Author: UNI
Publication: Sify News
Date: February 16, 2004
URL: http://headlines.sify.com/2911news2.html?headline=Abdul~Kalam~&~Abdul~Qadeer:~The~humble~and~the~vain
India's secular and democratic governance
and Pakistan's unstable political system and oscillation between corrupt
civilian governments and military dictatorships have been compared by a
well-known Gulf-based commentator to highlight how two scientists involved
in the development of nuclear bombs in two respective countries fared in
life.
A P J Abdul Kalam in India and Abdul
Qadeer Khan in Pakistan, both Muslims, were involved in the development
of the nuclear bomb.
While Khan is facing humiliation,
APJ Abdul Kalam is happily fulfilling his duties as Indian President, Abdullah
Al Madani, the Bahrain-based Gulf researcher and writer on Asian affairs
wrote in Gulf News.
The reason cannot but be attributed
to the different political systems and the accompanying conditions under
which each man has managed his life and career, he wrote.
President Kalam was born to a poor
Muslim family but India's well-established secular, democratic system,
in which opportunities to climb up to the top are ensured to every citizen
and are only conditioned by one's determination, loyalty to the country
and academic achievements, helped him emerge as the czar of science and
technology in the country in two decades.
"The boat owner's son, who sold
newspapers as a child to save money for buying books, became proud of his
national identity, and dedicated his knowledge and efforts for his country
and people rather than being prejudiced towards the Muslim minority in
India or serving other Muslim countries," he wrote.
Unlike Dr Kalam, who became the
11th President of India in July 2002, Abdul Qadeer Khan found himself lost
in his new country, Pakistan, in which he had arrived with his family from
his native Bhopal in 1952 at the age of 16. Under Pakistan's unstable political
system and oscillation between corrupt civilian governments and military
dictatorships, Khan's scientific talent and genius were not given attention,
forcing him to seek opportunities abroad after his graduation in science
from the University of Karachi in 1960.
In contrast to his Indian counterpart,
Khan always dreamt of power and loved the public spotlight and lavish lifestyle
and co-operated with successive Pakistani regimes since the overthrow of
his friend and then Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. He did not even
raise a finger when General Zia-ul-Haq hanged Bhutto in 1979 on a false
charge.
Under Zia, Pakistan witnessed an
unprecedented drive towards Islamisation and stronger focus on the notion
of Islamic solidarity in foreign policy, both of which reinforced Bhutto's
idea of producing an Islamic rather than a national nuclear bomb.
Moreover, fundamentalism and corruption
found their way into the military establishment, the apparatus controlling
Pakistan's nuclear programmes, leading to the prominence of generals with
links to extremist groups.
It was in such a climate and under
such ideology, which continued to prevail after Zia, that Qadeer Khan worked,
mingling his duty towards his country with his services to other Muslim
nations seeking nuclear technology.
The present problem lies in Pakistan's
system and ideology, Al Madani wrote.
