A number of e-mailers from abroad - and I stress abroad because the natives of this country have long since ceased to be surprised by the strange happenings thrown up in our daily lives - reacted to my column of last Sunday on the matter of the contempt of court application filed by students of the Nadirshaw Eduljee Dinshaw University of Engineering and Technology against their university.
This related to the matter of 64 students who in the mid- 1990s had questionably been passed in the 'Theory of Structure' paper in their Bachelor of Engineering course. Their reaction, one and all was quizzical. Do Pakistani universities wield no writ? Does their jurisdiction not exist? How can students challenge their own university in court?
The answer, the state of the majority of our educational institutions, low and high, being what it is, is no. And this in spite of the fact that the most learned educational hotshot of the country, Professor Dr Ata-ur-Rahman, firstly for a couple of years prior to General Pervez Musharraf's general elections held the portfolio of education, and since 2002 he has been in full charge of our higher education.
How can students challenge the decisions of their vice- chancellor and the university syndicate? Easy, they were told - if they are in Pakistan. Certain members of the NED syndicate are political appointees, and their political parties are keen that the students who support their different parties be endowed with degrees so that they may add letters after their names.
Those e-mailers of Pakistani origin who live abroad and who bemoan the fact that though their bodies may be enjoying the privileges and freedoms available in the liberal democratic world, their souls remain steadfastly bound to the country of their birth. My advice is that they should make sure that their bodies and souls are compatible with each other and remain united on one spot. My advice also to the younger ones is that they should stay where they are and learn and open their minds to the world and prosper both materially and mentally. To the older, I say also stay put, and see that you educate your children in a land where they can be properly taught, and where they will have opportunities to academically grow. Life, I tell them, is to be lived and to be savoured in all manner as much as is possible. We have too many zealots at home who are ready, so they say, to shed the last drop of their blood for their beloved country. And we have even more dogmatists who are ready to see that others shed the last drop of their blood should they disagree with their zealous beliefs.
Mard-i-Momin Mard-i-Haq Ziaul Haq did incalculable harm to his country. In the field of education he was lethal. He decreed that on the syndicates of the public sector universities there shall sit an Aalim-e-Deen who will exercise his deeni madressah- moulded will on his fellows.
On the NED syndicate there sits with me an Aalim who is by profession a builder/developer. A colourful fellow, he wears an ample beard of varying hues, and despite his inner leanings he is a reasonable man who has an educated family. His wife, a most pleasant person, is a graduate of St Joseph's College and benefited from the teachings of Sister Mary Emily, who, by God's grace, is still with us and striving to have her college denationalized. The Aalim's only daughter was sent to St Joseph's Convent and then on to St Joseph's College and Karachi University. She is now a professional clinical psychiatrist who works with Dr Haroon Ahmad. One son has done his BBA from CBM, Karachi, and another is studying business administration in the United Kingdom.
Of late, my Aalim friend has started using the title 'doctor'. Of what, I inquired? Giving me a haughty look, I was informed that he had done his PhD from Oxford having studied at King's College, Cambridge. This Maulana is irreplaceable.
On the question of learning by example, a couple of e-mailers asked which man in public life I would recommend as an 'example'. Of the living lot I responded, it is difficult to name one. Of those past, the only one who springs to mind is of course Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the founder and maker of Pakistan whose beliefs and convictions were overturned by his followers in less than a year following his death.
On the issue of 64 students of the NED, I can say with confidence that the vice-chancellor and the minority members of the syndicate acted ultra-reasonably. The university offered the 64 special refresher courses and a re-examination (charging nominal fees, Rs 10 per course and Rs. 10 for re-examination). Fifty-six accepted the offer, passed, and were given their degrees. One called it a day and went home. Seven refused to be re-examined.
They went to court praying that they be given degrees. The court ordered that they be awarded, so they were, but noted on the degrees by the vice-chancellor was the sentence: 'Degree awarded in compliance with the Sindh High Court decision dated 22/2/200 in CP D-42/99.' They went back to court and filed the application for contempt which was dismissed (CMA 788/01). The relevant point made in the order handed down: "What the law requires is obedience and not mental acceptance of orders of the court. As a famous American Supreme Court judge put it, 'we are final not because we are infallible, but we are infallible only because we are final ... keeping in view the well-settled principle that contempt jurisdiction ought to be sparingly exercised and should not be allowed to be used for settling private scores, we would dismiss this application."
Lastly, I am happy to be able to say that one man has agreed to learn 'by example'. Last week I wrote that Barrister Hafiz Pirzada had agreed to return a substantial amount of the fees NED had paid to him to defend it in the Supreme Court (in the leave to appeal application filed by the students against the dismissal of their contempt application in the High Court). He has now agreed to return the full amount paid.