Monday, January 31, 2022
Abdus Salam - Before Pakistan can produce any science worth the name, it must overcome its deeply held prejudices
By Pervez Hoodbhoy
A Dawn article on Har Gobind Khorana (1922-2011) threw me back 50 years when I, along with 600 other students, had packed 26-100 (MIT’s largest lecture hall) to hear him speak. Being clueless of the basics of molecular biology, I understood little and left halfway through. Curiosity had driven me there because this famous MIT professor had won the 1968 Nobel Prize and started a brand new field — protein synthesis via nucleotides. More interestingly, he was a Lahori with bachelor and master’s degrees from Punjab University. Alas! Lahore, to its misfortune, does not know – nor cares to know – who this man was. The same holds true for another of its sons, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (1910-1995), who became a Nobel Laureate in recognition of his definitive work on the death of stars. Today, a Nasa satellite named Chandra scours the skies for neutron stars, black holes and other unusual astronomical objects. The story of Abdus Salam (1926-1996) is too well known to repeat here. Winner of the 1979 physics Nobel, he studied at Government College Lahore and later taught at Punjab University. However, no road or landmark in Lahore bears Salam’s name – or that of Khorana and Chandrasekhar. While a Government College-affiliated institution called the Abdus Salam School for Mathematical Studies nominally exists, to display his name on its signboard could be dangerous in a city often gripped by religious fervour. Less well known is the story of Chowla and Chawla. At Government College, there have been two mathematicians in number theory. One was Sarvadaman Chowla, an accomplished mathematician who headed the mathematics department from 1937 to 1947. Being Hindu, he left Lahore after the rioting began and went to Princeton University, then the University of Colorado at Boulder, and eventually became professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He died in 1995 and was celebrated as a famous number theorist by the American Mathematical Society with several important theorems to his name.The other was Lal Muhammad Chawla who graduated from Oxford in 1955 and then taught at Government College for many years. With rather modest professional achievements, he had only one well-cited paper. As a Google search of his publications reveals, Chawla was more interested in writing religious books than advancing mathematics. However, the Government College math society is named after Lal Muhammad Chawla and not the more famous and much more accomplished Sarvadaman Chowla. No Hindu scientist is celebrated in Pakistan. Rejecting non-Muslims of high professional merit has come at devastating cost to Pakistan. For one, it lost those who could have helped the newborn country establish a scientific base. For another, it became difficult to create institutional meritocracies. After Partition, many clever ones played the religious or ethnic card and undeservedly rose to positions of high authority. In time, they became institutional gatekeepers with catastrophic consequences. The weakness of science education in Pakistan is too evident to belabour here. Unsurprisingly, our best and brightest young people usually go for soft stuff like medicine, law and business. Unlike in China or India, hardly any opt for tough, demanding, scientifically-oriented careers. So, how can we persuade our children towards them? What stories to tell them about science and scientists? Most importantly, who should be their role models? This brings up a civilisational problem. Over the last 300 years – which is how old modern science is – there are no Muslim subcontinental names associated with first tier (Nobel calibre) scientific accomplishments (after 1974 Salam must be excluded). Notwithstanding the valiant efforts of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan (1817-1898), Indian Muslims shunned science and the English language. Thus, even at the distant second or third tier level, one finds barely a dozen names. Since one cannot find Muslim science heroes who belong to the soil, books for Pakistani children inevitably valorise Arabs from the Golden Age such as Al-Battani, Ibn-e-Shatir, Ibn-e-Haytham, etc. While these luminaries of Muslim science were genuine path-breakers, they do not serve well as role models. For one, persons from centuries ago cannot inspire today’s children. For another, excitement is inspired by those “of your own kind”. Arabs, however, are visibly different from people around here.Ancient Hindu scientists could have found some place in Pakistani books. However, they are excluded on ideological grounds because “woh hum main say nahin hain” (they are not us). Instead, many Pakistanis anxiously seek ancestral roots in Arabia, Afghanistan and Central Asia. But modern laboratory tools are ripping apart dearly held myths of racial origins. Now several genetic marker studies are suggesting that the subcontinent’s Muslims have descended primarily from local Hindu converts with only a few per cent admixture of Arab or Central Asian genes. Excluding Hindu scientists from our books is absurd. Ideology and science are like oil and water – they refuse to mix. Science cares only about facts and logic, not personal likes and dislikes. History is replete with examples of failed attempts to fuse science with cherished beliefs. When Stalin sought to impose his Marxist views upon Soviet biology through his chosen tout, Trofim Lysenko, he nearly destroyed agriculture and forestry. Soviet Russia’s good fortune was that it had a scientific community robust enough to counter Lysenko’s meddling. Pakistan has not been so lucky. It has an abundance of charlatans pretending to be scientists but just a few who deserve to be called such. While there is a science ministry, several scientific bodies, and hundreds of institutions that purport to teach or do research in science, no community of genuine scientists exists. High-sounding scientific bodies – such as the Pakistan Academy of Sciences – are a joke. They command no respect internationally and should be dissolved. Every kind of intellectual endeavour, science included, needs an enabling cultural and social environment to flourish. Science suffocates when scientists are judged by their religion, race, ethnicity or any criterion other than scientific achievement. Before Pakistan can produce any science worth the name, it will need to overcome its deeply held prejudices. It must learn to value all who share the common heritage of humankind. The day we count Khorana, Salam and Chandrasekhar as our very own, Pakistan will have begun breaking the shackles of scientific under-development. https://scroll.in/article/1015366/before-pakistan-can-produce-any-science-worth-the-name-it-needs-to-overcome-its-prejudicesRejecting non-Muslims of high professional merit has come at devastating cost to Pakistan.
