| 01 February 2004 | Sunday | 09 Zilhaj 1424 |
Extremists & the 'rogue' scientists
The "hiring and firing" of university vice-chancellors came under discussion in this newspaper a few weeks ago. I have been thinking about it and should like to share my findings and interpretations with readers.
It is reasonable to assume that the mode of appointing a vice-chancellor, and the qualifications expected of him, should have some correspondence with the mission of the institution he is going to head. It is well understood that a university is in the business of disseminating knowledge.
It employs persons, holding specified academic degrees, to impart instruction in various subjects of study. Teachers remain in place because this is their way of making a living. Students come here expecting that education at the university, and the degree they earn, will better enable them to fight the battle of life that awaits them.
In a loftier version dissemination is taken for granted, and a university is rated with reference to the amount of new knowledge its faculty create. A debate has gone on for more than fifty years as to which of the two functions should have a higher priority: dissemination (good teaching) or new knowledge (research and publications).
Actual practice at many of the better-known western universities suggests that accomplishments in research and publications will outweigh teaching in advancing the careers of the faculty concerned.
Some of the teachers in our own region, and elsewhere, feel that the world would be none the worse if they did not create new knowledge, for other institutions in other countries are creating a whole lot (perhaps even too much) of it. In their reckoning, if they have provided adequate teaching, theirs has been a job well done.
Some commentators assign additional functions to a university. They believe it should act as a centre for the production and distribution of "cultural goods." This would probably include work in the literary and visual arts, music, and crafts. Professors should also function as the conscience of society and as critics, and they should make informed and independent contributions to the ongoing debates on major social and political issues.
These roles cannot be performed without the disposition and freedom to question and challenge conventional wisdom and received opinion, disagree and debate. Teachers and scholars at a university should not be asked to follow the "party line," so to speak; they should be free to teach, speak, and write on subjects of their choosing as they deem right and proper.
At the beginning of each academic semester during some forty years of teaching, I told my students that my function was to inform, not persuade, them, to help them learn how to think, not what to think, that they did not have to accept my opinions and interpretations, that they should form their own, and that they were free to disagree with me.
But I have also known all along that, given the vulnerability of students at their age and level of experience, teachers may come to exercise influence the way the more successful preachers do. Society is therefore entitled to expect that in exercising academic freedom teachers will be circumspect.
Having stated a university's mission, we may now ask what the functions of a vice-chancellor are. Generally speaking, he is designated as the chief executive and academic officer of the university. As the chief executive he is responsible for maintaining discipline among students, staff, and the faculty; he is the custodian of the university's property; finalizes its budget and ensures the proper maintenance of its accounts; ensures that relevant statutes are followed and internal regulations are implemented.
His role as the chief academic officer is more difficult to unravel. Even if he is well educated (which is, regretfully, not always the case), he cannot possibly know what the various fields of study will encompass and what the instructors in each one of them shall teach. These and related matters are normally settled by the departments and boards concerned, possibly with the approval of a larger body, such as the Academic Council. The vice-chancellor's concurrence, if required, is perfunctory and a mere formality.
The vice-chancellor does normally have a role in the initial appointment, fixation of salary, annual evaluation, promotion, leave of absence of faculty members and the assignment of administrative duties (e.g., department chairmanship) to some of them. He may not have the final say in these matters but his recommendations carry a great deal of weight with the bodies (e.g., the syndicate) where the ultimate authority resides.
This is typically his main function relating to academic affairs. He may also be concerned with organizational issues such as the establishment of new teaching departments or research institutes, splitting of one academic unit into two, or the combining of two into one, affairs of a university press as a publishing house for scholarly materials. But issues such as these do not surface very often.
During British rule, public universities were regarded as autonomous bodies even though they received much of their funding from the government. The provincial governor, acting in his capacity as the chancellor of such a university, appointed the vice-chancellor. But neither he nor the education department in his government interfered in a university's internal workings. That is not the case any more.
Our universities are now much more politicized than they were in the old days. Political parties, both in and out of power, have established their presence on campuses and recruit students to their fold. Some faculty members also have known political affiliations. Politicians use students in their contests with one another. It is often a case of the opposition fighting the government of the day. The battles are waged not only in the streets but also on the grounds, and in the halls, of campuses. Discipline and peace vanish, and the university's mission is all but set aside.
A party in power may be tempted to ask the chancellor (the provincial governor, who is likely to be one of its own notables) to appoint as vice-chancellor a person who shares its persuasion. It will, in any case, want as vice-chancellor a person who is thought to be capable of enforcing discipline, be it through ruthlessness or diplomatic ingenuity.
