Unremarkable half decade

Sustained disregard for science and technology through successive regimes cuts to the core of Pakistan's woes

Sometime this month, the current government will pack its bags bringing an end to yet another tumultuous five-year period of our history. A lot has been said about how different the first three and a half years, and the last eighteen months have been. Yet in so many ways, the two periods have been nearly identical. Complete neglect of science and technology has been one of them.

Let us start with some basic information. In the last five years, we have had four ministers of science and technology — three in the PTI government and one in the PDM government. All four were men — Azam Swati, Fawad Chaudhry, Shibli Faraz and Agha Hassan Baloch — with no training or experience in any discipline remotely connected to science and technology. None made any serious effort to tackle pressing national issues related to science. It was clear from the ministerial appointments that both Prime Ministers neither had a vision nor any interest in prioritising science.

Moving beyond the disappointing and depressing leadership, let us now turn our attention to what material may be publicly available to analyse what has been done in the last five years. Of course, there is always the bombastic talk of the importance of science, the firm commitment to innovation and other scripted but hollow promises, but we should ask what exactly happened since 2018?

The starting point for me was the ministry website. The ministry website is so outdated that it is embarrassing. The “latest events” section mentions events from 2021. The most recent one being a STEM programme inauguration by the President on October 6^th 2021. The news section has no information about any achievements, conferences or any other major events related to science and technology, but is dedicated to issues about hiring of various staff at the ministry and when the interviews will take place. There is, however, one document on the website that (initially) excited me. It was in the policies and plans section and was titled “National Science Technology and Innovation Policy 2022”. The document was about 90 pages. I went through it several times, yet, I could not find anything about policy, roadmap or action items in the entire document. It was a weak description of how science and technology helps research, innovation and entrepreneurship. Some of the stuff seemed to come straight from blogs and websites and seemed completely out of place. It was also unnecessary. For example, I wonder why the national science and technology policy needs to say (as it does on page 70) about nanotechnology that “It is said to bring about itself a convergence of domains since all things are composed of atomic and molecular substance”. Writing such as this in a national-level policy document should make us all cringe.

There were 61 different policy statements listed in the document but few made much sense. For example, policy statement number 28 said “Science and Technology oriented social culture, harmonized with our religious and traditional cultural values, will be promoted”. I am unsure of what science and technology-oriented culture means and what the ministry will be doing here. Others were also bizarre, irrelevant and non-specific. Perhaps the most telling part of the whole policy document is the last policy statement (number 61) “A detailed implementation plan for National Science, Technology and Innovation Policy 2022 will be prepared”. With nearly twenty months since the report came, it is unclear where that implementation plan is.

As I read this strange document and reflected on the fact that five years is a long time to waste, I asked myself: why is this acceptable? Why did our favourite talk show hosts never bother to ask where is the country headed in the domain of science? The world around us has moved forward at a lightning pace while we are struggling to even get the basics right. The problem is not simply in leadership. It is also on the demand side of the equation. The problem is not simply in having uninterested ministers, it is also us not caring enough to demand.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 8^th, 2023.

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