RIP Dr AQ Khan!

Father of Pakistan’s nuclear programme now rests in peace. Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, who held a doctorate in metallurgical engineering and resurrected the country’s atomic weapons programme, died at the age of 85. He will always be held in high esteem for his services in the field of defence technology, which made the country invincible. What started off as an ambitious deterrence programme, way back in 1970s, was enriched by the late scientist to let Pakistan become the first nuclear power in the Muslim world.

Though marred by controversies at the hands of realpolitik, for his alleged role in transfer of technology to what the United States then dubbed rogue states, especially Iran and North Korea, Dr Qadeer was a celebrity at home, and an unresolved mystery for the word at large for his genius and deceptive role. Dr Khan lived and died a life of utter secrecy. Especially, his last two decades were in oblivion, as he had disassociated himself from research and even socialisation.

Irrespective of the fact that he was under surveillance, as he stayed put at home, his stature and name was sacrosanct. He also founded the Khan Research Laboratories in 1976, reportedly the bastion of uranium enrichment in Pakistan, and ran it as one of the world’s most prestigious and articulate research institutions under his introverted command.

Dr Khan’s rise to prominence was dramatic and has a fairytale signature. The spectre of suspicion fell on him in the Netherlands, when he was accused of stealing the centrifuge uranium enrichment technology in the 1970s. Pundits of enrichment claim that the same knowhow was instrumental in carving Pakistan’s first nuclear weapon. But that allegation couldn’t be substantiated to this day.

In a twist of trajectory, Dr Khan out-of-blue approached the then Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto with a daredevil plan of action, offering him expertise for Pakistan’s debut nuclear weapons programme. From then onwards, the tale became one of the well-kept state secrets. It was an era when India had tested an atomic device in 1974, terming it as Smiling Buddha, plunging the region into an unending arms race.

This is where Dr Khan excelled as the architect of the deterrence programme, and went on against all odds to enrich isotopes and rewrote a technology-oriented defence doctrine. The State of Pakistan, the armed forces and the governments of the day stood firmly behind him as a national duty. He was lucky enough to be blessed with competent contemporaries, and an uninterrupted supply line of resources. This helped Pakistan become invincible, as it went on to register a much superior bomb programme as compared to India. Mr Bhutto’s utterance “We (Pakistanis) will eat grass, even go hungry, but we will have our own (nuclear) bomb” became a catchword of nationalism. Dr Khan, a recipient of Nishan-i-Imtiaz, lived up to the nation’s trust and triumphed.

President Arif Alvi has rightly termed Dr AQ Khan the pioneer of ‘nation-saving nuclear deterrence’. Despite a persistent character assassination campaign against him by international nuke wanderers, Dr Khan and Pakistan were able to play cards close to their chest. This is what makes the late scientist a legend in himself. The nation is highly indebted to him, and owes unflinching tributes.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, October 11^th, 2021.

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