that we, the scholars, the teachers, the researchers and finally HEC did much better than many other of the chosen ones. We are proud of our effort and we won't let anyone snatch it. The issue of devolution of HEC has been used for political point scoring. No one is against devolution amongst us from academia. It is good but it should be streamlined and core concerns such as curriculum, standardization, infrastructure, verifications, oversight should still remain with a totally autonomous, answerable and independent Higher Education Commission.

It has become a very large blog today but there were so many things on my mind. In the end, I will just like to say that it is spring here in Pakistan and is not going to last very long as summer is approaching. Take out that car, jeep bike of yours....travel along GT road...look at all the colors of Pakistan, absorb them within yourself. Stop at as many roadside dhabbas (cafes) as possible and share their smiles and joys of this spring. Stand up for Pakistan. Here is a beautiful new presentation by STRINGS called "Mein to Dekhoon Ga" which translated roughly into "For sure, I am bound to witness". A superb work, a heart touching wish and a mesmerizing prayer. Feel and enjoy. Take care of yourselves and your families.