IF we are to leap into the next century and, after the passage of half a century, be capable of standing on our own feet and dealing with the First World our people will have to be educated in the profound sense of the word.

A few, very few have been advocating education for all since early this century. Nawrojee Nusserwanjee Pochajee, an enlightened Parsi of Karachi, left half his considerable fortune for the building of a school, specifically a girls' school, and his money was the seed money with which the Mama Parsi Girls' School was established in Karachi in 1908. As he rightly put it, it is girls who become mothers and at whose feet children learn what no school or college can teach them.

Up to 1947, the school restricted itself to girls of the Parsi community, but then, on the request of Mohammed Ali Jinnah it opened its doors to those of all communities. Now, 52 years later, 95 per cent of the girls learning there are Muslims.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif recently gave a birthday present to the daughter of his erstwhile benefactor, General Zia-ul-Haq, drawing money from public funds provided to him to be used at his discretion. He later realized his mistake and reportedly has reimbursed the fund. The question arises: should he have used public funds for personal gain? Would a truly educated man do so? Some maintain that he knowingly did wrong, others that he did so truly believing that the people's money is his to do with as he may please. Whichever way one looks at it, the pointer is towards an uneducated man.

According to this newspaper's calculations, our prime minister has so far, during this his second round, made 51 foreign trips. On each, he has taken with him as many joyriders as his, or our, large Boeing can accommodate, and the expenses of each trip have been debited to the people. His flunkies follow suit. Some of his governors and chief ministers fly around the country in their special planes on personal and pleasure trips claiming that to do so is their 'entitlement.'

The trip record entitlement reportedly stands with our Rhodes Scholar, Wasim Sajjad, the Permanent Chairman of the Upper House, who sits one breath away from the presidency. It is said that since he sat in his chair he has made over 88 trips abroad at the people's expense. There may be a corrective letter from his office claiming he has not made 88 trips, but what the letter will not inform us is that he has actually scored 93 and is well on his way to his century.

My friend Ilahi Bakhsh Soomro, boss of the Lower House, is endeavoring to catch up. He uses his entitlement to depart every two to three months with a clutch of MNAs who form a 'parliamentary delegation' to attend various meetings around the world. We are not told whether they go to learn or to instruct, but we do know that they return home as educated as they were.

This 'entitlement' attitude is pernicious and destructive. One of Benazir Bhutto's governors, Kamal Azfar, grew up in the house of his father, Mohammad Azfar, an officer of the ICS and later of the CSP, a man who cannot be faulted, and who today is the oldest living civil servant in the country. A frail man, he has always lived within his means and can hold his head high as he has the rare distinction of having left the service on differing with Ayub Khan on a point of principle. He and his wife brought up their children well. Kamal went to Baliol at Oxford, one of the world's finest colleges, and was called to the Bar from the Inner Temple. He then studied with the famous scholar Gunar Myrdal.

As Governor of Sindh Kamal gave from his discretionary fund a sum of Rs.10 lakhs to the rich Karachi Golf Club for it to build a gallery in which a plaque with his name engraved upon it would be placed. Now, again we must ask whether an educated man would do this?

Following Kamal's example, the famous banker M. B. Abbasi, before he ran the NDFC dry, gave Rs.15 lakhs from our financial institution to have his name engraved on a plaque to be placed on a pavilion.

Following the example of Mian Nawaz Sharif, would both these gentlemen be willing to repay the public exchequer? Should either claim to be in a state of virtual penury, as a member of the Golf Club I will vote that the Club repay what it wrongfully accepted, enabling them to pay back to the people what they wrongfully used.

Now we come to what the Foreign Office calls the 'non-official component of the Pakistan delegation' to the United Nations General Assembly. Each year the Assembly meets for about three months and non-officials are invited by the government to go on a jaunt to New York at its expense. Each delegation of five to ten members is scheduled to stay fifteen days at the UN. This time I was put in the ring by the FO on the prime minister's directive. Why? The prime minister knows me well enough, he says he reads what I write. We have known each other for some time and he knows what I think of him as a man (I like him) and as a prime minister (a complete disaster). Would an educated man have included my name in the list of UN delegates? I informed the foreign secretary that I would not go. The next day I read in this newspaper that the non-official components consisted of "Senator Akram Zaki, Ahsan Iqbal, MNA, and Chairman 2001 programme, Fakhr Imam, MNA, Mr Pervaiz Malik, MNA, Senator Javed iqbal (former chief justice, LHC), Dr Nasim Hasan Shah (former chief justice, Supreme Court), Syed Sharifuddin Pirzada, S M Zafar, Dr Hamida Khuhro, Dr Attiya Enayatullah, Dr Alexander John Malik, Bishop of Lahore, Mr P K Shahani, Mr S A Rahman, ambassador-at-large, Mr Mehdi Masood (former ambassador) Mr Hameed Haroon, Mr Ardeshir Cowasjee, and Ms Nasim Zehra." How many of these joy riders will go (Nasim has refused) ?

Then I read "It is widely expected that either Ardeshir Cowasjee or Nasim Zehra will make a statement in the Fourth Committee of the General Assembly reaffirming the government's adherence to the principles of freedom of speech and the press in Pakistan."

Widely expected? By whom and why? Are Nasim and I not expected to know what is happening in this country? Have I not seen the marks left by the beatings inflicted on journalist Hussain Haqqani's bottom? Do we both not know how editor Najam Sethi's house was broken into by government goons in the middle of the night, how he was dragged away blindfolded and kept for a month in solitary confinement in safe houses?

Then there arrives a letter from the Foreign Office saying, "Please be informed that the Prime Minister has been pleased to nominate you as a special envoy to visit West Coast cities and Washington to explain post-Kargil situation to public representatives, think-tanks and media."

The Prime Minister may not know, but surely the Foreign Office does, what happens when private individuals address think tanks and the media in the US and how he is questioned? What could I possibly have told them about Kargil other than, as I have declared publicly, that it was an unmitigated disaster. Do I tell them that I come from an illiterate country of 140 million whose Senate Chairman, the same Rhodes scholar, will not permit debate or discussion on what is euphemistically known here as 'honour killings,' thus legalizing murder? Or, that I come from a country where the government sends in a mob to raid the Supreme Court to obstruct the course of justice, a raid filmed by the international media and by the court's own cameras, for which raid it was much later held by three judges of the same court that no one was responsible, implying that in actual fact it never took place? What do I say about the 'extra judicial' killings and of killings whilst in police custody?

As far as Kargil is concerned, we should do everything possible to put a damper on it, to try and make the world forget. Scapegoats are always created after blunders, and today it is the army that is being blamed. Some are led to believe that the prime minister was not aware of the operation. Whether he was or not, he must know that the buck stops at his table, or at the table of the Supreme Commander of our Armed Forces, President R. A. Tarar.

Things could be different if the fun-seekers and looters of the people's wealth ruling over us from Islamabad were answerable to a public that is literate and educated in the greater majority.