In Benazir Bhutto’s second term as Prime Minister, Mansha and his wife were hounded out of Pakistan, forcing them to live in Boston for over two years, and even threatened with the stripping of their nationality.
Source/Credit: The Nation | Pakistan
By Asad Raza | June 13, 2015
Malala Yousafzai, Dr Abdus Salam, Pervez Hoodbhoy. What are these three people known for? Well, one is a teenage Western agent, the second a discredited scientist and Ahmadi infidel, and the third a ‘jahil’ apostate. That characterisation of Pervez Hoodbhoy was made by Ansar Abbassi, who reinforced the point not by any semblance of an argument, but by repeating the word ‘jahil’ to describe the nuclear physicist no less than 29 times in three minutes on a talk show discussing Malala’s first book. (See for yourself; who can blame you for not believing me?) The other physicist, Nobel Laureate Dr Abdus Salam, was described as an infidel of the Muslim religion for being part of the Ahmadiyya community in Pakistan, a tiny Islamic sect viciously and relentlessly persecuted in the country. When he died, his gravestone read ‘First Muslim Nobel Laureate’. A local magistrate ordered that the word ‘Muslim’ be erased, inflicting one final ignominy upon Pakistan’s greatest scientist.
Pakistan has an uneasy relationship with its most successful people. We find it much easier to nitpick and criticise than to commend and congratulate. It is unsettling to countenance the idea of role models within our society whom we could be proud to emulate. Our leading intellectual powerhouses are better known for failing to practice the right form of Islam, our cricketers are lampooned for speaking broken English, while our businessmen are lambasted for their (real and perceived) inherited privileges and cosy political ties.
That last point is worth exploring further. Shahid Khan is the richest man in the world of Pakistani origin. He is worth nearly $5 billion, a fortune he built virtually from scratch after going to America at the age of 16 to study Industrial Engineering in Illinois. He bought a company called Flex-N-Gate, one that makes customised spare parts for pickup trucks. He never looked back. He never saw fit to invest in his native Pakistan, stating in 2011 that ‘there are elements in Pakistan that start to hold you back once reach certain checkpoints’. Ever the astute businessman, it is hard to see how he was wrong. He lives a tranquil life in America, owns one NFL team and one English football club; most Pakistanis aren’t even aware of his existence. Would his route to success have been so seamless in his homeland? Looking at another example, one would have to be sceptical at best. Mian Muhammad Mansha is Pakistan’s richest man, with nearly all his business interests concentrated in Pakistan. Tens of thousands of Pakistanis are employed by one of his many businesses, be it MCB Bank, Adamjee Insurance or any of Nishat Group’s myriad other ventures. He is the face of the argument that Pakistani businessmen can smash glass ceilings and be private sector tycoons without needing to cross the geographical boundaries of their country.
It appears to be an inexorable march to success, but it isn’t. Nothing in Pakistan is really. Mansha has faced criticism from people of all religious and political persuasions, accusations that his acquisition of MCB was facilitated by his cordial ties with Nawaz Sharif and claims by Rehman Malik in the Senate that Pakistan’s government sold 49 per cent of HBL’s shares to Mian Mansha. We may all have our favourite Rehman Malik-themed jokes, but accusations such as that in the Senate are no laughing matters. They don’t have to be true to be damaging.
It could be worse. It used to be. In Benazir Bhutto’s second term as Prime Minister, Mansha and his wife were hounded out of Pakistan, forcing them to live in Boston for over two years, and even threatened with the stripping of their nationality. The irony of ‘making redundant’ a man who employs more Pakistanis than any institution except the government and the army would have been rueful, but inescapable. It is conjecture, of course, but perhaps electing to stay in Pakistan to build his fortune was one of the few decisions he made with his heart rather than his head, for love of country rather than pragmatism of business.
We cannot put such widespread mean-spiritedness down to cultural differences between the perceptions of success in the East and the West, either. If that were so, this parsimony of praise inflicted upon reformists, intellectuals and entrepreneurs in Pakistan would extend to larger southern neighbours, too. We are divided mot by culture or ethnicity of peoples, but by political convenience and a slapdash geographical line thrown on a map by 1940s Britain, which had finally decided to reverse its 200-year dalliance with imperialism in the Indian subcontinent.
On the contrary, however, Azim Premji, one of India’s richest men, might be amongst the most wealthy in terms of the accolades and awards that have flowed his way. His business and philanthropic ventures, propped up by the enormous success of his IT company Wipro Limited, have seen over 1 million children in the most economically deprived slums in India receive an education that the state had given up ambitions of trying to provide. He has given away 14.5pc of his wealth (a little over $3 billion) to helping the least fortunate, and the environment that allowed him entrepreneurial freedom is reaping, many times over, the rewards of his generosity. He has been awarded (and here I summarise lest the reader become bored) the Padma Pusha Award by India’s government, the ET Lifetime Achievement Awards, elected the Greatest Entrepreneur by India Business Weekly and had honorary doctorates conferred upon him by at least 5 universities in India. It is disheartening to observe that in contrast, when, just last year, Abdus Sattar Edhi’s house was robbed of millions of rupees worth of gold and other valuables, one of the prevailing sentiments voiced in articles that subsequently appeared was suspicion and cynicism over why he had such vast sums of money at home in the first place. This, remember, is probably Pakistan’s most venerated man, so I guess the rest of us had best get used to more slander and smearing than praise and plaudits.
We have managed to hold on to Mansha and Hoodbhoy, but it is worth pondering how much more they could have accomplished in a country more admiring and less cynical of their talents. Maybe in silent, contemplative moments, they think about it, too. If we are not careful, too many talented young businessmen might look at Mansha, and then at Shahid Khan, and buy a one-way first class ticket out of Pakistan.
Read original post here: Perspective: Scorning our successes | Asad Raza
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