It is for the umpteenth time that I left an organisation with shattered dreams and hopes. That is the tragedy of life and that is the tragedy of this country that stragglers are allowed to intrigue and play politics in the system. Recently, I came face to face with one such faceless person who while occupying a seat in the PM's secretariat kept on vilifying me.
It was brought to my notice by a friend and I could not place this nondescript individual. The person apparently knew me or knew of me. The host introduced him to me in no uncertain terms... I then tried to determine why he was so cheesed off with me. I had neither provided any benefit nor caused any harm. On closer scrutiny I learned that the danger was posed by the individual belonging to a particular ethnic sect and was interested in and managed the affairs of that community in the PM's secretariat.
In fact in one case he is guilty of gross misdemeanour, in which his ethnic friend was given benefits that were never intended by the PM. Cloak and dagger policies would be a mild word for such actions. The inconsistency came to light only recently. It was criminality of the highest order. It is still a case for citizen's petition. Similar activity was in the case of the 245 odd agriculture people sitting in Karachi doing business.
The public representative from the area was against the movement as he had his own relatives also employed there. It was one hell of a situation and it led to countless standing committee meetings and even an attempt on my officials at the two top-most political places. The reason given was the same as that given by the scoundrels. Two years and some months on, the cheat system continues and the victors have marched on as if they were Caesar's legionnaires.
When appointed to research, the purpose was to dream and provide hope to the downtrodden of this world. That hope is still there but now the effort will be changed. One keeps on earning - one keeps on making mistakes after mistakes. Humans who are adamant never learn. Independence has its drawbacks but then it has its advantages. Being very independent is even better.
One does not have to suffer fools; no one has to in any walk of life and especially in the political system. Fools abound therein. The situation is worse as the fools really think they are the wisest of men available on this earth. It was the sagacity of Sardar Aseff Ahmed Ali that projects with far-reaching impacts were approved. One of the projects was on having mobile research stations in the coastal belt. This was a new game and its impact was to be far-reaching.
These were supposed to not only use sea water for irrigation of crops, but also for sea salt manufacture [it is anti-cancerous and has little of the adverse impact as compared to rock salt]. The real purpose was to use the algae for food, feed and other manufactured products. Technicians from other countries had been lined up and they were coming at a very cheap cost. I had always maintained that the populations living near the sea were neglected. Try telling this to anyone. I had hopes to someday try and extract 11 fertilisers from the seaweed of the area.
The millions of downtrodden that live in these areas in squalor and poverty is astonishing. That meant that the sea weeds were to be cultured and production functions had to be added. Refining the sea weed was another activity that had to be undertaken. Some of the developing countries are selling this in the international markets and earning as much as our textile sector is earning. Will they endure this kind of lackadaisical policies? Why should they? Pakistan has been on the scene for over 60 years and we are still not able and willing to take affirmative action for the poor.
What is lacking in us collectively? The question is not one of the biological sciences but for the psychologist to answer? The goons that we have feel that psychology is not relevant for us. These very goons are responsible for breaking all ethical codes and cheating their respective spouses.
The armed conflicts that we see in this world only indicate that hunger is the source of all poverty-related conflicts. Agriculture, make no mistake, cannot take a back seat any more and its non-functioning is directly responsible for conflict and for environmental degradation and that is why I have been suggesting a three-pronged attack on the social conditions emanating from agriculture via-pro-poor, pro-gender and pro-environment.
The deaf members of this society smug in their little worlds, will not listen and the international idiots are not interested in really doing anything except to keep this and other developing countries where they belong - in the pits of the world.
The nature of mini-micro conflicts has now erupted into major sources of conflict in this country. I had done a study about this for the now KPK about five years ago predicting that rather than conflict going away, it would resurge as never before. It was apparent that the one's that were in power were not willing to share the benefits with anyone. That is apparently not acceptable as the world has moved on and the internet and other institutional technologies add extra pressure on everyone.
The CGIAR has let us down pretty badly by playing to the tunes of the powerful and for not listening to sane voices in the country. The WB/ADB are grossly mistaken if they think that they will continue to provide fiscal assistance through badly designed [on purpose?] projects and then link it up with corruption in the developing countries. I suggest and nay put it to everyone that the international institutions are guilty of roughing up the developing countries.
There is no short cut to self-reliance and though one may have the occasional hiccup the idea really is to make sure that no one is able to do anything that is not in keeping with the laws and norms of this country. Poor conditions for agriculture hold grave implications for socio-economic development and sustainable peace internationally as well as internally.
The issues that are to be addressed are not the issues of biological sciences or of bio-technology, but they relate directly to the way human beings organise their affairs and how they cope with man-made and natural disasters. How have we done in respect of the earthquake that shook not only Pakistan, but the world and what about the floods of the immediate past? Did PARC or NARC help out? No These guys were busy eating banquets and in fact when I took charge I found that instead of research the National Agriculture Research Centre had become a Shadi Ghar.
This had to stop for these guys posing as researcher were really siphoning off resources through implicit subsidies. Do you think in your perverted minds that the conflicts in the marginal and peripheral areas are not due to the mistaken actions that have been taken? What am I going to do with the janitors of the international class? They are like an old broom unable to clean up anything not even their own mess. We have a lot of them and I can name them.
The developed countries, in trying to make up the world view that they have of the areas, actually encourage conflicts as that allows them the privilege of dictating to that country. Would it not be nice for them not to go to any developing country? To let them fix their own issues and problems instead of being 'Mamas' to the world. Go back to Jung psychologist and the concept of a 'collective mother'.
One's mother country is that collective mother. It provides to everyone that what cannot be provided by anyone-peace and harmony and goodwill to every one. These internal paths to peace and prosperity will have to be determined. Do we have the guts to make honest mistakes or shall we continually make silly questions.
The time has come to seek the best for the people of this country or face the consequences of long hard turmoil, which I can assure you will be more dangerous then the one we faced while in former East Pakistan. We have entered the zone of turmoil and we have to somehow extricate ourselves from that turmoil. It is of our own making and our own petty thinking.
Take any ministry, not the MINFA for I will be accused of falsely implicating them in some of the many silly things that they have done. For after all, they have been able to get janitors on board. Try water and power, try AEDB, why not try Planning Commission and I bet you to try any ministry. They are worse than the technical mistris that we have midgets and not even oxymorons. The idea is to use all available resources and to try our efforts at new resource uses. Can the mandi do it? Are we up for auction?