GENERAL elections are afoot. Expectations were galore that some adventurous foreign university would immediately rush to make capital of this opportunity and open up campuses in Pakistan, offering condensed crash graduate courses for non-graduate politicians. Which non-graduate (NG) politician would fail to make a headlong dash, get enrolled and snatch a degree to join the electioneering campaign? Such rush-and-crash courses leading to first degree would, of course, be recognized by the adventurous university itself, but they would have saved many a crashing hope.
The West’s adventurous and opportunistic endeavours and undertakings have splendidly made the West what it is. It was, therefore, surprising why the arm-chair well-wishers of backward countries’ miserable state of education missed this God-sent opportunity.
Not very long ago, I had vastly enjoyed reading J.B. Priestly’s wonderful novel The Image Men. Returning home from abroad, two professorial British personalities meet each other. They are jobless and quickly they join their forces to fish around for university jobs. They are specialists in different subjects and teaching jobs are difficult to come by. Quite accidentally, they discover a demand for experts who could build up new and powerful public image for people hankering after popularity or who could restore the broken images of people on the way down. In a moment of illumination, the two professorial figures imagine a new calling. They convince a teaching institution to set up a chair for image building and lo! A brand new academic discipline is created out of nothing, like the cat out of the bag! In addition to teaching, the two professorial figures become consultants and find themselves doing rather well. So why not a college with crash courses for NG politicians in Pakistan?
It was, therefore, expected not without reason that a full-age advertisement would appear the day after graduation was declared a necessary condition for contesting the forthcoming elections. One could imagine something like this:
“XYZ International University opens up overseas campuses in Pakistan, offering two-month condensed crash graduation courses for non-graduate politicians! It is your golden opportunity to get your bachelor’s degree (B. Pol.) and to hold onto your seat in the parliament. Make a rush! Seats are filling up fast! First come first served!”
Even an unpretending man like myself thinks that it was not at all difficult to design a crash course and to produce the necessary textbooks with the computers and the www around. Much relevant material lies scattered in old newspaper files, and so it was merely a matter of sifting information and arranging it according to the subjects offered.
For instance:
1. Literature: Selected newspaper editorials decade-wise. Political commentators’ articles (past ten years).
2. Rhetorics: Decorative concealment of real aims in high-sounding words making an interplay of the political strategies according to people’s immediate interest and your private inclinations.
3. Political history of Pakistan: The Romantic Period; the Renaissance envisioned, and looking for the Age of Reason.
4. Political economy: Stewardship, proctorship, patronage, manipulations and steersmanship.
5. Political favours: Rationale, reason, motivation and inducement.
6. Political philosophy: Coordinating the ideal with the unreal with stress on the dogmas and axions old and new.
The rest of the advertisement and the attractively printed prospectus would perhaps contain these stipulations:
A. Although politics in highly democratic and advanced countries means quality, an independent and enlightened public, public-spirited men and women with a nobility of mind and manners and disinterest, situations differ from country to country, region to region, and from economy to economy. So, you may apply the knowledge gained through your B. Pol. degree according to the needs of the hour, or from day-to-day, hour-to-hour, minute-to-minute.
B. The compulsory subjects are literature (with Rhetorics) and political history. For the two optional subjects you may choose any two from the rest mentioned above.
C. We cannot guarantee if your B. Pol. from this university would be recognized by others. However, your name as a successful student will be entered in our gazette and a degree certificate will be issued to you under our emblem and seal, duly signed by our vice-chancellor.
But alas! The golden opportunity has come, knocked at the door and gone. You may imagine the gold-rush some adventurous and adventitious foreign university has so sadly missed. It could have easily gained more than it had bargained for. But, never mind. Some other occasion. Some other time. We, the poor backward countries, always stand in a dire need of these condensed courses like condensed milk.
