Einstein and Pakistan

EINSTEIN AND PAKISTAN

My romance with Physics started when I was in class 8 back in 1964. At that time, United States of America was thoroughly terrified by the rising Soviet Power. In order to save itself from the Communist upsurge it clutched at every straw in the mighty turbulent ocean of world events. And one of these straws was Pakistan. The panicky Americans thought that this fledging Islamic Republic could be made into a great bulwark against Communism. So they showered all kinds of goodies on Pakistan. Among these goodies was a toy nuclear reactor that still works near Islamabad. In those very days of ardent love, U.S. tried to educate the people of Pakistan about Nuclear Science. So, in 1964, a grand Nuclear Exhibition was set up at a ground on the back of Punjab Assembly Chambers to demonstrate peaceful uses of Nuclear Science. In those days of Communist fear, Americans were very sincere with their junior partners. There were no gun totting trigger happy Raymond Davis’s roaming around in Lahore with license to kill. So, this Nuclear Exhibition was a symbol of their sincerity. Imagine huge burly nuclear scientists from the United States of America painstaking explaining the details of nuclear fission chain reaction to pajama and bathroom slipper clad little brownie street urchins of Gawalmandi, Lahore like myself! Yes, Americans were great in those days. They at least inspired me, then a back street boy of Lahore, to study Physics. I did not become a great nuclear physicist with three Ph.D.’s but I did enjoy a long wonderful career as a Physics Teacher. Some of my students have become Ph.D.’s and are heading eminent institutions in Pakistan.

When we talk of Physics we must remember a very undisciplined, very unruly and a good for nothing teacher of Physics, I mean Albert Einstein. According to his biographers, Michael White and John Gribbin,  Einstein used to tutor two students. Both students failed miserably and poor Einstein lost his job. Einstein had a problem, he was very inimical to discipline and authority. While everyone at the Swiss Institute of Technology used to address the Principal as Honorable Principal, Einstein would call him by name, Mr. Weber. Deeply offended by his motherland’s autocratic government and its rising militarism, he relinquished his German citizenship by paying a special relinquishment fee and became a Swiss citizen. He was a person who simply could not behave with a standard behavior.

Both fortunately and unfortunately, this unruly guy started dabbling with Physics. He just scraped through the examinations. After completing education in a dubious way, his first two attempts at writing scientific papers were utter failures. Then this young man did what he was good at, that is, breaking the rules.

Start of twentieth century was a time of turmoil for Physics. Eminent Physicists of that time could not explain certain observations using laws of physics known at that time. At that time it was thought that mass and length of a body, and the time taken by an event are constant for all observers but the speed of light, which is a wave, depends on the medium.      

Enter Einstein, with one stroke of his pen, he inverted everything. He assumed that the speed of light is a constant for all observers but mass and length of a body and the time taken by an event may be different for different observers. As fortune favors fools, with this single stroke of his pen he was not only able to explain all the observations hitherto  unexplained by eminent scientists of the era, but also got a bonus in form of mass-energy relation, E = mc² . His idea of inverting the whole Physics was so bizarre that the Nobel Committee did not dare to confer on him the Noble Prize. He was awarded the Noble Prize after many years in 1925 on a very small contribution to Physics, the Photoelectric effect. At that time, implications of the relation E=mc² were not clear even to Einstein. In 1911, when Einstein was visiting Prague an unknown person had an angry argument with Einstein blaming him of creating a formula for devastating the whole world. Einstein, at that time not fully knowing the significance of his discovery, was very much upset by this incident.

Now, coming over to Pakistan, the Sindhies, the Balochies, the Punjabies and the Pakhtoons of Pakistan are undisciplined and unruly like Einstein, they detest authority just like him. But unfortunately, they are very much oppressed by authoritarian rule created by none else but by themselves. This they have done because unlike Einstein, they are not educated in Switzerland. In fact, they have not been educated at all. The doctrinaire and obscurantist education some of them do get makes them shiver before shadows. They cannot imagine new things, what to speak of imagining like Einstein and turning the whole universe upside down.

 At present, Pakistan is also like Physics of 1900, confused and uncertain, awaiting a breakthrough. And like Physics of 1900, a breakthrough the Nuclear Pakistan of 2012 must have.

I daily buy a newspaper for Rs. 15. I read most of the articles in it. What are these articles? They are lamentations about the present state of the country written mostly by ex bureaucrats as if offering explanations of their sins. Some articles are written by Economic Experts full of should, should, and should and would, would, and would. One thing common to all these articles is that no one in authority reads these articles because everyone in authority is busy raking in the money. The ordinary people do not read these articles as they have no money to buy the expensive newspaper and have no time to read it. People like myself who do afford the luxury of reading these articles have zero impact on society. It is we, the English readers, and purveyors of a revolution in Pakistan, who are the most marginalized people in this society.

As I discussed earlier, revolution is not in our genes. But we are unruly and undisciplined like Einstein. Let people of Pakistan too, behave as Einstein; just invert everything next time when they get the chance to vote. People must not vote for a person or the party that has been elected previously in a constituency. Let them do it just without any reason. Just do it for the sake of doing it. Let people attach no expectation to this deed. Like Ram Krishen said to Arjun in the battle field of Krukshetera, “ It is the expectation of their deeds that makes men miserable”. Let them just forget everything like Roti, Kapra and Makaan or even Heaven or Hell.

People must vote for some Muktaran Mai instead of some favourite, incumbent, dynastic  feudal lord or reverent Peer. Surely, Mukhtaran Mai is not going to get them any benefit. But like Einstein just do it and see what happens. Just like young Einstein, our people too, have nothing to lose, and may perhaps hit something like E=mc²!

I started writing this blog in 14 th of March, which was the birthday of Albert Einstein. I am ending this blog on 23 rd of March which is a sort of birthday of Pakistan.