WHAT with things rising that should not be rising and other things falling that should not be falling, combined with the lack of any form of governance, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is not doing too well.

This is nothing new, but then there are degrees of degradation and with the present dispensation it all appears to be rapidly getting out of hand — some feel irretrievably. A few years ago, we were given the news via the relevant medical authorities that 20 per cent of Pakistan’s population was mentally disturbed. Now, with the population increasing by leaps and bounds (since population control figures nowhere on any of our governments’ agendas) this percentage has surely risen.

A reading of a book published last year which has now found its way to Pakistan, Deception by Adrian Levy & Catherine Scott-Clark (Atlantic Books, London, ISBN 978 1843545330), brought back to memory the issue of the Pakistan Association for Mental Health and its Institute of Behavioural Sciences which arose in the year 2002.

Deception tells the story of Pakistan, the United States and the Global Nuclear Weapons Conspiracy. It is packed with crime and criminals, villains and villainy, baddies who get away and goodies who are done in, and reads like a first-rate spy thriller — though it is anything but fiction.

The main character is our national hero, Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan and the wrong done to which he has publicly confessed and for which he has apologised. One explanation for his popularity is given in the book: “In a country where there were few role models who strode the international stage (apart from cricketers), Khan was, as a friend observed, ‘one of the few extremely valuable Pakistanis.’ Period.”

We are all highly familiar with the details of his success story so no explanations are needed other than to outline his linkage to the state of the nation’s mental health. In October 1983 “the Dutch ambassador in Islamabad delivered a subpoena to Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs charging Khan with nuclear espionage at URENCO in 1973.” There was no response so in November the Dutch convicted Khan in absentia, sentencing him to four years’ imprisonment.

The story has it that Dr Khan’s explosive temperament, the tensions of running his secretive and elaborate Kahuta project, coupled with the criminal proceedings, affected his family life and under advice he sought out Prof Haroon Ahmed “Pakistan’s foremost psychiatrist…. Dr Ahmed drew from Khan an admission. His stress levels were rising uncontrollably as he competed to be the first to give the Islamic world a bomb.” Khan became a regular patient and as time went by wished to repay his therapist. So, “when he learned that Dr Ahmed was attempting to open the country’s first free mental health clinic and centre for behavioural sciences in Karachi, he decided to become its patron.” Dr Ahmed could not refuse and Khan was inducted into the governing body.

As the years passed, Khan devoted sporadic attention to the psychiatric hospital, sending over scores of expensive air-conditioning units, building a huge porch — in short providing, according to Dr Ahmed, “the sort of stuff needed by five star hotels. I was losing control of the hospital.”

The psychiatrist’s relationship with Khan was shattered in December 2002 “when Qaiyum Khan, the scientist’s brother, had arrived to take over Dr Ahmed’s Institute of Behavioural Sciences, accompanied by a retired general, two colonels and fifty armed men. ‘They told me to leave as A.Q. Khan was now chairman of the governing body. He’d ploughed in so much money he wanted to run the show and he wanted me out,’ Dr Ahmed recalled. ‘I was dragged to the gate along with all my staff and the nurses in front of our patients. We were barred from our own project.’

“Dr Ahmed launched a case in the Sindh High Court to eject the ex-KRL chief and get his hospital back, attempts that had turned into a well-publicized legal battle, in which Khan had been accused of contempt, having ignored a judge’s ruling to give back that which he had illegally seized. But after A.Q. Khan’s arrest in January 2004, Dr Ahmed was visited by the ISI.” He was told that the court case was not helping the “healing process”, that nothing more should appear in the press, that Dr Ahmed should drop the case, bide his time, and all would be cleared up. Dr Ahmed naturally vowed to press on and seek justice. The case, after almost six years, is still in court.

Since 2002, thousands of mentally affected patients have been denied access to a highly skilled facility which could have given them relief because those capable of running the institute were excluded. A.Q. Khan has not been able to provide any qualified personnel and the purpose-built hospital is now deserted and serves no useful purpose. It is wasted.

Now, A.Q. Khan is barred from making statements to the media, but he is allowed out and about. He is still regarded as a national hero, and is so acknowledged. He has been awarded umpteen decorations and has an enviable collection of gold medals, many awards invented on his request. As related in Deception, “Between 1984 and 1992, the KRL chief scored eleven gold medals from organizations as diverse as the Lions Club of Gujarat, the Institute of Metallurgy and the Citizens of Rawalpindi….” Even the people of Kahuta, the village engulfed by his KRL, gave him a gold medal, and he awarded himself the ‘Man of the Nation’ medal given by the Pakistan Institute of National Affairs in Lahore.

He should be well satisfied with all this and he must know that his impeding the running of a psychiatric hospital in Karachi, a city beset by anxiety, fear, helplessness and hopelessness, is getting him nowhere. Facilities for the mentally ill are few and far between and too often unavailable financially to the poor and deprived.

A humble message to Dr Khan from Prof Haroon Ahmed, a man who has rendered him much help in the past when he was in need of help: “I want to make a request to Dr A.Q. Khan. A lot of water has run under the bridge. Let ego and anger take a back seat. Let the skilled volunteers of the Pakistan Association for Mental Health be given a chance to run the Institute of Behavioural Sciences once again. Let the sick be given access to expert mental healthcare providers.”

May those who cannot speak join in, along with many of us lesser mortals who have donated to help build this Institute.

arfc@cyber.net.pk