At the same time that two Pakistani/Pakistani-origin women were being feted for their extraordinary achievements, a third was so despondent (مایوسی کا شکار ،in low spirits from loss of hope or courage)regarding the road blocks in her path to an education that she was taking her own life.
Yes, this is a tragic paradox (اندرونی تضاد پر مبنی بیان) called Pakistan. Reminiscent (یاد تازہ کرنیوالی) of Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities, such extremes of fortune and fate are nearly an everyday occurrence in this land of the pure. God knows who was culpable (قابل، تنقید )in this particular instance but each one of us must bear the cross for the general state of affairs.
Where bad news has become the norm rather than the exception, the news that Pakistan-born astrophysicist Nergis Mavalvala was part of a team of scientists who identified/detected gravitational waves and verified what Einstein propounded in his Theory of Relativity 100 years ago was readily hailed by most Pakistanis with considerable pride.
Also read: Nergis Mavalvala, Pakistan’s unexpected celebrity scientist
That a young girl, who battled so many challenges as she tried to seek an education, should kill herself is a damning indictment of the system.
It didn’t matter that Dr Mavalvala left Karachi, where she was born and where she attended the Convent of Jesus and Mary, and migrated as a teenager along with her family before graduating from Wellesley College, US, and then going on to do her post-graduation and doctorate from the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology where she currently teaches, and does her research.
She herself acknowledged the role of her physics teacher at her Karachi school in giving her every opportunity to use the lab and experiment as and when she deemed fit. This furthered her curiosity. Her love of astronomy is also said to have its roots in the night sky over the city where she says she used to go up on the roof her block of flats and observe the stars for hours.
Frankly speaking, it is just as well she went abroad when she did as the academic environment at some of the institutions she was privileged to attend must have fired up her appetite for scientific discovery. She must have received mentoring and encouragement. And she continued unhindered, without facing any discrimination despite making certain personal choices and having preferences which could easily have singled her out in Pakistan and made her a target of the bigots (متعصب)and haters, her brilliance notwithstanding.
That so many Pakistanis moved quickly to express ownership of and take pride in her achievement as a scientist was pleasing as it was reassuring, for we have a terrible track record of ambivalence towards our heroes such as Dr Abdus Salam. And even the other Nobel Laureate, the teenager, Malala Yousafzai.
It was an equally pleasing sight to see Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy on national television being received by the prime minister at his official residence in the capital where the Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker secured a pledge from Nawaz Sharif that the laws on ‘honour killing’ would be toughened so all loopholes are excised from them.
If realised, this pledge would be a big step forward as under the existing laws, most murderers who commit their bloody crime in the name of ‘honour’ are able to avoid punishment and go scot-free. To emphasise his commitment to the cause, Mr Sharif also announced that Ms Obaid-Chinoy’s documentary on the issue, which has been nominated for an Oscar, would be screened first at the Prime Minister’s House.
Ms Obaid-Chinoy won an Academy Award in 2012 for her documentary on acid attack survivors and their rehabilitation. Ms Obaid-Chinoy and Dr Mavlavala are on a large and illustrious list of Pakistani women who have battled against the odds at home, excelled in their fields, and brought accolades to the country.
No matter how long this list may be, it is equally true that for every woman who succeeds here, there must be hundreds and hundreds whose ambitions and desires whether educational, professional or in any other field remain unfulfilled and often cruelly so. Saqiba Kakar, a 17-year-old college student, from Muslim Bagh is — was — one of them. Last June, she travelled over 100 kilometres to the provincial capital of Quetta to demonstrate with about a dozen other students from her girls’ college demanding that their institution be given teachers so they could complete their education.
This demonstration was covered, among others, by DawnNews whose archive footage shows an articulate Saqiba, clad in a burqa and hijab, demanding that their right to education be respected. Most of rural Balochistan is conservative but the Pakhtun-dominated Zhob district more so.
The footage broke my heart and lifted my spirits at the same time. These girls, covered in chaddar/burqa from head to toe, had come all this distance, obviously supported by their families so as to secure the posting of teachers at their college, such was their desire and commitment to education.
Since the death of Saqiba, who wasn’t allowed to sit for her board exams and who took her life last week apparently in utter despair, is the subject of a Balochistan government inquiry, I wouldn’t want to go into the specifics of why this happened.
Know more: No FIR yet in girl’s suicide case
We’ll wait for the inquiry report to be able to say with certainty what happened. Her family does allege that the college principal angered by Saqiba’s decision not to apologise for demonstrating against the administration withheld her examination form, citing inadequate attendance at lessons.
Whatever the inquiry reveals, that a young girl, who must have battled so many usually insurmountable challenges, to seek an education in a remote part of the country was so heartbroken that she killed herself, leaving ostensibly a note lamenting her failure to study further is a slap in all our faces.
How will we react? If I try to answer honestly I am filled with sadness. For the next few days the media will keep the issue alive. Then we’ll move on to the next story and that’ll be that. We’d have buried another daughter and have moved on. Yes, that’s what I think will happen. It always does.
