Mahjabeen Islam

June 24, 2005

APPNA: Doctors without Focus

A few weeks ago Saleem Akhtar wrote an article in the Pakistan Link, titled APPNA’s Million Dollar Tribute to Advani. Some piqued APPNA doctors posted the article on the APPNA listserv to discuss it, others called me to protest it and persuade me to write and “correct” him.
Reading the article makes me think that there is little to correct and a lot to agree with. Akhtar makes the statement that 250 Pakistani-Americans doctors went to India and each spent an average of $4000 so that the tribute to Advani is by simple math, a million dollars. The point he raises is well taken. All that money could have been spent on a variety of causes either in India, Pakistan or here in the United States, and he mentions organization after organization where this could have been done.
And the majority of the article makes ultimate sense. It is the ending that hurts; not just because of content but primarily because it is a widely held but entirely fallacious impression of APPNA doctors. Saleem Akhtar states, “Others have doctors without Borders, we have doctors without scruples”
APPNA is the largest democratically run organization of expatriate Pakistanis. It is a non-profit and non-political organization. The greatest attribute of APPNA is its strong democratic tradition. Elections are held yearly for president, secretary and treasurer with a strict oversight by a third party professional agency. All meetings are held with full observation of Roberts’ Rules of Order. The Board of Trustees is an overseeing body and the Ethics and Grievance committee another overseeing body is made up of an astonishing array of the most judicious, principled and committed-to-APPNA physicians. Other committees range from the hedonistic to the mundane: APPNA Alliance to Social Welfare and Disaster Committees, with many others in between. Chairs are appointed and meetings are held and reports are filed at the four meetings of the general body and executive council that are held each year.
The APPNA Sehat program is run in selected villages in Pakistan and immunization rates that surpass the West have been achieved. On a less formal basis the APPNA membership has become dynamic in its orientation and played a vital role in focusing the attention of the government of Pakistan at the time when physicians were being targeted along sectarian lines. Money was raised and funneled efficiently to Pakistan at the time of devastation by floods. Time and again when deserving cases come up, financial assistance is provided. Just recently several members contributed large amounts of money for tsunami relief in South East Asia.
It is vital to remember that APPNA is a non-political organization; in fact its orientation is primarily medical and social. Within the umbrella of a non-political association APPNA has and should voice protest or support for relevant socio-political issues. Every organization is greatly strengthened when run democratically and when processes are strengthened and institution building occurs. This is all the more important and actually surprising that it can occur in a Pakistani organization for the motherland is sorely lacking in processes and institution building and is entirely personality-cult oriented. And yet there is a finite limit to which there can be dabbling in politics.
The genesis of Saleem Akhtar’s great stab at APPNA physicians occurred solely due to the current APPNA president Dr. Husain Malik overstepping that very defined limit. Over the last few years APPNA has taken to going for a winter visit to a foreign land such as Morocco, Spain, Egypt and China. This year the contenders for this winter jaunt of interested members were Israel and India. Very interesting choices you will agree being that both have acrimonious relations with the motherland. It is not a small blessing that Israel was ruled out for the grave lapses in judgment that occurred in the India trip would have been even more disastrous had they occurred in Israel.
Dr. Husain Malik has been lovingly labeled the “telephone president”: he campaigned tirelessly and called probably each and every voting member of APPNA and persuaded and pleaded for a vote. APPNA’s 501 C3 non-profit status is well known, and one would think that its president would be very conversant with it. It was decided in 2004 that the winter trip would be to India and instead of dispatching the tour committee chair to India, Dr. Malik himself took two pre-APPNA-India-trip trips to India and met with leader of the opposition and BJP chair L.K. Advani and others. These reconnaissance trips are usually taken to ensure that hotel, meal and transport arrangements are up to par, why the meeting with Advani?
Per APPNA’s strong democratic tradition the president is supposed to consult the executive officers prior to decisions of importance and especially before committing any significant amount of money to any cause. Just like the current leaders of Pakistan, Dr. Malik has no room for discussion, entertaining opinions or dissent or simply being inclusive. He is quoted by several people as saying, “I am the president and I will do what I want”.
There was no discussion with anyone, especially not with the executive officers and a travesty unfolded. Advani was a the chief guest at a dinner hosted by BJP’s Najma Heptullah and a plaque of appreciation was given to him and to defense minister Pranab Mukherjee. Additionally $40,000 was promised to a couple Indian villages, which exceeds the $10,000 max that the president can promise by executive privilege.
Saleem Akhtar is right; we did not just spend a million dollars in the trip most of which went to India in hedonism rather than charity; APPNA honored the killer of 3000 Muslims and the destroyer of the Babri mosque. It is still mind-boggling to me.
Not only is Dr. Husain Malik a self-professed lover of Bollywood flicks, he is also truly talented in the art of tenaciously hanging on to power. In the spring meeting there was no recognition of the blunder that he had committed. Worse when the APPNA membership berated and scolded and tried to pass a vote of no-confidence against him, he did not step down, in fact helped by equally power-hungry friends, the entire spring meeting of APPNA was scuttled and only a watered down resolution demanding his apology and recommending close consultation with the executive officers in the future was passed.
The whole idea of a winter trip in my opinion is too hedonistic and should be scrapped for APPNA needs to acknowledge the misdirection towards triviality that it has taken and rectify it. It is small consolation that the large majority of APPNA members are terrific people having achieved great professional heights and contributed to their respective communities. The leader of an association is not just the integrator of events but also the one with the vision. It is unjust, mean spirited and a broad generalization to say that APPNA’s are doctors without scruples. Under the blinkered presidency of Husain Malik they at maximum can be labeled doctors without a focus.
And amongst God’s great blessings is also this that the year will end. Husain Malik is being protected by that very democratic tradition that APPNA should be rightfully proud of, for the process of pursuing complaints in the Ethics and Grievance committee is protracted and there is no impeachment clause in the constitution of APPNA. With checks and balances and hearings and counter-hearings being vital to the strengthening of processes, it might well be near the end of his tenure that he is removed democratically. And for situations such as this one I feel so grateful that nothing came of the talk of making the presidency longer than a year. It would then have been “doctors without APPNA”.
(Mahjabeen Islam is a physician practicing in Toledo Ohio. Her email is mahjabeenislam@hotmail.com)