09/12/2019
“I am visiting NUST for the first time and I’m embarrassed as I never realized what wonders this university has achieved. I would commend General Naveed for the development of this marvelous institute. I also learned from General Bajwa that General Shujat was the master mind behind this initiative. Everything in this world starts with a vision. It starts with a thought, develops a vision around it. Allah has blessed mankind with great ability. When Allah created us as Superior specie, we still don’t realize what sort of great abilities Allah has blessed us with. Allah has blessed us all with the ability to achieve what we can image & picture in our heads.
Let me speak briefly on Science & Technology. Fawad Ch started from 60s. I’m as old as our country is & I have witnessed the phase of hope & optimism as well as I have seen the phase where our self-esteem & confidence shattered. There was a dependency syndrome as in we cannot do anything. Whatever has to be done is through imports including ideas from abroad. When a country loses their confidence and self-belief, they become dependent on other nations for ideas. The way Fawad Ch. Mentioned 60s, we still remember the confidence Pakistanis had back then. Believe me, when I first went to India to play cricket, we were treated in a way as if we are from a superior culture and country. There was a complex there. They used to feel complexed because of Pakistan. We had a self-belief & confidence and the biggest reason behind it was meritocracy. There was a meritocracy culture in Pakistan. Our bureaucracy used to be considered the best in entire Asia. Our exam for Civil Service exam in east & west Pakistan was the toughest exam & was on merit. The development in 60s was not because we had foreigners coming in and working for us. It was our own strong systems & institutions. The confidence in Pakistan was due to that development. Unfortunately, the system of merit went down and soon after that, slowly and gradually Pakistan’s potential started to drop. Today, I want to put 2-3 things in front of you. Today, we also have faculty here which carries the responsibility of quality education. We also have NUST students here, you guys are privileged students as you are the students of a university which is considered as one of the top universities of Pakistan. You have a massive responsibility. The system created by Allah works in a way that the more He blesses you, the more responsibility on your shoulders increases. The kind of situation we are in, education wise, we are way behind. We are behind in quality & literacy however what you are studying here in this institution, you are getting the best quality education. This puts a responsibility on you. First I’ll talk on this aspect and in the end I’ll comment on this initiative of Science and technology Park. We will replicate this in other institutions of Pakistan.
First of all, let’s see what human potential depends upon? The first thing it depends on is the vision of your life. What sort of dreams you have? I repeat, whatever you can picture in your mind is achievable. Whatever humans have pictured, they have achieved it for example stepping on the moon. The films of 70s on Science Fiction, today humanity has achieved it. Because Allah has blessed you with that power. Remember, Angels were asked to prostrate to a human. When Shaitan revolted, Allah told him that you don’t know what knowledge & power I have given to this human. We spend our lives without realizing that what we are and what we could have achieved. Molana Rumi said “When Allah has given you wings, why are you crawling like ants”. Allah has blessed human with immense potential.
The first thing to achieve your potential is to have a dream and a vision. Your magnitude of your vision will decide how far you will go. A great vision is always beyond one’s self. Whoever has become a great man on earth, he has always thought beyond his self. The world history doesn’t know any rich man. Many rich men has passed away, but the world history remembers those who spent their wealth for the wellbeing of humanity.
Today, Bill Gates is well known around the world. If you see him, he truly is a great man. After earning excessive money though his abilities, he spends on himself as per his needs and spends rest of his wealth for the betterment of humanity. He is spending a lot on Polio Campaign in Pakistan. Why should he care that Pakistan is suffering from Polio but he spending money on this cause. Such are the great people. People will always remember Ganga Ram for creating a hospital in Lahore. Bottom line, a man becomes great because of his vision and his vision is beyond his self and is for humanity. The history only remember such personalities. When you have a great vision, it is very important to remember one thing. Your vision is great only when your heart follows that vision. Heart & mind are always on a war. The society dictates your mind whereas your heart leads you in a different direction. Always follow your heart because the passion is always in the heart. My life experience says that when talent is competing with passion, passion always wins. Passion propels you to work harder. You can work for 14-16 hours only if you are passionate. However, who works with mind finds it hard as passion is a driving force.
When you follow a great dream, the golden rule of success is that you burn the boats. You don’t make a plan B. In the past, someone made a plan B which will eventually lead to a plan Z. Human potential surfs only when you take decision by burning your boats, challenge yourself. The more you challenge yourself, the more power will emerge from within. But you can only challenge yourself when you decide that you won’t go back. Those who don’t go after their dreams single minded can never succeed because when they compromise on their vision, there is no end to it. Once you are detracted from your vision, except lesser, you start to fall. The key to success is that your heart takes a decision, you make every effort to achieve it. Another things is the higher you expect, you should be mentally prepared for an equally hard fall. Life works in cycles especially when you expect to achieve something great. Life is never in a straight line. The hardship, setbacks and disappointments are lessons from Allah for you. This means you are doing something wrong and these are course correction. Perhaps you are not working hard enough. The biggest quality of successful people is the ability to handle the difficult time and coup with it. Many get demoralize and disappoint during hardship. This gives you a set back and eventually becomes the reason of your failure. You can never lose until you accept defeat yourself. When you won’t accept defeat, you will stand up, learn from your hard times, and work harder. When you recover from a hard fall and work harder, you develop even stronger ability and discover a new strength. This is the cycle of struggle which leads towards success. You all are receiving quality education. What is the biggest trait of quality education; your power of self-analysis is stronger than others. The quality education equip you to struggle. You can analyze the hard time better, work hard and succeed without getting demoralize. This is how the tough time in your life cycle trains you to push you further. Life is a stepping stone and as long as you challenge yourself, you’ll keep on progressing.
