April 9, 2006

The question is can a scholar or academic survive after retirement? But before an answer can be attempted we should define both ‘scholar’ and ‘survival’. For the purpose of this discussion ‘scholar’ is defined as a social scientist, natural scientist or somebody producing knowledge in the humanities. ‘Survival’ refers to survival as a producer of knowledge as well as socio-economic well being. Now, with the definitions taken care of, let us see what chances such people have of living comfortably after retirement. While referring to other eras and places, the focus here will be on scholars/academics in Pakistan.

People earn wealth through ownership of the means of production (land, industry, etc.) or by serving others who own such means of production. Scholars or academics do not own any means of production and nor can they force people to part with their wealth. They can, however, offer their services in exchange for wealth. This they generally do by teaching, giving expert advice or selling knowledge to the powerful. All these activities take their pound of flesh from the scholar.

Scholars who teach, no matter at how high a level, still have to spend time lecturing, preparing for lectures, checking the scripts of students and other teaching-related and administrative activities. Those scholars or academics who serve as advisers have to suppress their scruples/principles if their advice is used by people to further their own unscrupulous aims. Sellers of knowledge do not control their research agendas and eventually give up on original, basic research for use by others.

Another problem is that people value what is fashionable, not what is unknown — which because of its ‘unknown’ nature is usually not in demand. Thus, if the intellectual curiosity of scholars leads them to investigate the unknown, chances are that they will not be supported by those who support people working in established fields.

The production of knowledge requires time and money. This boils down to paying people for research even if it does not seem to be relevant for society at that moment and is not even likely to be ever relevant. This is not normally what societies invest in. Thus, in the pre-modern age, research was the luxury of the rich or, if the researcher was not rich, was financed by rich patrons. Only one institution, the medieval university or the madressah (based on endowments from the rich), provided academics and the leisure and freedom from want which enabled academics and scholars to write books and to conduct research.

The fact is that science has benefited immensely because some of its practitioners were rich people who practised it as a hobby. The Geological Society created in 1807 in London consisted of thirteen gentlemen and the price of the dinner that it hosted was 15 shillings — a large amount at that time. Charles Lyell, an enormously influential figure in geology, had a hefty private income which allowed him to leave his professional field of law and pursue his interest in geology.

Henry Cavendish, a famous scientist, was born in an aristocratic family. He led a solitary life and set up a laboratory for himself in his own house. James Hutton, though not an aristocrat, had enough of a private income to enable him to do nothing but what he enjoyed most — science.

Even at that time the universities did give those served them the time and the money to enable them to devote their lives to the pursuit of knowledge. The Reverend William Buckland of Oxford was one of these people. Isaac Newton, famous for his achievements in mathematics and physics, spent his time inventing new laws and unearthing new and amazing discoveries for which he is famous for even today. However, he also spent time in alchemy (converting base metals to gold) and in religious controversy. It was only because he was such a genius and because Cambridge did not insist on his taking classes that he found the time to do all these things.

Of course, most academics in medieval universities wasted their time but the genuine scholars made good use of it. As for the patrons, they demanded adulation which went against the grain of the most self-respecting scholars. Moreover, they did not always fund projects. Dr Samuel Johnson, for instance, not only funded the compilation of his famous dictionary but also wrote to his patron telling him how he had betrayed him. Nearer home, we know how many poets, including Ghalib, had to sing high praises of otherwise ordinary individuals just because they were rich and powerful and could keep those singing the praises alive and functioning. Patronage was therefore a very unsatisfactory system of production of knowledge, mainly because it achieved little.

The knowledge revolution occurred in Western Europe as the universities there became richer and more organized. As the latter happened, the modern university started funding research. But, at the same time it got more bureaucratized as well. This meant that a lot of time was consumed by writing research proposals and trying to get the university or some authority to approve them and fund them.

Moreover, researchers got burdened with teaching and, although this load was not excessive in the best universities, it proved to be a considerable distraction. Moreover, committees and administration also took some time which meant that the kind of leisure and time available to Newton, or even Einstein, was now a dream. And yet, the modern university made possible a situation where enormous amounts of money were made available to researchers; something that had never happened before.

Consequently, the kind of research which became possible was unthinkable till then. Another new thing which was done, at least in America, was that a mandatory age for retirement was removed and they were entitled to draw salaries past that age. Academics today have fairly high incomes. They do not live monkish lives in medieval universities. To provide them a decent standard of living for life is a remarkable achievement of the societies that they live in.

So, how does this all relate to Pakistan? There is a tradition here as well of wealthy people taking up research as a hobby. But such people are very few and far between. Most of those who produce knowledge are concentrated in the universities or think-tanks, public and private. The former can pursue their private research agenda while those in the think-tanks are forced to sell their expertise to their pay-masters.

The public universities are more conducive for research because they generally give more time — if only out of their inefficiency — than the ones in the private sector. The latter focus so much on teaching and student-related activities that they leave no time for their academics to conduct research. However, public universities do not provide funds easily.

Although the Higher Education Commission does fund research proposals, such proposals still take a long time to mature and entirely new ideas are not likely to succeed because the reviewers will not know how to deal with them. Anyway, despite these enormous drawbacks, the public universities are still the best place for research in Pakistan.

Now suppose a scholar or academic pursues research and gets published and even becomes fairly well known, he or she will still retire at sixty. What will happen after that? The scholar will have a pension but this will be woefully inadequate to enable him or her to have an upper middle-class living and continue to do research and publish. The other possibility is to take up a job.

Now such scholars, having been in universities, are offered only teaching jobs. But part-time teaching — which is basically running around from one university to another — can be very tiring and not adequately rewarding either. One cannot pursue one’s research if one is running around from one class room to another. A scholar may be given a powerful administrative position — vice-chancellor, dean or adviser — but this involves work that take up more time than even teaching. Moreover, part-time teaching lowers one’s prestige as a scholar while in administrative positions one makes compromises and risks sacrificing one’s integrity. Both options do not leave either time or energy for research. The second has the additional disadvantage of forcing one into working for the establishment where one is forced to suppress individualistic, dissident or intellectual ideas.

So, what is a scholar or academic to do after retirement? Nothing. One has to kill the scholar inside oneself and allow the persona of the teacher or adviser to take over to sustain one’s lifestyle, to fund the education of growing children, the building of a house and so on.

Can something be done to change this? Yes, something can be done but only if society really values scholarship as an end in itself. After all, Pakistan provides senior military officers with land that can be sold at a considerable profit in the open market. Lieutenant-generals are also provided with other facilities for life as are some other very senior functionaries of the state. So, on the same lines, scholars with genuine achievements can be given a respectable income for life.

The criteria for the achievements can be made stringent so as to exclude average people. Those who fulfil the criteria should be made professors emeriti (or distinguished professors emeriti) and be given a reasonable income for life. Such income may be indexed to inflation and may be such as to enable them to live reasonably well, pursue their research interest and travel to scholarly conferences and so on.

This will allow these rare and distinguished minds to stop running after demeaning jobs which kill their productivity. The HEC has taken a step in this direction by rehiring retired academics and instituting national distinguished professorships but both these schemes are for a certain period and not for life. What is needed is financial security for life for the true scholar.

If a society values new ideas and creativity, then the expenditure this entails will be next to nothing compared to the benefits it will bring about. The point is to understand and agree that genius and outstanding work must be rewarded and saved the degradation of having to do anything other than what it is most suited for.

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