Immovable feasts: NOTES FROM DELHI

AFTER four years of trial and a lifetime of error, the BJP is still uncertain about the nature of power. Power is not a cold animal, agreed; but it must be a cool one. Many politicians confuse power with the fox, or the elephant; but slyness demeans the powerful and pure strength tends to trample without discrimination in addition to being ponderous.

The lion is king of the jungle because it knows when to sunbathe (which is most of the time), when to let the lioness search for the kill (a need-based rather than arbitrary function), and when to ignore the mouse gnawing around it rather than swipe it dead. It is also pertinent that the lioness does the hunting.

You cannot rule without a compass. One is not urging the BJP to be holier than thou, particularly when it shows no inclination to be holy at all. It has set up a regime in competitive corruption that uses the past of the Congress to justify the present of the BJP. Its inexperience, or inability, shows in the absence of sensible pragmatism when caught.

The Congress has a history of scams; indeed, one of its more notorious scammers, Sukh Ram, now feathers the BJP nest in Himachal Pradesh. But the Congress knew how to balance loss and gain. Given a choice between one Ram Naik and 2,000 petrol pump dealers, the Congress would have dumped Naik and retained the petrol dealers. Those petrol pump dealers are pools of influence at 2000 points across the country, each with a capability to protect their interests and wound the adversary. The BJP retained Naik, antagonized the dealers and has ended up holding both an illegitimate baby and the bathwater. As a mess, this is in a class of its own.

The BJP has not been able to find another balance, that between loyalty to its own and responsibility towards the electorate. In each crisis, its first reaction is to protect its own. Such loyalty may be praiseworthy in a family, but is awkward in a political party tasked to run a national government. One BJP dissident (the tribe does exist) suggests a more colourful parallel. The BJP has become, he says, like the monkey-mother that clings to its baby long after it is dead, until another child is born. This may be a charming display of maternal fidelity, but the carcass begins to stink even in a mother’s embrace. That is not good news for the environment.

But when you sit in high office, and become a cabinet minister in the government of India, you become stink-proof. Layers of fawning colleagues, subservient officers and sundry firewalls guard the minister’s nose from malodorous wafts that create a stench among the people. Nothing reaches the minister’s newly sensitized sensibility except heavy doses of artificial perfume.

This must be the only reason why no one can smell the putrid stench from Gujarat. The BJP measured the fallout of the riots earlier this year by only one yardstick, victory and defeat in an assembly election. It showed no sense of understanding what it was losing elsewhere as the price for winning the elections in Gujarat. It lost the moral as well as practical support of wide sections of the middle class that creates the infrastructure that in turn runs the country.

This is a very heavy price to pay for any government or political party, but no one was willing to argue this case. There was no measure except that of inflamed votes that would bring a Narendra Modi back to power. Nor was there sane or calm assessment of what Narendra Modi was all about. Modi is not an individual so much as an attitude.

There is a gross, extreme core in any political organization which cannot be easily excised or ignored, but all parties do their best to confine their influence to the margins. In the BJP’s case this extremist core has a single-point agenda: anger, even virulent anger, against minorities. What Modi did during the riots came naturally to him. Under advice from his superiors he might put on a different face as circumstances change. But however much circumstances change, a Modi cannot change. That attitude towards minorities will reassert itself under the slightest provocation. We saw it again during the execrable exchange with the chief election commissioner, J.M. Lyngdoh.

When the Gujarat elections were postponed Modi pulled the meanest, and for him the most natural, card from a soiled pack. He accused the chief election commissioner of doing what he did because he was a Christian! That the BJP tolerates, absolves and continues to protect such rank communalism is indicative of how much it will sink. Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee tried his familiar rescue act by instructing his chief minister to avoid such language. It is appalling that a prime minister must intervene to tell a chief minister of a state to show a level of decency that any civilized society would take for granted.

