Hoodbhoy & shrinking space for reason

Standing by Hoodbhoy is not act of deriding private university, but upholding tolerant, plural, democratic Pakistan.

Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy is neither a regular academic nor a ‘civil society activist’. Hoodbhoy is the foremost voice of reason and rationality for the past few decades, who has single-handedly challenged the paranoid state, its pernicious attempts to obfuscate social reality and to sell extremist ideologies as nationalism. His impending exit from Pakistan’s most acclaimed academic institution, i.e., the Lahore University of Management Sciences (Lums) is not an ordinary event. It denotes the shrinking space for dissent, reason and tolerance for those who are not wedded to the parameters of patriotism, identity and jingoism as set by a praetorian state. Since the day this news hit the media, there has been an intense debate on the reasons for the non-renewal of his contract at Lums. Hoodbhoy was never and will not be unemployable. He is a leading specialist of his subject, a prolific writer and commentator, as well as a fair man who has been cajoled, harassed and branded as “anti-Pakistan”. But, this has not stopped him from speaking up and challenging orthodoxies.

Pakistan intelligentsia and academia should be grateful to Hoodbhoy, for he has consistently attempted to expand the space for enlightened views in an environment of bigotry and fascism, proudly nurtured by Pakistan’s civilian and military rulers for their opportunistic goals. It is immaterial whether the grounds for his leaving a leading university are technically or legally sound. This is about institutions and systems that work against one another and berate non-conformists.

Lums’ departments have valid reasons and full authority to hire and fire people. My sources inform me that the Social Sciences department finds Hoodbhoy’s academic skills not fully relevant (fair enough); and the physics department chair was not inclined to extend his services for a variety of reasons, none of them expressly ideological.

Is an ‘ideological’ shift underway? This is a contentious issue. However, there is a brazen rise of  ‘religion’ in the Pakistani public space. Television, cyber space, political parties, and most importantly, public culture is increasingly hostage to a motley crew of religious conservatives and preachers. Not all signs of religiosity are represented by the Taliban or by the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. The Tableeghi Jamaat is reportedly growing on the Lums campus, having established quite a fearsome presence over the past few years and recruiting a number of on-roll and graduated Lums students. Al Huda, another preaching outfit, is well-positioned in the urban middle classes and elites in Pakistan (and even abroad). I have no particular issue with this phenomenon except that these developments must not crowd out the secularists and liberals who, for a tolerant and harmonious society, should be able to exhibit freely that space is provided to all shades of opinion. But this is a lopsided battle because ‘soft’ radicalisation is thriving in an environment where core state institutions continue to use extremism as a policy instrument and both autonomous and semi-autonomous outfits use religion to justify barbaric violence against those whom they consider  ‘infidels’, blow up pluralistic spaces such as Sufi shrines and browbeat the media into submission. In such a milieu, those who are secular cannot survive and increasingly, he or she is physically endangered for being a US agent or a traitor at large. Therefore, the identity of Pakistan is akin to an undefined, often contentious interpretation of religion backed by martial-nuclear prowess.

Unfortunately, Hoodbhoy fails all the tests of this paranoid schizophrenic framework of nationalism. He opposes extremism so he is a US agent (Imran Khan, the torchbearer of change, said so in a distasteful TV show). He warns against nuclear weapons and so he becomes a traitor. He says science, learning and public discourse should be secular so he is ‘unpatriotic’. The Pakistani right wing’s favourite anti-US hero, Noam Chomsky, has been tolerated in American universities and enjoys a public space despite all the constraints.

Hoodbhoy is an asset for a beleaguered Pakistan. Too bad that Lums is losing him. Standing by Hoodbhoy is not an act of deriding a private university, whatever standard it may excel in, but is part of upholding the cause for academic excellence, intellectual freedoms and ultimately, the cause for a tolerant, plural, democratic Pakistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 2^nd, 2012.