December 12 , 2008
A Talented Nation but …
“Tell this girl the answers to the questions!” said the proctor glowering over me as I furiously wrote out my M.B.B.S. answers. She pointed toward the daughter of the medical college principal who smiled smugly, waiting, pen in hand, for me to regurgitate my answers.
“I can’t!” I panicked-pleaded. The proctor moved on to the next victim and a quick agreement was made that the examinee would be allowed to liberally cheat as long as the principal’s daughter was assisted.
A few days ago investigative journalism revealed that Supreme Court Chief Justice Abdul Hamid Dogar’s daughter’s grades were manipulated so that she could be admitted to a medical college. The majority opinion in legal circles appears to be that the Chief Justice should step down, at least until a full investigation is completed, and have his second in line take over.
Analogies were drawn over the case of the son of the former Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, and again legal opinion seemed to chorus that the two cases were very similar. It appears that in the Chaudhry as well as the Dogar case, people were stumbling over each other to ingratiate the powerful. Chief Justice Dogar initially denied knowledge of the manipulation of his daughter’s grades, but now states that no wrong was done!
My disillusionment was complete at age 22 when the medical college principal’s daughter, the very year that the proctor was shopping in the exam for her to be helped, stepped proudly on stage in Dow Medical College as a position holder. And later when I indignantly challenged her conscience and principles, she turned on the same glib face that she wore the day of the exam as her fingers drummed the table awaiting the answers.
I used to be a terrible examinee, high anxiety, sweating the small stuff. Perhaps I have post-traumatic stress disorder for I shall never forget that day: the girl that did help her with the answers had it down to a science. In the few seconds that I did raise my head I saw her flip up her kameez and on the top of the thigh part of her shalwar were sewn several layered pockets and in each sat a neatly folded piece of paper, so neatly and measuredly folded that it fit in the palm of the hand. While I racked my stressed mind for the answers and wrote like there was no tomorrow, she would just flip the kameez end, pull out the piece, cup it in her hand and voila! And with nary a drop on her brow, have time left over to help others in need.
Year after year of medical professional exams, studying full texts and not abbreviated exam summaries, spent mentally and emotionally and the day dawned that I graduated. One has to go to the medical college office to get one’s transcript, and so off I went. A middle aged man with little to do sat in a large office. On hearing my request he said that he traveled a long distance to get to work and had five children. Momentarily I did not understand the connection, but his crassness did not take long to crash through the idealism of a 25 year old. My transcript was of course “lost”, as was my argument with my mother about this ridiculous corruption and how I stolidly refused to be a part of it. A little money and my transcript was “oh goodness, it was right here!”
There is no dearth of talent in Pakistan. We have stars in every category; a Nobel Prize winner as well. But as a generality our collective Achilles’ heel is greed and corruption. Time and again it shows itself in the best of our leaders and the most scintillating of situations. My fear is that we are transmitting it faithfully to the coming generations: “nothing can be done without influence”, “in life it all depends on who you know”, “giving a little money here and there to get your work done is not bribery” and on and on, permutations of the same premise.
By the way that daughter of the medical college principal is not a practicing physician, though she lives in the United States . She was not able to pass the licensing exams. Guess they didn’t have facilitators that knew Daddy. Darn. (Mahjabeen Islam is a physician and free-lance columnist practicing in Toledo Ohio . Her email is mahjabeenislam@hotmail.com )