Modi does not need a rap on the knuckles for such communalism; he needs a kick elsewhere. The BJP may have lost in either case in Gujarat. If Modi wins it will be a victory for communal hysteria, with all the implications of such an eventuality. And if Modi loses (albeit unlikely, but not impossible) then the BJP will have supped at a dangerous table without getting any healthy sustenance.

If you rule without a compass, is it any surprise that you get stranded? With more than half its elected term eaten up by mistakes of omission and sins of commission, the BJP is looking lost, without either an agenda or any idea of how to go forward. Ask what it plans to do next and there will be no answer clearer than fire-fighting. The government, like most rulers, has set off its own fires. It did not need an arsonist from the opposition to start this blaze.

Like all other governments it thought that no one would notice that its tail was on fire. It did not seem to care when that tail began to swivel around, setting anything in the vicinity on fire. In a democracy when people and institutions get burnt they send for the fire brigade. The fire engines, in turn, speed up with all bells clanging, making an infernal racket. The voter hears that racket patiently, and enters details into his memory log, retained for use during election time.

The chief of the fire brigade this time around is J.M. Lyngdoh. Names change, but institutions continue to exercise their unique remote control on the flow of events. It is surprising that the BJP of all parties has forgotten the rule that politician may take on politician, but politician tries his best never to take on institutions. In the BJP ranks of the Rajya Sabha is a certain T.N. Chaturvedi. Those who know Mr Chaturvedi also know that all his career he has been an outstanding civil servant, whose name has been synonymous with honesty. His name shot onto the front pages when his audit committee exposed irregularities in defence dealings.

During the long years of the Bofors controversy, Rajiv Gandhi indulged in regular artillery fire with opposition leaders. This had its impact. But the deadly wounds did not come from anything thrust by the political class. They came from institutions that retained the trust of the people, like the press. And from the Chaturvedis.

Mr Lyngdoh was made chief election commissioner by this government precisely because of his reputation for integrity. Integrity is not a movable feast.

The deputy prime minister, Mr L.K. Advani, is too closely linked with the Modi faction; he does not possess the distance needed to repair the damage. (I am assuming that someone in the higher rungs of the BJP actually believes that there is need for repair. I could be accused of optimism.)

If anyone can still restore the reputation of the government and the ruling party it is the prime minister, because he has taken care to establish a thin distance from the vulgarity in Gujarat. But his own credibility is not what it was once. And he certainly cannot do any restoration work without taking charge.

Will he?

The prime ministership of India is not a movable feast either.

The writer is editor-in-chief of Asian Age, New Delhi

Killing forests to save them

CLEARLY, the Oregon fire that President Bush used as a backdrop was as catastrophic as he said it was. Bush was also right in saying the United States needed an aggressive programme to reduce the danger of such fires, especially when they threaten people and homes. But the answer is not in allowing timber companies to indiscriminately rev up their chain saws or in undermining the nation’s basic environmental protection laws.

The Bush administration is using this drought-driven fire year to lend political credence to the efforts of timber executives to roll back the protection given the forests in recent years against more logging and road-building. Bush wants to contract with loggers to thin as much as 190 million acres of federal forest land — an area about the size of Indiana — in exchange for cutting commercial-value logs, presumably in the thinned areas, but also large trees that survive forest fires. That sounds like logging the forests to save them.

Bush defends the plan as a way for the forests themselves to pay for fire protection, saying “there’s nothing wrong with people being able to earn a living off of effective forest management.” But the key to holding down forest fires is in clearing the tangle of brush and small trees that have little commercial value and allowing the larger, more fire-resistant trees to remain uncut. The older trees shelter wildlife, help maintain clean watersheds and provide recreation areas.