Pakistan - Forgotten hero - Abdus Salam - 29 January 1926 – 21 November 1996
#Pakistan #PPP - The country’s agriculture sector has been destroyed by creating an artificial crisis of urea fertilizer
Central Information secretary of Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamrntarinans and member of the National Assembly Shazia Atta Marri has said that now the time has come for the nation to get rid of the Imran Khan Niazi’s incompetent government because of his policies while farmers are worried and facing scarcity of urea fertilizer and this incompetent government is in deep sleep. This she said in a statement issued hereon today.
Shazia Marri said that country’s agriculture sector has been destroyed by creating an artificial crisis of urea fertilizer.
She added that if Imran Khan would stay in power further, then we will be compelled to import vegetables.
Ms Marri said that Sindh government has got rid from the wheat theft rats now it is the turn to get rid of the looters of national exchquer and Imran Khan is the theif of billions of rupees while his government has stolen 40 billion rupees of Coronavirus fund and also looted 600 billion rupees in the purchase of LNG.
https://www.ppp.org.pk/pr/26202/
US Blocks Pakistan Ambassador Masood Khan’s Appointment; Big Blow To Imran Khan Admin
Aparna Shandilya
Pakistan faces a massive global embarrassment as the United States blocks the appointment of a new Pakistan ambassador due to possible terror links/Pakistan faced a massive global embarrassment as the United States blocked the appointment of a new Pakistan ambassador due to possible terror links. Republic Media Network accessed US Congressman Scott Perry's letter written to President Joe Biden urging him to reject Masood Khan as the next ambassador from Pakistan over possible terror links. Pakistan's nominated ambassador is also said to have supported Burhan Wani. "While I am encouraged that the State Department has reportedly placed a pause on approving Masood Khan as the new Ambassador from Pakistan, a pause is not enough. I urge you to reject any diplomatic credentials presented to you by Masood Khan and reject any effort by the Government of Pakistan to install this jihadist as Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States," the letter by Scott Perry to US President read. Scott Perry believes that the hold on the appointment of Masood Khan is insufficient. In the letter, he encouraged President Biden to reject any diplomatic credentials submitted by Masood Khan, as well as any attempt by the Pakistani government to appoint the terrorist as Pakistan's Ambassador to the United States. Scott Perry calls Pak envoy 'genuine terrorist sympathiser' In the letter, he also stated that the Imran Khan government's nomination of a 'genuine terrorist sympathiser' working to undermine US interests in the region, as well as the security of US ally India, can only be described as a 'breathtaking lack of judgement at best'. He went on to say that, at worst, this demonstrates Islamabad's utter contempt for the United States. Earlier this week US State Department had not rejected Masood Khan's nomination. The media agency reported citing the source that Washington has requested more time for his clearance. Masood Khan's nomination was sent by Pakistan's Foreign Office in November of last year. It was intended to be authorised in eight weeks under the standard diplomatic procedure. According to The Nation, the State Department has requested extra time for his clearance. Masood Khan began his goodbye meetings in December of last year. However, due to a delay in his approval by the State Department, he has just halted his meetings. Masood Khan has finished his preparations to take up his ambassadorial job in Washington during a difficult moment for Pakistan-US ties, according to ANI, which cited sources close to him. https://www.republicworld.com/world-news/us-news/us-blocks-pak-ambassador-masood-khans-appointment-big-blow-to-imran-khan-administration-articleshow.html
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