"So, tell me, did you also end up here as yet another escapee--- migrant, immigrant, refugee, asylum seeker, whatever---escaping Hazara ethnic cleansing in Quetta?", asked a curious Canadian friend, himself a Romanian emigre. "No, not really", I replied. "I did not leave because of the state-sponsored pogroms of Hazaras. I left because of something more mundane. I left because I was declared "overqualified" by a few inept and under-qualified pygmies who happened to be sitting in judgment on me and specially on my professional skills and educational qualification."
To provide some context. After graduating from the University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, as an Agricultural Engineer, I joined the provincial Department of Agriculture (Balochistan) and soon went on study leave for further studies, to do my M.Phil in Water Resources Management at the Center of Excellence in Water Resources Engineering (CEWRE), University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore. CEWRE was a premiere institute in the field of hydrological sciences and water resource engineering in the country and one of its kind then. It took me three years of back breaking work in the field collecting hard data, talking to and probing different stakeholders, and intellectually draining work, spending hours and hours, days upon days upon sleepless nights inside simulation labs measuring, re-measuring, calibrating hydrological equipment and in computer labs coding complex computer codes for the simulation model that I finally developed. My focus was on the conjunctive use of water in arid areas where water is scarce and, therefore, precious. In addition to other features, my simulation model, coded in FORTRAN 77, simulated mixed use of ground and surface water for different crops. Conjunctive use models were then a kind of cure-all panacea for arid regions with agricultural potential, places like Balochistan. The results from different parts of the world, from arid Africa and Asia, had been, until then, very encouraging. Things may have moved on to other technologies since.
To cut it short, I was awarded my M.Phil degree in 1992-3. My dissertation was approved by my supervisory committee which included an American expert in the field who was well respected and widely published. Thesis in hand, I returned to Quetta and resumed work as Agriculture Officer, first stationed at Sibi and then at the main directorate on Sariab Road in Quetta.
If I am not wrong, it was either late 1995, or early 1996. My former supervisor from the Center of Excellence in Water Resources Engineering (CEWRE), University of Technology and Engineering (UET) Lahore had just visited Quetta.He had come to Quetta either to inaugurate a water resource project in the province or to offer his expertise to the then newly established Bureau of Water Resources inside the Irrigation Department of Balochistan. (I will simply refer to it as "the Bureau" in the balance of this blogpost)
Soon after its establishment, the Bureau started looking for qualified, relevant, or technical, people to work there. It was headed by one Mian Bashir. From what I recall, he was a short man with curly hair and nervous, calculating, even shifty, eyes---a busy body, an ambitious but ambiguous character, in short. I never found out his real qualification, but I think he was some sort of a technical hand with background either in engineering or management sciences. One thing was sure: he was an outsider in the province, brought in from somewhere in Punjab. This was not an anomaly in Balochistan, not at least then. Many of the provinces' technical personnel, including bureaucrats, were often imported from Punjab, the most famous, and closer to my context, being the then Director General of Agriculture (DGA), the pompous and pompously named Chaudhry Zulfiqar Ali Khan.
The Bureau advertised a senior engineer's position for which I applied right away, and did so with much interest and enthusiasm, confident that I would be a suitable, if not the most suitable, candidate for the position. The same enthusiasm was shown my by supervisor at CEWRE who also thought that I was the most suitable person for the job. Both of us knew, and so did Mian Bashir and others at the Bureau, that there were not many, if anyone at all, with that kind of qualification and research background in the province. I was, after all, the first person from the province to have had graduated from CEWRE with a postgraduate degree in the relevant field of water resources management. But most of all, it was my research work---conjunctive use of water in arid regions---- that made me a suitable candidate. My agricultural engineering background and several years of work experience were additional points that boosted my profile on my resume. So, it was with all that enthusiasm and confidence that I first awaited, and then finally appeared in, the interview for the SE (PBS 18) position.
The panel of interviewers consisted of four members, three of which I clearly remember and will mention here. It was headed by the then provincial Senior Minister and Minister for Planning and Development Department, or P&D as they say in Pakistan, Mr. Jam Yusuf. The other member was the Minister for Irrigation Department (of which the Bureau was a section) Mr. Hamid Khan Achakzai. The third member of the panel was Mr. (Mian) Bashir, the technical member and also provisional head of the Bureau then. I think there were not many applicants given the novelty and highly technical nature of the position and the dearth of professionals with the required credentials. So, it was expected that the interviews would be done in few hours. I was soon ushered into the room on that day of judgment!
After we were done with the few formalities---name, address, bio-data check etc.--- the Senior Minister and Minister for Planning and Development, Jam Yusuf, who was sitting across the table from me and next to the Minister for Irrigation, Hamid Khan, asked to have a look at my M.Phil dissertation. I had my credentials binder and a copy of my hard bound thesis with me, placed in front of me on the table. I handed him the heavy tome, all 500 pages of it held securely between two solid covers. It had costed me an arm and a leg to get five copies of the work bound from one of the best binders in Lahore, the city of colleges and universities. He then did something that I will never forget for the rest of my life. In fact, I am actually writing this whole post here just to record that one act of this sorry individual, Mr. Senior Minister.