The president’s programme also would remove from law a provision that he claimed “imposed extraordinary procedural requirements” on the Forest Service when projects were challenged. One lumber executive decried such challenges as “this runaway train of mismanagement and lawsuit abuse.” But a federal report says only 20 of 1,671 thinning projects in fiscal 2001 were challenged and none went to court.— Los Angeles Times

Check on corruption

HOW is it that the Muslim countries frequently top the list of the corrupt ones compiled by the Transparency International of Berlin every year since 1995 and even constitute a large segment of the ten most corrupt countries?

This time it is Bangladesh, which leads the list followed by Nigeria in Africa, Indonesia in South-East Asia, and Azerbaijan in Central Asia. The list is drawn up by TI on the basis of the perception of foreign businessmen and fifteen surveys from nine independent institutions. Every time the index is published Muslim liberals and ardent democrats ask what makes so many of the Muslim countries corrupt? Not all the branded countries are as poor as Bangladesh which tops the list. Nigeria is truly oil rich and yet it is often listed as the first, second or third most corrupt country. This year its position is the second.

Not that these countries are in Asia or Africa that they are poor and corrupt. Singapore, for example, is in Asia as well but happens to be the fifth least corrupt country in the world followed by Hong Kong, also in Asia, which is the fourteenth least corrupt country in a list of a hundred and two states.

Pakistani officials are happy that its rank is now twenty-three whereas it was seven in the list of 1999 and earlier its rank swayed between two and four among the most corrupt. But if Pakistan’s rating has improved, it is not necessarily because corruption has come down but because a few foreign investors have been coming here and engaging in serious investment negotiations. Another reason is the inclusion of a large number of African and Latin American countries and Central Asian states bristling with corruption. They have pushed down our rank in the ladder of the corrupt to twenty-three.

It is usually argued that tax havens are such cesspools of corruption. But Luxembourg in Europe has been listed the ninth least corrupt country. It is also argued that Muslim monarchies are very corrupt. But Jordan which is a monarchy is the forty first least corrupt country while Morocco is the fifty fourth least corrupt country or it occupies the middle position. Even the fact that a country is very oil rich or totally rich with a per capita income of eight thousand five hundred dollars on the basis of purchasing power parity does not prevent Venezuela from becoming very corrupt and the eighteenth most corrupt country in the world.

Indonesia is an example of a country which is very rich in natural resources and other assets but because of misrule and misuse of its rich resources has become the seventh most corrupt in the world.

The Central Asian republics had a great opportunity to make the best use of their rich resources after they became independent of the Soviet Union but the erstwhile communist rulers who became the new democrats misused the resources and did not let the economy spring back and realize its full potential. Corruption has thrived even in a very rich state like Kazakhstan, which has been ranked the fifteenth most corrupt state.

In the subcontinent Sri Lanka despite its prolonged civil war has done much better than India. Out of ten Sri Lanka has got 3.7 while India got only 2.7 and Pakistan got 2.6. What all that means is that the form of government or the extent of natural resources or the potential for becoming far rich does not matter. What matters is the quality of government and the kind of governance and the transparency in administration it ensures.

It does help when a country is as small as Finland which tops the list of least corrupt countries followed by Denmark and New Zealand, for a small country it is not necessary to have efficient administration and least corruption. Even larger federations like that of Canada and Australia and a confederation like Switzerland are able to achieve a very low level of corruption.

Peter Eigen, chairman of the Transparency International says “politicians increasingly pay lip service to the fight against corruption but they fail to act on the clear message of TI’s corruption index that they must clamp down on corruption to break down the vicious circle of poverty and graft”.

He says “corrupt political elites in the developing world working hand in hand with greedy business people and unscrupulous investors, are putting private gain before the welfare of citizens and the economic development of their countries”.

To expose the bribe givers the Transparency International came up with the “bribe payers Index which addresses the propensity of companies from top exporting countries to bribe in emerging markets.” The BPI published in May revealed high levels of bribery by firms from Russia, China, Taiwan and South Korea closely followed by Italy, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Japan and France although many of these countries signed the OECD anti-bribery convention which outlaws bribery of foreign public officials.”