The writer is a former editor of Dawn.
abbas.nasir@hotmail.com
Published in Dawn, February 20th, 2016
AFTER the new governments of KP and Punjab passed their respective, internationally acclaimed Right to Information (RTI) laws and established their independent information commissions in 2013, it was only natural to expect Sindh and Balochistan, and the federation to replace their restrictive freedom of information laws with more progressive RTI laws.
Unfortunately, this has not happened so far. Although the two provinces and the federation have repeatedly expressed their intention to introduce new RTI laws in their respective domains, action on this has been extremely slow and appears stalled in some cases.
International experience indicates a strong link between effective RTI laws and good governance. RTI laws and the associated institutions have, therefore, become a symbol of a society’s commitment to good governance. This also explains the growing popularity of RTI laws the world over. Only 19 countries had RTI laws before 1995. Today, 107 countries have RTI laws and most of them have dedicated institutions to promote their effective implementation and to hear complaints against executive delay or denial of information to citizens.
International experience indicates a strong link between effective RTI laws and good governance.
The same kind of relationship seems to prevail in Pakistan. Sindh, which, according to several surveys and assessments, does not do so well in the context of good governance, has the weakest legal framework and implementation of the right to information in Pakistan. Its Freedom of Information Act, 2006, though has not been operationalised as the provincial government has failed to frame the required rules for the last 10 years.
In a recent score card of the four provinces and the federation, Sindh scored the least with a dismal 24pc score. The federal government’s position is not much better; it scored 24pc and was placed fourth among the five governments. Balochistan was third with 29pc. KP and Punjab which have promulgated better laws have scored 73pc and 65pc and in the first and second position respectively.
It is a vicious cycle in which poor governance obstructs the introduction of better RTI laws and the lack of effective RTI laws in turn impedes good governance. It is time the two provinces and the federation broke this vicious cycle by promulgating new RTI laws and established independent information commissions as has been done in the case of Punjab and KP.
Recently, Pakistan’s acclaimed draft of the federal RTI bill has shown some progress towards the eventual passage after two years of not being discussed by the federal cabinet. Recently, the federal Ministry of Information, Broadcasting and National Heritage announced that the government had constituted a five-member committee to propose revisions to the federal draft RTI bill in the light of the current security environment. In fact, there is already an exception clause in the proposed bill preventing disclosure of information that legitimately harms national security. However, many countries in the world have thought it necessary to enact further measures to prevent unauthorised disclosure of information harmful to national security. India, which is supposed to have the third-best law in the world, has granted immunity to 18 civilian and military agencies performing intelligence and law-enforcement functions.
America has an expansive body of legislation limiting authorised disclosure and preventing unauthorised disclosure of information classified to protect national security, defined broadly to include certain aspects of foreign affairs as well. Even Canada, a country with arguably lower threat perceptions than Pakistan, has exceptions covering certain types of intelligence, military and diplomatic information.
Some quarters may feel that the current clause preventing the disclosure of information harmful to national security is inadequate and that this leaves much to the discretion of the proposed information commission.
At the same time, blanket immunity for certain institutions preventing any authorised disclosure of information pertinent to national security is not optimal either. Such immunity does not prevent unauthorised disclosures, even if there are strict penalties for officials found guilty of such an act.
The Official Secrets Act was (and still is) in place in Pakistan when the Hamoodur Rehman and Abbottabad Commission reports were leaked.
The US had a number of laws, including the Counterintelligence and Security Enhancement Act, 1994, the Espionage Act of 1917, and Executive Order 13526 in place when the information leaked by Edward Snowden hit the airwaves.
Our policymakers must realise that citizens of the information age have developed an appetite for information on the performance of public institutions. This demand is likely to be met through unauthorised disclosures if the legislation governing information pertinent to national security restricts authorised disclosures absolutely.
The debate on giving or keeping back information pertinent to national security may, therefore, continue but it should not be allowed to obstruct an early passage of an effective RTI law even if that law has maximalist exceptions with regard to the security sector.
A vast majority of the public is interested in information on subjects other than just security and their right to information should not be curbed because of conflicting perceptions on what should be allowed to be disclosed regarding national security. Laws are dynamic documents and as the country develops some kind of a consensus on the extent of information that can be disclosed regarding the security sector, the RTI law can be further amended.
We must realise that the passage of the federal RTI bill will be the first step in introducing a comprehensive system governing the disclosure of information. People on both sides of the debate must push for a system that minimises the discretion of officials and establishes clearly aligned sets of rules governing the disclosure and protection of information.
It is now time for the passage of a progressive, effective and international class RTI act, not only at the federal level but also in the remaining two provinces, even as an open discussion between policymakers and civil society continues on exactly how this system will balance concerns of the public and the executive.
The writer is the president of PILDAT.
Published in Dawn, February 20th, 2016
