Dr,
Tariq Rahman
THE
ROMANCE OF ACADEMIA
As a child I used to hear with saucer-eyed interest about the tales of the great academics of Aligarh. My father had been to that great university of Indian Muslims and names like Dr. Ziauddin, Professor Mujib and Sir Sulaiman were parts of the fairy tale world I inhabited. It was a world in which people with towering intellects---for this is how I imagined them---roomed around in a campus where an intellectual party was always going on. In one room people recited verses from Ghalib while in another Professor Chakarvarty lectured on mathematics. The Vice Chancellor, Sir Ziuddin, taught mathematics to his M.Sc students, my father among them, in his office---an office which was always busy except for these students. But so remote was this world of the famous university from my own experience that I never imagined I could get anywhere near it. I was like the shy youth who cannot imagine marrying the belle of his dreams and so ends up marrying the girl next door.
The university remained a dream, a dream which was buried so deep in my mind that I was not even conscious of it. It was the belle so beyond my dreams that I could not think of it. So I did what most of the boys from my background did in the late sixties---I joined the armed forces and became an officer. Then, about nine years later, I left the forces (army) on my own and somehow, without really panning for it, got a Ph. D from England on a British Council Scholarship. The dream tucked away somewhere in the crypts of my mind could now become a reality. But the romantic image I had in my mind was of Cambridge not Aligarh. I was not bold so I never aspired to Cambridge. I never even talked about Cambridge though the University of Sheffield could offer me a lectureship and I could have stayed on and eventually tried for Cambridge. But I was always shy, always under confident, and I did not think of Cambridge as a reality. Another reason was that I did not want to settle down in the West for ever nor did I want to bring up my children in a foreign country for such children become aliens for the parents and the grandparents. So, I returned to Pakistan.
Here, with a Ph. D, I was welcomed by the University of Peshawar and joined as an associate professor. I will always be indebted to the University of Peshawar for initiating me on my academic career and the romance with academia which had started at the age of ten goes on till this day. This essay describes my experience. It is purely personal and I know other people might have had a different experience.
What is enjoyable about academia for me? A number of things: first, the leisure to do what I enjoy most i.e. reading, writing and lecturing; second, the academic freedom to express my own opinions in academic works; third, the collegial atmosphere and lack of hierarchy. I will not go into the history of the university in Europe though it began as a self-governing institution which always had considerable autonomy and a collegial atmosphere. Our universities in South Asia were bureaucratic creations by a colonial power. And yet there is considerable flexibility, very little subordination (at least at the ranks of associate and full professor which I have experienced) and more academic freedom then in any other service paid out of public funds. These are great blessings for an independent-minded intellectual for which I cannot but be grateful to the system.
Leisure, which I value most, is a much derided word. Critics allege that it boils down essentially to Pakistani academics having the time to be lazy and to run private businesses. Younger faculty members become itinerant hack lecturers who run from one private university to another all evening making money. This criticism is probably true but I am talking of my personal experience in this article. For me having extra time was the greatest blessing next to lack of regimentation and academic freedom. I always took my lecturing seriously and never missed any classes. However, I also made a point not to teach any regular full-time course outside my university. This meant that I usually had at least two or three days free. On these days I used to go to archives, libraries and write. Had I not had this leisure---and in no other profession would I have had it---I could never have written the books I have written. This, then, is a blessing which is worth more to me than the much higher salary which the corporate world could have given me or the much greater power which the military (my first profession) would have given me.
I will be honest with my readers when I tell them that the study and research I do is a hobby. I enjoy them very much. Just as other people play class or cards or cricket I play with ideas. In other words my reading and research is at the level of play not work---if ‘work’ is defined as it normally is by others i.e. distinct from ‘play’ and ‘relaxation’. Can anything be better than being paid for playing (especially if you are not playing as part of a team or to win since these must be stressful)? I do not think so. Thus, for me at least, there cannot be a profession better than the academic profession.
But if the academic profession is so enjoyable, why don’t other people make a beeline for it? This used to baffle me but now, after considerable research, I found out what other people already knew by personal experience. In Pakistan, upper class people have lifestyles which cannot be supported on the present salaries of public universities (though HEC has promised to improve them) so the universities used to lose this class to the higher bureaucracy and now they lose it to the corporate sector, the NGOs and the international bureaucracy. As for middle class people they ape the upper class and make a bid for the same kind of jobs. This leaves the lower middle classes and the rural salariat in the market and for them power is the key to a safe life in Pakistan. They need state power to save themselves from the police, the feudal lords and get things done---even perfectly legal things! Since university teachers, no matter how eminent, do not have this kind of state power the rural boy or the urban lower middle class boy is not immediately attracted to the university. That is why I found that almost all the young men I questioned did not initially choose to join the university especially if they were bright.
What this means is that it is not only the salaries and prestige of academics which needs to be improved. That will help, of course, but more needs to be done. What this ‘more’ should be is a tall order---it is that the state’s machinery should become just, rule-governed, impersonal and public oriented. When Max Weber’s ‘impersonal’ and ‘rational’ bureaucracy is created we will have a social revolution of the kind which occurred in Europe between the eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries. And when this happens state power will not be needed; it will be available to safeguard the interests of all citizens and not only those who ‘know’ somebody in the system. That is when academia will become more attractive than it presently is even for the intellectuals among us.
Anyway, even under the present circumstances, many young people may not know what fun it is to be an academic. Even in Pakistan it is the only job where you do not feel subordinated to others. It gives a sense of freedom. It gives you a chance to see the world at someone else’s expense. It even allows you to leave your name behind in the form of books and articles (remember Dr. Hamza Alavi). So, if you like reading books just for fun try to join a good university---no other place will pay you a monthly stipend just for reading books, experiencing the thrill of making a new discovery or contributing to existing knowledge and becoming famous. Moreover, even if you do not become famous and do not make new discoveries this is the job for you if you like hearing your own voice and getting paid for it!.