Tunku Abdul Aziz, Vice Chairman of the TI, has said “Developed countries have a special humanitarian responsibility given the resources at their disposal to investigate and prosecute companies within their jurisdictions that are bribing. Their bribes and incentives to corrupt public officials and politicians are subverting the orderly development of poor nations, already trapped as they are, in a vicious circle of crippling poverty, hunger and disease”.

Pakistan cannot afford to be slack just because they are no longer listed as the second or third most corrupt country in the world. Now that the elections are taking place and the politicians will be back in office to administer the country on a day to day basis and be in charge of a slowly reviving economy, effective measures will have to be taken to prevent sudden rise in corruption.

The fact is that these very leaders who will set up anti-corruption machinery should not be allowed to weaken the same. Evidently we cannot go back to the past with the prime minister as the be all and end all of the state and the cabinet acting as a rubber stamp and the parliament reduced to an occasionally consulted body.

The prime minister must take the parliament with him following a policy of open governance and that will make his position stronger vis-a-vis the president. The auditor general should be made strong and truly effective and if necessary a system of pre-expenditure audit should be introduced.

The public accounts committee should be an effective instrument of parliament and should step in soon after any serious flaws in expenditure are detected and submit its report quick. Standing committees should also play an effective role and be vigilant in their departmental affairs. Such collective vigilance along with the rule of law and due regard for rules could give us a clean and effective administration.

Ensuring free, fair elections

IF democracy is to be strong and sustainable, as the present government leaders are regularly assuring the people, the election process must be free, fair and impartial.

At least the present electoral scene gives a different picture in several important aspects at the grass roots level. The high profile case of non-acceptance of Ms Benazir Bhutto’s nomination paper is another indication of the political and legal mess that our country is passing through.

To put it mildly, the grandiose claims of the government evoke incredulous and frustrated emotions in the people. The stage is set for lodging of appeals against rejections of nomination papers.

The polling scheme is in the process of finalization. It is precisely here, that a vicious game of hijacking the elections is proceeding. The main character in this entire episode is the district nazim, the nazims who are in the alliances sponsored by the government — Election Commission admonishing notwithstanding.

The selection of the locations of the polling stations and the personnel to man them are crucial. The Election Commission says that the Provincial Election Commission should prepare a draft list of polling stations that will be forwarded to the Returning Officers, who would finalize it. Since the Election Commission is not manually equipped to draw up the list of polling stations, the district revenue department was asked to prepare the polling scheme. This department since 2001 has become subservient to district nazim.

Hence, the nazim is the person who holds the key to this category of employees, especially where he is the real wielder of power, which means the position he holds in the present government hierarchy. In the district of this writer, the nazim has accumulated the power not exercised by many other district nazims in Sindh. He has a free hand in doling out development schemes and in the transfer and posting of officials.

In the draft proposals of the polling stations, the locations of the previous general elections have been discarded in many cases and replaced by new ones, or if kept intact, new polling stations have been proposed at different locations in the same dehs (smallest revenue estate in Sindh, perhaps equivalent to ‘chak’ in Punjab) specially designed to be at places of the candidates of the nazim’s group.

The voters in dehs have been enumerated on a different pattern this time. Each deh now has multiple lists and given separate computer code numbers. These lists have not been prepared village-wise or on a geographical pattern in a deh. As a consequence of this the voters of the same village would be going to different location other than their village polling stations, and vice versa. The candidates would have to find out the polling stations of the voter to which he/she is assigned. It is, therefore, necessary that as, far as possible, fewer locations be retained with an increase in the number of polling stations wherever there is sizable increase in the number of voters.

In the settled areas of Sindh, like the district of this writer, dehs are not big in size and the polling stations are normally within a distance of two to three kilometers, except Kachcha (riverine) area which is small in size as compared to the settled or the barrage irrigated areas that have sparse population.

