Pakistan: Hounding the dissenters — Dr Mohammad Taqi

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The perception now is that Dr Hoodbhoy was terminated not because of any academic issues but for being an outspoken critic of the national security paradigm.

Pervez Hoodbhoy (L) and Adil Najam

Ahmadiyya Times | News Watch | Int'l Desk
Source/Credit: Daily Times | Pakistan
By Dr Mohammad Taqi | October 25, 2012

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The distinguished physicist Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy recently found his contract as visiting faculty not renewed by the Lahore Institute of Management Sciences (LUMS). The litany of reasons apparently given by LUMS for not renewing/extending Dr Hoodbhoy’s contract include: “You (Pervez Hoodbhoy) have ‘too much on your plate’ and your primary mission ‘seems to be to fix the world’.” Never mind that Dr Hoodbhoy is the only Pakistani scientist named by the Foreign Policy magazine in its 100 most influential global thinkers list as he was also told that he is above 60 years of age. Interestingly, the man, whose personal and academic integrity is beyond reproach, was hired when he was already over 60 — an irony that an institution that claims to have restored the honour due the Nobel laureate Dr Abdus Salam decided to can the scientist whose book bears a foreword by none other than Dr Salam. The perception now is that Dr Hoodbhoy was terminated not because of any academic issues but for being an outspoken critic of the national security paradigm.

But given LUMS’ webpage (http://bit.ly/zjtWHy) about the Prof Abdus Salam Chair it had announced, asking for clarity may be a bit too much. The world knows that Dr Salam was persecuted in Pakistan for his Ahmadi Muslim religious beliefs. The webpage mentions Dr Salam not as the first Muslim scientist to receive the Nobel Prize but only as the first Pakistani. A matter of perspective perhaps but where scientists of Dr Salam and Dr Hoodbhoy’s calibre are hounded as a routine, LUMS certainly has to come clean in both matters.

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Dr Mohammad Taqi can be reached at mazdaki@me.com. He tweets at http://twitter.com/mazdaki



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