Regrettably, this globally renowned scientist was a cult hero and was disowned by this state
HYDERABAD: All secular and humanitarian sections of Pakistan are pleased with the decision of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who has announced to rename the National Centre for Physics at Islamabad’s Quaid-e-Azam University after Dr Abdus Salam. It was, indeed, a historic fallacy not to honour and recognise the hero and to nurture dismissive behaviour towards Dr Abdus Salam, who became Pakistan’s first ever Nobel laureate by winning the celebrated international award in particle physics, while mathematically proving the electroweak unification theory. When we hear and read today about our founding father, Quaid-e-Azam’s secular sermons, after Independence he said, “You are free; you are free to go to your temples. You are free to go to your mosques or to any other places of worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion, caste or creed—that has nothing to do with the business of the state.”
Regrettably, this globally renowned scientist was a cult hero and was disowned by this state. He was denied from establishing any institute in Pakistan related to his field that led him to establish The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Italy, which was a driving force behind global effort to advance scientific expertise in the developing world for more than 50 years. We, as a nation, must celebrate our sages who are lost in the religious labyrinth of our country.
Nasir Soomro
Published in The Express Tribune, December 9th, 2016.
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