I have seen talented cricket sportsmen in my life. But whenever they used to become successful at a certain stage at life, they used to stop there. Like Iqbal said ‘there are more galaxies beyond the stars, there are more struggles yet to come in the way of my passion”. The moment you stop challenging yourself, you start to decline. The human potential demands you to challenge yourself. It is important to keep up upgrading your vision. I have seen several times when people retire, all of a sudden they reflect weariness, they grow white hair and get heart attacks. They lose the purpose of life because there is no challenge in life. If I see my life, when I retired from cricket, I didn’t need to do anything. I could have done cricket commentary and would have been earning millions in a year. But by doing that, I would have lost my potential. The moment you don’t have a challenge in your life, your potential is capped. That’s why you need to have consistency. Once you achieve one milestone, another one sets as a new milestone. You will keep on discovering and after 2 years when you’ll analyze your life, you’ll find the tough challenges of the past as piece of cake because you are constantly moving forward.
The final thing that I wanted to tell you is to add one role model in your life. When I used to play cricket, I had role models. When I grew up, more role models added to my life. Having a role model is a part of life. Those who enter business will make Bill Gates his role model. From childhood, your parents become your role model. Someone who is good at studies or in sports will become your role model. The role model that Allah asks us to follow is Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). I’m sharing this with you because when I was growing up, no one told me this. My father used to take me for Friday prayers by force. At that time my faith was not strong. Over there, we used to hear stories but we used to think that these are limited to mosque only. No one ever told me or taught me the life style of Prophet. I have learned though reading. No one has ever achieved what Prophet Muhammad has achieved. There must be a reason why Allah asked to follow his life. When you’ll read about him, you’ll find all the great traits in him. His vision made him Rehmat ul Almeen. What can be greater than him being a Blessing for entire humanity? Those who followed him became famous in the world. The preachers of Islam in Sub Continent, they all were Wali Ullahs; Nazam ud Din Aulia, Data Sahab, Hazrat Baba Farid. They all followed Prophet Muhammad. People still go to their shrines because they were great people. He was beloved of Allah, Allah mentioned that in Quran. Yet he faced a lot of hardship. In 10 years, only 40 people converted to Islam. He was ridiculed and mocked but he never gave up his mission at any stage. People of Makkah offered him all luxuries of life but he still said that if you put sun in one hand and moon in the other, I still won’t compromise on my vision. He did make compromises in Sulah Hadibya; not on his vision & mission but only for his vision & mission. And the most important thing that you should read that what happened after Prophet Muhammad left this world. All those who were around him & followed him became leaders. In other words, whoever followed his life style became great leaders. While reading, you’ll learn how Bilal, who used to be a slave, led two expeditions. What did he do that people around him transformed? Please remember, his life is not a mythology but history and that’s why you should study it. His life, the State of Madina and the rules which created the base of state of Madina led Muslims to rule over the world for 700 years. What were those rules? If you see Scandinavian countries, who follow those rules, are welfare states now. Whoever will following those rules will succeed. Our Muslims Scientists were religious scholars and they were great men. Whoever used to study science along with religion used to become a better scholar. Quran gives a special status to Scholars. The most important thing is that there is no shortcut to success. The hardship and the entire process develops your character. Why democracy won and our Muslims’ failed is because we had dynasty system on top of us. Illama Iqbal & Shah Wali Ullah said that Muslims declined because of Dynastic Rule whereas west progressed because of democracy. Why democracy worked well, it is because of two things; meritocracy & accountability. In democracy, they have accountability, the elected person is answerable. In dynastic system, they don’t have meritocracy and thus can never compete democracy. Democracy exists only if their institutes follow mediocracy. Nations who destroy meritocracy, there is no accountability of leadership, are the ones who fall. In dynastic rule, leader is chosen based on bloodline. Our democracy is flawed because of family system. Everyone joins politics because of their family name, which defies the laws of democracy. If you have to come forward on the basis of bloodlines and only because you have been born in a certain family, it will be against meritocracy. This is how a person remained a leader of a party for 11 years and then he came up with theories like “Water is accumulated when it rains”.
In the end I would congratulate General Naveed on the behalf of the entire country on the progress of this university & for investing in Science & Technology Park. I assure you government support. We have made Dr. Atta ur Rehman the head of our Knowledge Economy Task Force. He is advising us on how to convert Pakistan into a Knowledge Economy. We have also taken out a budget for it, even though it’s a tough time. People keep asking me why you always talk about difficult times. I say, for next 4 years, I’ll remind you what sort of Pakistan was handed over to us so you may learn what improvements we have made. There should be a comparison. If you will not know from where we started, how will you know what improvement we have made? We have given special emphasis to science & technology. Our country has become stable; there will be wealth creation and economy will boost. I assure you that our complete emphasis will be on higher education & future technology such as artificial intelligence and drone technology. We have young generation with second youngest population in the world. We will optimally utilize them, indulge them into the new technology and create opportunities for them so our younger generation can benefit from these technologies and make Pakistan a knowledge economy. Unfortunately, we have worked in these areas. I’m again thankful to you all. I commend General Bajwa for focusing on Education. Thank you!”
Prime Minister Imran Khan
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