This man assessed three years of my hard intellectual and physical labor the way a village bumpkin tests a watermelon before he makes his mind whether to purchase it or to move on to the next one. He took and lifted the report and eyed it from all the possible angles, a 360 degree check, and finally after knocking his stubby and hairy knuckles on both the spine and the front cover of the thesis, he placed it on the table, midway between us. I think he did not sniff it. About that I am sure. But I guess sniffing is not needed in the case of watermelons as it is in the case of musk melons (kharbooza). He did not once lift the front cover, perhaps making sure not to give anyone a scintilla of evidence to accuse him of having at least read the extra large sized title written in gold on the navy blue front cover. There was silence, deep silence in the luxuriously wood paneled room and I was not sure what was going on. All four pairs of eyes were on me. I remained seated and calm, expecting that the other members would then have a look at the thesis, perhaps in a different and more conventional manner, which would then be followed by the inevitable grilling session.
No such thing happened. Nobody after that touched the thesis as if it was something radioactive, something toxic that would burn the fingers of anyone who dared to touch it. The Senior Minister and Minister for P&D, Government of Balochistan, that useless load of flesh and fat, the sublimely slimy, jelly-like Jam of Lasbela, then opened his mouth and uttered his three ugly, cruel and heart-breaking sentences that have remained with me all these years, still clear and fresh even today: "Your work is nice. You have written a good thesis. But we are sorry, you are overqualified for this position." No sooner had he said it than a laughter erupted in the room. The three among the panelist roaring like mad men, more like mad dogs, wild jungle beasts, and Mian Bashir doing things with his eyes and body that was equally, if not more, disturbing. His eyes----those nervous, shifty eyes set on this small face----quickly moved from yours truly to the others and his hands and face twitching uncontrollably, belying the grin, that already unsure grin, on his face and that clearly lacked the arrogant confidence of the loud roar of the other three, the three "locals" of the land. But God knows what it really was, his confused expressions and gestures, even if I have tried to interpret it here. The laughter stopped and all eyes were once again on me. Expressionless, I looked at the thesis on the huge oval table and switched my gaze up at the panel, all four of them, calmly gliding it from left to right. I gently pushed the chair back, stood up and picked the thesis and my binder. Once again I looked at all four of them, fixing my eyes for a few seconds longer on the Jedi of Lasbela who, sprawled sloppily on the sumptuous armchair, resembled the freshly dumped entrails of a butchered cow, and then walked out of the room which was then once again engulfed in silence.
What happened after that is rather blurry in my mind, and not important here. I learned, perhaps from the Mian, that they hired a University of Balochistan graduate with specialization in Chemistry, or maybe it was in Islamiat?? The lucky guy was an Achakzai, if I am recalling correctly, some relative or clansman of the Minister for Irrigation, Hamid Khan Achakzai. The whole thing had already been decided and the hiring and interview process etc. were a vile charade.
Now, in telling this story I want to emphasize that there is nothing unique or exceptional about it. It's the norm in that place, in a sense. These degrading farces organized, produced, directed and conducted by little men and women devoid of any intellectual, moral and ethical conscience, human-faced monsters with zero integrity and zero basic human decency, happen on a daily basis in that part of the world. They have been happening for decades now and the way things are, will keep on happening for God knows how many more decades. If there are any characteristics that define the province's and country's ruling classes, khaki as well as civilian------ their presiding "virtues", since The System is totally inverted, a system of Kali Yuga where the Shudras have usurped the role of the Brahmins----- they are the following: mediocrity, incompetence, nepotism, avarice and cowardice. If I were asked to qualify the evil I witnessed on that day with only one of these mentioned characteristics, I would definitely choose the last: cowards. I was in the presence of four cowards on that day.
Those who have been writing about "brain-drain" from the "underdeveloped" South for years now are to a great extent justified in their analyses and arguments. The reasons and justifications are varied and very complex, to be sure, but there is no denying that many leave because they have given up or lost any and all hope in The System that is their country. On that very day when I was declared "overqualified" by a bunch of incompetent maskharas masquerading as state ministers and high ranking bureaucrats, I made up my mind about doing everything that was in my power to leave the country for good. I had lost hope. Had lost it completely. But that loss became fodder for something bigger, for a bigger fire within. A year later, I was in Australia on an international scholarship doing my new Masters in Environmental Studies. From Australia, I went on to the UK and onwards to Canada for further education and work...
In 1996, a repugnant clique of Balochistan Government officials, four cowards intoxicated with transient power (for us mortals in this ephemeral world, is there any other kind?), arrogantly and unjustly rejected me because I was "overqualified" for a senior engineer's position; I rejected them because they were under-qualified, not only as referees and selectors, but more importantly, as human beings with basic human virtues of decency, integrity and courage.
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