A distinction needs to be made between youthful exuberance and revolt. It is violence, not lively debate on social and political issues, which we should want to exclude from campuses. In passing it may be noted also that a political appointee will probably fail to deliver the desired goods to his patrons, and he will certainly end up hurting the university. His partisanship will most likely aggravate, not pacify, the existing divisions and tensions on campus.
Depending upon the degree to which the government of the day wants to get involved in the internal governance of the universities, it may opt for one of the following methods of appointing vice-chancellors: (1) chancellor appoints a nominee of the chief minister, or a person of his own choosing, without consulting any council or committee within the university; (2) acts after consulting with some appropriate university body (e.g. the senate or one of its committees; (3) chooses a person from a list of three or four nominees provided by a university council; (4) a university council, a substantial number of whose members are government appointees, may select the vice-chancellor; (5) a university council, in which the government has no representation, may make the appointment.
The first method (appointment by chancellor without consultation with the university) is the one followed in public universities in Pakistan and in most of those in India.
The third method (choosing from a list provided by a university body) offers some assurance that the appointee will be acceptable to the university community. It has been adopted in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and in Indian universities maintained by the central government. A version of the same method is followed in Malaysia. A university council selects the vice-chancellor, independently of the government, in certain Commonwealth countries (Australia, New Zealand).
Of late the universities have been facing a crisis. As part of the drives for globalization and privatization, they are being asked to do more for less, teach more students and expect less funding from the state.
They are asked to generate their own revenues: raise tuition fees, get endowments from corporations and wealthy individuals, bid for R&D (research development) contracts with industry, publish educational materials that the market will readily absorb (textbooks, audio and video cassettes, CDs, films), and float companies; in short, become entrepreneurs.
If these newer roles are added to the traditional ones, what kind of a person will do as the vice-chancellor of a public university? We are looking for two broad types of capability that are distinct even if they are not always mutually exclusive. Rare indeed is the individual who possesses both of them in adequate measure.
For all practical purposes, then, we are looking for a "diarchy," that is, two individuals to run the university: (1) a manager who looks after revenues, plans outlays, maintains the infrastructure, and fosters a congenial environment in which the university's central mission can be carried forward; (2) the chief academic officer who provides leadership in the enterprise of creating and disseminating knowledge, and takes care of the recruitment, advancement, and retention of capable faculty and their professional concerns. Neither of them should be able to encroach on the other's domain even if one of them is placed slightly ahead for ceremonial purposes. They should both be accountable to a university council and, ultimately, to a board of governors or trustees.
In case this bifurcation of roles is found to be inexpedient, I commend the third method of appointing vice-chancellors, mentioned above, for adoption in Pakistan. The offices of dean and provost at our universities should be energized and assigned substantive decision-making authority in personnel ("establishment") matters so as to allow the vice-chancellor time for his leadership roles.
The writer is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, USA.
E-mail: anwarsyed@cox.com
Extremists & the 'rogue' scientists
It hurts yet it must be recalled that all of our urges and adventures aimed at national glory or people's well-being have been yielding results to the contrary. This tragic irony dates backs to the very first year of independence.
The first jihad, in fact an incursion by tribesmen, to liberate the people of Kashmir petered into plunder but brought the Indian troops into the state which never went back and instead have been multiplying to reach the present strength of half a million or more.
A plebiscite to determine the wishes of the people agreed in the UN after marathon debates in which Pakistan triumphed was overshadowed, in course of time, by a controversy on the withdrawal of troops. The people of Kashmir then gradually sank into torpor which even the armed assistance of 1965 - the second jihad - could not break. In fact they sank deeper into despondency.
The third jihad in aid of the freedom fighters has been sustained longer but met with greater repression. In 14 years of armed struggle 50,000 (by some accounts twice as man) lives have been lost. Also lost, it seems irretrievably, is the right of self-determination.
The fourth jihad launched to expel the Soviets from Afghanistan and then continued to bolster the rule of the Taliban has now changed into war on terror to chase their fleeing remnants. These long, low-intensity warfares on the borders (in whatever terms they might be described through their various phases) combined with the laws enacted by Gen Ziaul Haq have embedded arms, drugs, corruption, vengeance and hate in the body politic of Pakistan. It is no longer the country it was before Ziaul Haq took over.