The hideous nature of election rigging has another dimension too. The nomination of presiding and polling officers has been made from among the officials of partisan character at key polling stations and if such officials are not available in sufficient number, they have been selected from outside the National Assembly constituency.

The Election Commission says the presiding officer should be of grade 17 or 18 and the assistant presiding officer should be of grade 11 to 16 as far as possible. But the case in our district is horrendous. Vaccinators, field assistants and clerks of grade 5 to 7 have been nominated to the posts. It is in fact common that the revenue officials prepared the list of polling stations and the staff at the behest of the candidates of the alliance, which was also approved by the district nazim. This is all being done to manage the polling through bogus votes and rob the people of their right of franchise.

True, the returning officers are supposed to finalize the polling stations. But, how many locations of the proposed polling stations and the personnel would the Returning Officer be able to visit and determine relative merits/demerits thereof within a short span of one week or so i.e. by the 10th September 2002. The fear is that the scheme drawn up by the mukhtiarkars would hardly see significant alteration.

If the Election Commission and the government really want to hold fair and free elections, the following steps should be urgently taken:

1. The list of locations of previous general elections, say, of 1993 or 1997, may be kept intact as far as possible for Election 2002 and if the need is to increase the number of the polling stations owing to a rise in the voters’ strength beyond 1200 voters or so as envisaged by the Election Commission, additions may be made at the same locations.

2. The polling personnel proposed by the mukhtiarkars for particular polling stations may be altogether changed with one stroke.

3. The lists of all government employees eligible for appointment as polling staff be made available to returning officers by education officials and other departmental heads who should choose them from the lists on their own accord. At least presiding officers and assisting presiding officers ought to be changed from the currently proposed lists for the polling stations and be dispersed in such a manner that the employees of the same institution are appointed at different polling station. The officials should not be nominated as the polling staff that is posted in another NA constituency. There is already more than enough qualified staff available in each taluka. It is a matter of objectivity and a measure of independence from the administrative power structure under the nazim to work out a fair and honest method.

4. The district nazim should not be allowed to distribute goods among the people as it has been the case currently, like sewing machines, hand pumps and announce or ask for annual development schemes and attend public gatherings and issue press statements until the end of the elections.

5. The SHOs and other police officials should not be allowed to run as escort for and travel in motorcade of particular candidates even on the pretext of nazim or naib nazim’s duties.

6. The police should not promote party interests in matters of handling criminal cases. They get involved in matters of incidence of coercion and manhandling cases, and at least in one case, have managed to cover up an offence of attack and injury to a party worker who was kidnapped and beaten up by thugs for flag hoisting on his shop the other day or the news published in a Sindhi Daily that a candidate who is a brother of the District Nazim in his election campaign was accompanied by superintendent of investigation police would hardly inspire confidence of the people in the honesty of the electoral process.

7. The hoisting of party flags and banners on government property and electricity poles be checked and the violators punished without discrimination and same should apply to other events barred by the current restrictions on electioneering e.g. processions and rallies. Unfortunately, dealing with the parties of the Alliance and PPP Parliamentarian in Sindh by the government administration is highly discriminatory these days.

8. Strict adherence to the conditions laid down in code of conduct should be ensured.

Some tough and rigorous action on an urgent basis would ensure a level ground for all the political parties and their candidates with a view to having free, fair and impartial elections which only can bring about sustainable democracy and redeem the credibility of the present government.

The writer is a former Deputy Speaker of National Assembly

Alleged but not proven

THE case of Jose Padilla, the American Muslim locked up as an “enemy combatant” in a South Carolina brig, has been largely overshadowed by the other major enemy combatant case — that of Yaser Esam Hamdi.

It has moved more slowly and with fewer fireworks. But it is even more disturbing. For not only is Padilla an American citizen being held indefinitely without charge or access to counsel, but he was yanked out of the civilian justice system when the burdens of that system grew too heavy for prosecutors’ tastes.

