Living with others

If human resources are the real wealth of a country, then that lost art of living with others is the real essence of prosperity. Give a fancy toy to rowdy twins who don’t know how to share, and they will break it into pieces by tomorrow. Pakistan’s case is no different. Top Pakistani professionals may have made great hospitals, dams, IPPs, roads, bridges, garment and leather factories – but they know not how to share and distribute its fruits.

The knowledge of sharing these fruits and the duties, rights and obligations that ensue comes from social scientists and those who come from the discipline of humanities. For amongst other things, these disciplines, whose list includes the subjects of political science, economics, history, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, geography, psychology, teach the art, science and basis of sharing and living with others in a harmonious, just, certain, rule-based fashion.

Somewhere down the line Pakistan lost its track, and gave up on social sciences and humanities, whatever little distance it had ventured in that direction in her early years. It was back in 1990 when economic historian Akbar Zaidi first wrote on ‘the dismal state of social sciences in Pakistan’. Later articles and lectures by Nadeem ul-Haque, SM Naseem, Mahmood Hasan and Ishrat Hussain reiterated Zaidi’s analyses. It has now been brought to light to by the British Council’s recent report on ‘The university research system in Pakistan’. (See also BR Research’s Everybody knows, Jan, 7, 2019)

he list of causes behind the fall of social sciences in Pakistan is long. Authors of British Council’s recent report and others cited earlier attribute itto ,inter alia, Pakistan’s tendency to fall in the lap of authoritarian regimes and weak democratic disposition; lack of government funding for social sciences;failure to collaborate within universities and among universities;distribution of public and private goods through state patronage and cronyism; religious fundamentalism; policy hijacking by donor and multilateral community; absence of adequate academic journals; industry-academic linkages in some sub-disciplines; and the blind pursuit of ‘immediate relevance’.

Little wonder then,as Faisal Bari points out in British Council’s report,that in Higher Education Commission’s (HEC)Vision 2025, “there are only one or two places in which social sciences are mentioned, and that too in passing. Yet, when you think about problem-solving impact, social sciences research can provide incredible returns on investment.” There shouldn’t be any surprises, therefore, that policies – whether by government officials or by donors on government’s behalf, don’t work. How can they work when formal knowledge systems for policymaking – think tanks and universities alike – “are based on a weak foundation of social sciences in the country.”

How should Pakistan fix this wrong? One solution offered in British Council’s report revolves around the idea of increasing government funding for social science research; another maintains that the HEC should form coordinating research council which in forms research councils in social sciences and other disciplines. It is difficult to imagine if another government funding, or research council for social sciences will work. If the same people – public representatives and public servants – are to direct and staff such councils. What incentives does the government have to do so in any case?

Even in the most ideal scenario where one assumes that there is no puppet management by the aliens, any political party – this PTI-walas or any other – are not re-elected for their farsighted, egalitarian, well-nuanced policies that emerged from social scientists-led critical thinking to ensure distributive justice.

Nay!They are re-elected for quick, short-to-medium term fixes in power, gas, ease of doing business, taxes, exchange rate.
Sans exceptions born out of individual interests and efforts, the assumption that can state can fix itself without a demand from society is not generally tenable in representative model of governance that this country on paper aspires to be. Which means that the demand for social scientists and humanities scholars has to come from those are to be represented – and that’s an area that hasn’t been studied by Pakistan’s scholarly community. While a host of tenable and untenable reasons have been attributed to the poor state of social sciences and humanities in Pakistan, the market aspects,and public wants/needs/opinion have not been studied.

It would be a useful contribution to research on the state of social science if researchers can study the wage rates of social science graduates that Pakistan has produced over the years. Or study why MNCs in Pakistan don’t generally hire social science graduates for their core business or line management, when in fact their sister concerns elsewhere in the world do. Or study why do Pakistani software developers don’t understand the need to read Virginia Wolf.

Or study whether or not – and how social science graduates have contributed to business growth, creativity, problem solving in Pakistani business context, when graduates of other disciplines could not. On that account an excellent long-term panel data-based research would be to study the contributions of students of Habib University’s students – who have studied liberal arts modules regardless of their professional specialisation – in comparison with other fresh business and social science graduates.

Academics often vex at the mention of public opinion. But consider this. There are towns in this country that has terrible doctors, engineers and accountants. But that doesn’t prevent the dwellers of those towns from becoming a politician. Then why is it to that the presence of tons of terrible politicians preventsyoung Pakistanis from becoming a politician or even engage in active citizenship. The so-called hardworking honourable Pakistanis do not only detest bad politicians; they detest being a politician or even become a socially active citizen on account of being a waste of time, or too risky or whatever else.

Or why is it so that jumping to conclusions and ascribing to conspiracy theories is a national pastime. And why is to so that the best of students in top Pakistani universities (no purpose naming shaming here) demand ‘practical’ education as against theoretical pedagogy when in fact teaching ‘practical stuff’ is akin to producing minds with a limited shelf life.When new knowledge and new practises springs forth, they have no theoretical foundations to grapple with new realities. Research in such areas is considered irrelevant. But consider this: when M.C. Chagla– the famous Indian jurist –decided to intern with British parliamentary system to learn its nuts and bolts, his friends ridiculed him for his ‘irrelevant’ intellectual pursuit. Chagla had the last laugh!