The fifth and a different variety of jihad now in progress marked by Gen Musharraf's reforms and accountability, referendum and elections has shaken the politics and its representative institutions, bureaucracy and judiciary to their very core. The old systems and norms have been abrogated, when the new ones will take hold, if they ever do, remains uncertain.
A common strain that runs through the diverse and divisive campaigns of the past quarter of a century is the personal ambition outstripping the intelligence of their sponsors and their inability to rein in the destructive forces they released. It is under the burden of this legacy of strife and uncertainty that the present military cum political leadership has been called upon to adopt a new and constructive approach to tackle the fateful issues confronting the country.
The foremost and of immediate concern is the doubt cast on Pakistan government's ability to protect its nuclear technology and stocks from pilferage by its own 'rogue' scientists seduced by the world black marketeers. In a situation that is grave and ominous for the country, the behaviour of the most political and professional elements has been emotional and utterly irresponsible.
The lawyers have been marching on the roads and abstaining from courts on the interrogation of the scientists. One may ask, is it their view of law and justice that any one suspected of committing a crime or, as in this case, betraying a national trust should not be even questioned about it? Or do they want the scientists to be above every law, even of treason? The lawyers by their protest have negated the spirit and purpose of their own vocation.
The former president Rafiq Tarar who has also been a judge of the Supreme Court wants the chief scientist A.Q. Khan to be made president of Pakistan instead of explaining the theft of nuclear drawings and equipment under his custody. Qazi Hussain Ahmad, going a step further, is prepared to condone even if billions were to be found in AQK's foreign bank account for he had made the defence of Pakistan impregnable. No achievement, in whatever light it may be viewed, can provide immunity from the normal process of law.
The reaction of the gentlemen of the bar and politics has been nothing short of frivolous. That the consequences of the nuclear leakage can be very serious for Pakistan later, if not now, when it is no longer conducting the war on terror can be easily gleaned from the intelligence reports and comments in the world media.
A most respected journal, The Economist of London, for instance, surmises that "Putting blame on rogue scientists rather than Pakistan as a rogue proliferator hardly removes the doubts about the security of the country's nuclear-weapons programme... Easier, it seems, to blame the scientists." The journal also notes that the North Korean centrifuges resemble Pakistani designs and Pakistan's warheads fit North Korea's Nordog missiles "like a glove."
The allegation here is on Pakistan as a country and not on its scientists of giving uranium enrichment technology to North Korea in return for missile design. Relenting in the interrogation of the scientists under sentimental appeals or political pressures would only give credence to this allegation.
The people are greatly surprised and saddened that the scientists who were highly paid, empowered and on whom the highest national honours were bestowed should be named by a friendly country (Iran) and International Atomic Energy Agency for trading in the country's atomic secrets. It calls for a fair but rigorous investigation to catch and arraign the culprits.
If found guilty by a court of law they should be not just punished but tarred and fethered - not literally though - for adding to the country's woes in return for the accolades they received. Meanwhile, the ministers whether incharge of security or publicity should keep their mouths shut.
In seeking a solution of the protracted Kashmir dispute the national leaders must muster courage to explain to the people that the current political realities and changed demographic patterns no longer admit of a plebiscite even if by a remote chance India were to agree to it.
Jammu was a Muslim majority province (62 per cent) in 1947, perhaps it is no longer, Gilgit is a part of Pakistan and Ladakh is Buddhist and thus Indian. In the other parts of the state too there have been large shifts of population. The argument on evacuation of the forces which put off the plebiscite time and again i the earlier years will be now more acrimonious and inconclusive when the number on both sides has risen from thousands to a million.
The cardinal feature of today's solution has to be the freedom and safety of the people of Kashmir, the preservation of their culture and the security of Pakistan. A cordial and profitable relationship with India that follows would also be a source of assurance to 140 million Indian Muslims in the face of a rising saffron spectre.
In pursuit of this aim the hawks and nay-sayers have to be ignored for they offer no alternative but war and violence and in that Pakistan has been a loser in the past and can only be a bigger loser in the future despite its obsession with jihad and possession of nuclear weapons.
To defeat the extremists and the backers of the 'rogue' scientists (both seem to be joining forces) and to negotiate with India, the government need the backing of the country's moderate majority.
The representative institutions thrown up by a manipulated electoral process do not voice the view of that majority nor do the shattered bureaucracy and judiciary. If fresh elections are not to be called, which every indication is wouldn't be, Pakistan shall find itself relying more on its military genius rather than on popular will in finding solutions both to extremism and Kashmir.