Unlike Hamdi, who was captured in Afghanistan — where the government contends he was attached to a Taliban unit — Padilla was arrested in Chicago in May by FBI agents under a material witness warrant issued by a federal court in New York. Padilla’s case is, therefore, a real test of how easily the president may, by declaring someone an enemy combatant, deprive him of all the protections the Bill of Rights promises — even after first subjecting that person to the normal criminal process.

The Justice Department has filed its answer to a challenge to his detention by Padilla’s lawyers, who have not been permitted to meet with their client in his military prison. As in Hamdi’s case, the answer took the form of a brief declaration by Defence Department official Michael Mobbs.

The statement is more substantial than the one he filed in Hamdi’s case, but once again, Mobbs claims no firsthand knowledge of the evidence he cites. And once again, the government takes the view that the court may look no further than the allegations contained in this six-page document.

The allegations certainly are disturbing. According to the declaration, Padilla “has been closely associated with known members and leaders of the al-Qaeda terrorist network.” He trained at al-Qaeda camps and “met with senior Osama Bin Laden lieutenant Abu Zubaydah,” whom he approached “with a proposal to conduct terrorist operations within the United States.”

He discussed a plan “to build and detonate a ‘radiological dispersal device’ . . . within the United States, possibly in Washington, D.C.” And “it is believed that al-Qaeda members directed Padilla to return to the United States to conduct reconnaissance and/or other attacks on behalf of al-Qaeda.”

But for the long-term detention without trial of an American citizen, our system typically demands more than allegations. In this instance, the Mobbs declaration itself provides reasons for caution. The government concedes that its intelligence sources “have not been completely candid about their association with al-Qaeda and their terrorist activities” and that “some information provided by the sources remains uncorroborated and may be part of an effort to mislead or confuse U.S. officials.” Without some reality check, there is no way to have confidence that Mr. Padilla is what the government claims.

The United States has indicted five people in Detroit for conspiracy to support international terrorism. Is there a reason, other than the weakness of a case Attorney General John Ashcroft initially trumpeted, that Padilla cannot be similarly dealt with? As a matter of law, there may be times when even U.S. citizens should be designated enemy combatants or prisoners of war; it has happened before.

But to yank an American out of the court system and then maintain, purely on the government’s word, that he is not entitled to challenge the evidence against him is a breathtakingly radical act. As his lawyer, Donna Newman, put it, “Is [the evidence] written on the bathroom wall? Is it firsthand knowledge, secondhand knowledge, third, fourth? And how can I refute it? I can’t see my client.”—The Washington Post

Civilization and knowledge

SOME industrialized Western countries have virtually taken over charge of the entire world. They possess unchallenged military might, tremendous economic power and political clout. Increasingly, they have been deciding the fate of the developing countries by using international financial and legal institutions.

Now, they have started dictating to the developing countries which commodity should be taxed, what type of political system they need and how should they treat their wives and daughters. The question is: what are the bases of their power and sources of their strength vis-a-vis developing countries?

The basic cause — the cause of all causes — behind the strength and power of industrialized developed countries is their marvellous capability to produce innovative scientific knowledge (both social and natural sciences). This knowledge provides them with superiority in the domain of military, economics and information control systems. Their unchallenged monopoly over the electronic media have made them capable of controlling and interfering into the developing countries’ cultures and politics.

Now, the pertinent question is: why do developing countries lag behind in the domain of knowledge, despite the fact they have their own universities and research institutions. Admittedly, developing countries’ universities are not producing updated knowledge sufficient to meet the needs of their social and technological development. Where lies the problem: probably in the society. After all, university as an institution is a part of the larger social system.

What type of social system and political order is required to create an environment which is congenial for the production of knowledge. Here it would be pertinent to mention some social conditions which obstruct and undercut the growth of knowledge in the developing countries.

