This new beginning

Among the men in tuxedos there stood a man in Pakistan's ceremonial garb, including the 'pug' (turban) on his head, to receive his Nobel Prize in Physics. He was Dr Abdus Salam wanted the world to know that he comes from Pakistan, a Third World country that could be on way to a glorious future. That it would take Pakistan 37 years to recognise his singular contribution, he would not know. Early this year Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif visited the European Centre for Nuclear Physics (CERN), in Trieste, Italy and saw for himself what reverence the world of science shows to Dr Salam - CERN even preserves his hookah - and he has now decided to acknowledge the pride the great physicist did to Pakistan. He gave approval for renaming of the National Centre for Physics at the Quaid-e-Azam University to the Professor Abdus Salam Centre for Physics. The prime minister also approved a grant of five annual fellowships through the Higher Education Commission for PhD scholarships in the field of Physics at reputed foreign universities. Dr Salam had been invited to the same centre at the Quaid-e-Azam University shortly after he became a Nobel laureate in 1979, but students of a rightwing religious political party won't let him enter the campus. The ceremony couldn't be held. Has the time changed now that the storm of religious extremism is over and the prime minister would be spared of some kind of fatwa by the so-called custodians of Islam? Perhaps yes, the light has begun filtering through the chink. Last month, the Sindh Assembly legislated against forced conversions, unmindful of the protest by the religious brigade. Hopefully, the recognition of his singular attainment by the state will push down the forbidding barrier blocking the religious minorities' right to equal citizenship of Pakistan.