Daily Times

The ways we dealt with him are not unknown to anyone. The manner in which his years of meticulous and intellectual efforts were rubbished and derogated is not hidden from anyone. The approach used by his fellow countrymen to equate all his achievements to zero just because of his religious ideology’s clashing difference with that of the spirit of Islam — the state religion of Pakistan — is an indelible historical account. The fact that we, the honourable Muslims of Pakistan, skipped the word ‘just’ before ‘because’ in the previous sentence and punished the mathematical genius, Abdus Salam, for something as personal as his faith is an unforgettable chapter of The Book of Shame that we are still in the process of writing.

My first realisation of how shameful it is to be associated with Salam’s name in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan was back in 2005 when the student council of my school was being elected. The four houses, namely Qasim, Tipu, Faiz and Salam, were esteemed and respected in the given order. Their names clearly implied the reason for the degree of veneration that was awarded to them. This highly odious practice was revealed on me when my classmate congratulated me on becoming the representative of Tipu House by saying “You should thank God that He saved you from the disgrace. Imagine leading Salam House.” On my inquisition of her arguments in favour of the notion, she elaborated, “Don’t you know? Abdus Salam was an Ahmadi. People would have started speculating the same about you.” We were thirteen back then. However, this mindset is not dependent on age; this hatred actually runs in our veins alongside faux jingoism. Somehow, Muhammad bin Qasim conquering Sindh and Multan to enable the spread of Islam and Tipu Sultan dying as a martyr without having won a single notable battle is more venerable for us than to decipher Faiz Ahmad Faiz’s thought-provoking and soul-awakening work and celebrate Abdus Salam’s notable contribution in winning Pakistan an esteemed identity.

Salam’s contribution in the fields of theoretical and particle physics, his numerous achievements in terms of illustrious prizes, including the Nobel Prize in Physics and Smith’s Prize, and his outstanding accomplishment of giving Pakistan respect in the world have continued to enlighten thousands of young Pakistani physicists and students belonging to other professions as well. His determination, humility, virtuosity and competence are taken as guidance by many as inspirational tools, but in secrecy. A heavy majority is reluctant in proclaiming him as their hero: the first Pakistani and second from an Islamic country to receive any Nobel Prize, the one who established the Theoretical Physics Group in the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, and the one who played a major role in promoting scientific research in the country he thought was his but which made him a sign of abasement by making it a compulsion to mention his faith along with his name.

How many of us, the scrutinisers of people’s characters, know that Salam’s first name was Mohammad? How many of us, the critics of others’ work, actually bothered to know that the SUPARCO they advocate to be used by mullahs of Pakistan for the accurate sighting of moon was actually founded by Salam? How many of us, the Pakistani Muslim extremists, have struggled to realise that besides being an Ahmadi he had other identities, too, which could have been highlighted more to honour the person Salam was? How necessary was it to label and identify a person with several identities, such as Punjabi, Ahmadi, scientist and a Nobel Prize winner, and then deplore him for all his life over the identity we found to be odd or misfit as per our standard set of rules? By which spirit do we expect applause by the scientific community outside of Pakistan when we do not feel a bit of shame before erasing Abdus Salam’s name from our textbooks? Why will our results be owned and revered by first-world countries when we did not feel any hindrance in disowning Abdus Salam?

Issuing a commemorative stamp to honour his services rendered to Pakistan is not sufficient, my dear countrymen. He should have been received by public instead of military secretaries on his travel to Pakistan in 1979. Establishing the Dr Abdus Salam chair at Government College Lahore in 1999 cannot be a compensation of the neglect faced by Abdus Salam in his life when he was not even invited to his alma mater (now Government College University Lahore) owing to the disruption of an event at Punjab University by the protestors belonging to Islami Jamiat Talaba. What were they protesting against? The birth of Abdus Salam that unfortunately took place in a country full of irrational religious extremists? The awarding of the first and only Nobel Prize in science to a Pakistani? His visit to his homeland to which he wanted to pay back in a befitting manner by transferring his skills and knowledge to the youth of his country? Or how could a person be so different from the rest that he refused to simply see the stars twinkling from the roof of his house and achieved to become one for the whole world except for us? Are all his achievements and attainments equivalent to nothing if he did not believe in what the majority does? Why can we not keep separate one’s religion and his works? Why have we failed to gate these two entirely different dimensions individually? And if it is not possible to do so then why do we expect the aforementioned behaviour from countries where we, the Muslims, are a minority?

Salam believed, “Scientific thought and its creation is the common and shared heritage of mankind.” What he did not know was that he was among only a few in his country who had the capability to think beyond differences and clashes and who were willing to spend their lives searching for commonalities and concepts like shared heritage.

The existing state of affairs is highly deplorable as was the one when Abdus Salam died. We took the pain to obscuring the word ‘Muslim’ from the phrase ‘First Muslim Nobel Laureate’ inscribed on his tombstone as if the prestige of the entire Muslim Ummah had been put to stake. His death anniversary has passed without any mention and holding of commemorative ceremonies this year just as it always has every year. Had we taken care of telling our children about Abdus Salam as much as the concern we showed about mutilating his tombstone, this country would have started its journey on the road of self-realisation.

But here we are, ashamed and sorry for deliberately disremembering Dr Abdus Salam, the first Pakistani Nobel Laureate, who was so much in love with his traditions that he received his Nobel Prize while emblazoning an achkan, shalwar, turban and Punjabi jutti with extended curved tip. I can claim this with absolute certainty that this norm of pretermitting his name will be practised next year, too, and my belief in this assertion is as strong as my belief in all the pillars of Islam.

The writer is a student of Biotechnology