First, production of scientific knowledge needs a culture of ‘telling the truth’. It requires normative structures based on the principles of justice and meritocracy. Scientific community, irrespective of its skin colour, caste or creed, needs to be truthful, open and objective. If falsehood, cheating and lying is the norm, scientific knowledge would never develop. So society’s commitment with truth is a sine qua non for the establishment of ‘the culture of science’.

Second, for the promotion of science it is important to what extent the society and its institutions (e.g. family, industry, government etc.) rely on empirical knowledge. If people depend on valid and research based knowledge, science would flourish automatically. If the masses are engulfed in superstitions and fatalism while diagnosing and solving their problems, pirs and magicians would compete with doctors and other scientists. Sadly, in Pakistan, most of the times, a quack is more popular than a qualified doctor.

Hence, development of science is linked with societal tendency to subscribe to science and research. Westerners turn to university for solving their problems especially at the time of trouble. For instance, after September 11, the Americans rushed to buy books about Taliban and Islam. But, in developing countries, at the time of trouble, people block roads, burn tires and destroy cultural monuments.

Third, a country’s legal and political systems have far-reaching implications on the establishment of research and scientific culture. A scientist essentially needs constitutional guarantees and civil liberties to write freely without the fear of political persecution, losing job or being booked under dogmatic laws. Freedom of expression is particularly important in this regard. If a researcher has to ‘think twice’ before writing, the cause of science would grievously suffer.

At social level, culture of tolerance, pluralism, accommodation and assimilation of new ideas provide conducive environment for scientific inquiry. Bigotry, be it religious, social or scholastic, deeply undercuts the evolutionary course of development and accumulation of empirical knowledge.

Fourth, corruption, chaos and absence of the rule of law are also detrimental to research activities and the creativity of the scientists in many ways. Injustice and favouritism uproot the system capable of producing fresh knowledge. Scientists and scholars are tender species; they cannot work and survive in impure and socially polluted environment. They fly away if they are not treated with care. Massive migration of competent scientists from developing countries to North America may be an evidence of this fact.

Fifth, the growth of knowledge is also linked with society’s attitude towards knowledge itself. Closed and rigid societies tend to classify knowledge in various categories; for example, religious knowledge, secular knowledge, etc. By putting limits on knowledge or classifying it as desirable or undesirable, tend to clip the wings of the scientists which lead to social stagnation and cultural decay. Sadly, forty thousands Madressahs in Pakistan still insist to stick to the knowledge produced by the jurists and scholars of the eleventh century. Such type of knowledge, instead of providing strength, tear apart the very fabric of society by proliferating sectarian frenzy and growth of intolerant religious outfits. Unfortunately, developing countries are not taking stock of the situation seriously. Creation and proliferation of knowledge is considered an exclusive responsibility of university or research institutions. And, if a university fails to come up to the expectations of society, it is blamed for its sluggishness. However, a readymade excuse of “lack of funds” is invented to justify all the ills. But it may not be the whole story. After all, universities in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait are not poorly funded, but the problem of productivity of knowledge persists there, too.

In western civilization, university is under tremendous pressure from society to meet the ever increasing need of innovative knowledge. Correspondingly, society immensely rewards the university for its gigantic task. For instance, in the UK, the USA and Germany to be a university professor is far more prestigious and rewarding than being in any other position available in the civil service. Conversely, in developing countries, especially in Pakistan, a university professor is clearly at a disadvantage in terms of rewards and social prestige if he/she is compared with the mighty ‘civil servants’.

The crux of the above discussion is that scientific knowledge is a product of entire social and cultural systems. Its quality, amount and strength reflect the strength of the civilization. History is witness to the fact that corrupt, demoralized and despotic societies never produced fresh and competitive knowledge. Nor has they been able to host and retain best scientists and scholars. Such nations depend on the knowledge produced by others and, in exchange, they surrender their national sovereignty and economic independence.

The author teaches sociology in Punjab University