REMEMBERING DR ISHFAQ AHMAD

Dr Ishfaq Ahmad former Chairman of the Pakisran Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) passed away on 18 Jan 2018. He had a gilded academic and professional career that has amply been described elsewhere. This blog reminisces about his style of scientific leadership through a rare look into the manners and traits he provided guidance to a scientist at various stages of his development from a junior scientist to the chief scientist in the Commission.

Although all of us have to go one day, the news of his departure from this world came like a bolt from the blue as if it was not supposed to happen. A paragraph of not more than a few lines in the newspaper said it all, he was ill and admitted in the hospital quite unknown to me and so many other scientists and engineers who worked with him and under him for decades. It's always a misfortune to lose someone who may not have been close enough but nearer to heart and as dear as Dr Ishfaq Ahmad was to thousands of people in the scientific profession all over Pakistan and also to many who lived abroad. 

 Dr Ishfaq Ahmad was one of the earliest pioneers in the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission. He earned a DSc degree from the University of Montreal in Canada in 1959. His Doctorate thesis was on Emulsion Technique in Nuclear Physics, which provided groundbreaking insight and detection of the sub atomic and elementary particles after they had been theoretically predicted by many scientists starting from Rutherford and Marie Curie. I will not go into the details of his research career, which is well documented and is available at: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishfaq_Ahmad

Here, I would rather go into my personal experiences of working with him often not of scientific nature, as his field of work was very different from mine then and always there after. When I joined the PAEC at the Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology (PINSTECH), he was already the Director of the PAEC's Lahore Centre. After only a couple of months he was appointed the Director General of PINSTECH. I knew him since then at first from a little distance but gradually closely and a little later very closely. When I acquired his acquaintance he had stopped being an active scientist and had become a scientific administrator. In most cases such a transition is considered a career downhill but in his realm it was different. He continued to guide scientists and their research and development work all the time diligently. I still remember so vividly as if it was a meeting of yesterday. I received a call in those early days from his office that he wanted to see me urgently. That was not normal. It was rare that he would meet junior scientists directly by-passing the heads of the group and the Division concerned. I was then working as a member of Reactor Physics Group in the Nuclear Engineering Division of PINSTECH. To my utter surprise he had summoned me alone and not accompanied by any of my superiors. As bewildered, as any young scientist of age 25 would be, I entered his office. He always had very charming broad smile, which would put any one in distress immediately at ease. He would speak slowly in a friendly soft tone. After I had taken a seat directly opposite his very handsome and impressive persona. He gazed into my eyes and slowly informed me that the PAEC had chosen me to work for one year under a Bilateral Agreement at the Danish Atomic Energy Commission’s Research Establishment at Roskilde near Copenhagen. I had to proceed as soon as possible. From his talk it was obvious that he had very personal reminisces of his own of Denmark and the Danish people both of whom he seemed to have in high regard. He had worked earlier at the Neil's Bohr Institute of Physics, which I found out after arriving there, was adjacent to the Establishment I was asked to report and which was at a walking distance from the Guest House, I stayed all through my period of research and development work at Roskilde. Dr Ishfaq told me about the people, their etiquettes and mannerism besides their Noble Laureate Neils Bohr as well as the accelerators and machines installed there in great detail as if he had all the time that morning just for me. 

When I returned from my year long assignment at Roskilde, Dr Ishfaq Ahmad had already moved to the PAEC's Head Quarters in Islamabad as its Member Technology and a little time later I too was transferred to the Karachi Nuclear Power Plant (KANUPP) as the Physicist responsible for Fuel Management and Nuclear Reactor Core with the additional responsibility of the Coordinator IAEA Nuclear Safeguards at the Plant. The later responsibility allowed me to interact with him from time to time, as he was then not only on the IAEA's Board of Governors but also the member responsible for all matters related to it. He accordingly needed to be abreast with the safeguards measures at the Plant. My monthly IAEA safeguards inspection reports were routed to him and I was always required to attend the meetings, which were held with the visiting IAEA staff at the PAEC HQ in Islamabad. It was on those occasions that I came to realize his in depth knowledge not only about KANUPP but also the subsidiary safeguards agreements between the PAEC and the IAEA. He was also well acquainted with the provisions of the Non Proliferation Treaty. On account of his knowledge and proficiency in English he was always in command on the basis of which he could not only negotiate well but could also steer the meetings and ensuing dialogue as per the requirements of the time with the profound interests of Pakistan upper most in his mind. At the conclusion of those meetings he would smilingly look at us and enquire, "How did it go? and on our approval, he would chuckle and give a rare audible laugh, very obvious of the delight of having accomplished the responsibility he always thought the nation had entrusted him with.

In spite of his mild and mellow nature, he could be very stern and ruthless too. An example of that side of his personality came to my notice when an IAEA safeguards inspector took an exposed photographic film by mistake to his hotel during an on-going inspection. That was grossly against the subsidiary safeguards agreement according to which he was required to deposit the film inside a box under the joint seal of the IAEA and the PAEC at the plant. The matter was reported to him by fax. He flew over to Karachi overnight and was at the plant very first thing the morning. The inspector in question was summoned into his presence at the office of the Plant Manager. I was present when he entered. I can only say I have never seen such an outpour of diplomatic burst of anger reprimanding him never to repeat, which he acknowledged was his mistake. The poor man kept on trembling for a long time after and I of necessity took as much time to smooth his nerves. He was incapacitated and unable to work to say the least for a good part of the morning that day.

Next time, I had a person to person meeting with him was when he summoned me in his capacity of the Chairman PAEC with the express assignment for me to negotiate with the IAEA the proposed new installations of certain state of the art safeguards equipment at the plant. He could always delegate the details of the assignment to me through the Member Power and the Plant Manager KANUPP but being very careful about the sensitivity of the matter involved, he chose to do it himself. I was impressed. The Director International Affairs and Member Power both wished to be present in the meeting but they were summarily asked not to bother after only a brief enquiry whether I was being looked after during the brief visit to Islamabad well? He wanted to have just one to one meeting with me. This was on account of the confidentiality of the matter that he wished to discuss with me, which was in accordance with the rules of the procedures that only those needed to be present who were directly involved with the matter under discussion. He understandably was very careful and all of us understood that well. The meeting continued for well over two hours, during which he allowed me a thorough probing into the intricacies involved. He told me without any reservation that he had chosen me for the discussions at the IAEA, for he trusted me. I was more than aware that his trust was the trust of my country and I felt proud of that. During the meeting at one point he looked at his watch. It was time for lunch. He pulled and opened his bag from under the table and brought out a sandwich, enquiring at the same time with a smile if I would care to take a bite! I smiled telling him politely but respectfully that he could go ahead. He then told me that it was just a sandwich of a mashed banana in between two thin slices of bread and that I may not like that after all. That was not the last of the encounters with the great man that he was. On my return back to KANUPP from Vienna, he telephoned me late in the night to learn about every single detail of my interactions at the IAEA asking me at the end to send him a written report, which I of course complied with forthwith. 

Soon there after I was promoted as the Chief Scientist and appointed the Director of the Institute for Nuclear Power in Islamabad. He subsequently retired as the Chairman PAEC. Long after that I spotted him at the Islamabad Club taking tea with a much younger person, who could be his son. Passing by the table I was sitting with my wife, he stopped to say hello. He asked me what I was doing. On telling him that I had retired into the outskirts of Islamabad, where I had a small farmhouse, he gleamed with happiness and promised me to come someday to personally see my farming skills, which he never did in view of his advancing age and not too good a health situation. That was the last I ever saw of him. His memories will however stay with me till I live.