In pursuit of power and prestige

Some doctors, professors choose to go where the grass looks greener - the law enforcement

KARACHI:

When Muhammad Musa Abro, a PhD aspirant and a government college lecturer, learned that he had qualified for a place as the deputy superintendent of Sindh Police, he couldn’t wipe the grin off his face.

Everyone in the Zoology lecturer’s closest circles was beaming with pride. Abro had managed to pass the Sindh Public Service Commission examination held for the post and was now on his way to transition from a career in academia to practice law-enforcement. Police service is a symbol of power and prestige in the society, boasted his friends and students who’d come to congratulate the lecturer. He believed them to be telling the truth. After all, no one salutes a professor when they see one passing by. Teachers are just not as intimidating beyond the four walls of a classroom.

Where toasts and praises were plentiful, there were many who’d also come to criticise the academic’s shift of career. “Every individual, each youth is obsessed with having power and prestige. We are living in a cruel atmosphere where people are judged in terms of power and post,” commented a friend of the lecturer on his Facebook page. “Abro has a rural background and would need a powerful job,” his friend added.

Abro, who practices as a lecturer at the Hyderabad Government College University with additional responsibility of deputy controller of examinations, completed his MPhil in 2016. Since then, he had been working towards acquiring a doctorate in Nematode diversity of freshwater fish in the Indus River.

He had earned his appointment as a lecturer upon qualifying for the post in a Sindh Public Service Commission examination in 2010. Before this he had also qualified for the post of Airport Security Force Inspector through the Federal Public Service Commission but never joined. He had instead settled for a lectureship.

Read more: Keep the morale up, CM Murad asks Sindh police

A list of officers in the police service of the country revealed that at least 48 doctors, including PhDs, are currently serving in the department. Most of them are MBBS doctors. The list, available with the Express Tribune, shows five doctors to be serving as Grade-22 officers. At least 10 doctors on Grade-21 in the police service, 16 on Grade-20, nine on Grade-19 and 14 serving as police officers on Grade-18.

According to Dr Murtaza Khusro, who is also a former officer of the civil service, the reality is not too far from how some on the lecturer’s social media see positions of power. For which, he blames the post-colonial mindset, which has hammered South Asians to see power as prestige. “We still have a colonial-esque government structure where power guarantees prestige instead of noble professions like medical or teaching. Which is why a police officer gets more respect than a doctor or professor in our society,” he claimed.

Khusro himself was a MBBS doctor, who forwent his oath for a career in civil service as an officer in the Federal Bureau of Revenue before retiring as a Grade 20 officer.

Speaking to The Express Tribune about his career trajectory, Khusro said that he was disappointed to observe during his medical practice that qualified people of noble professions were seldom given due respect in society. “I witnessed a senior professor made to unnecessarily wait outside the office of a police sergeant. I have also seen a Grade-20 doctor standing in front of a section officer at the Sindh Secretariat without being offered a chair. What I had never seen was such people being offered a sliver of respect by even a peon or any secretary of an administrative department, let alone the officer,” he lamented. “Upon witnessing this disparity, I decided to switch to a profession where there was more respect,” he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 24^th, 2021.