“I ONCE asked my history teacher how we were expected to learn anything useful from his subject, when it seemed to me to be nothing but a monotonous and sordid succession of robber-baron scumbags devoid of any admirable human qualities. I failed history,” says Sting, the singer with a heart like gold.

Sting scorns history, we denigrate development? Not only is it a worn-out windbag of a cliche, but never has a word been abused by our ‘scumbag’ rulers the way ‘development’ has. Selling their souls and national interests down the tube to ladle off aid money meant for poverty alleviation, ‘development’ has cloyed many for too long. Recall, Ayub Khan’s ‘decade of development’ that hastened his demise; Zia’s ‘human development’ that invited his violent end; Benazir’s ‘women’s development’ and social action programme (SAP) that signalled the start of loot and plunder; and Sharif’s ‘development 2015’ fantasy that finally did the man in.

Equally distrusted are the dinosaurs of development. Men and women, who never seem to leave our radar screens. Except for Dr Mahbubul Haq. He died. Coining the term ‘Human Development’, the brilliant but controversial prodigy of Zia succeeded in stirring up our political stratosphere by boldly naming the 20 filthy rich families that held hostage the fortunes of Pakistan. Zia protege Nawaz Sharif liked Dr Haq (working for UNDP in New York when MNS became the PM), but not enough to make him his minister. Mahbubul Haq’s dream to return home to Pakistan ended with his death in New York.

Enter a new actor on the scene today. History has not looked kindly on his predecessors, how then will the sophisticated Dr Nasim Ashraf be judged once he’s done with development? “I think out of the box,” he shoots straight back, “no civil society and definitely no NGO (non-governmental organization) can be the catalyst of change without the active involvement of the government. And sadly we have a few people of integrity in the government.”

Pervez Musharraf has chosen Ashraf to head his Commission on Human Development. Based on his credentials alone, unknown to each other, contrary to wags spinning tales of intimacy between the two, today, both men are hunkered down to beget Pakistan, 100 per cent literacy over the next decade.

Some thirty years ago, Ashraf arrived in the ‘land of opportunity’, became a success story, minted his millions, packed up, and headed home. But why? “It’s payback time,” he tells me during an interview at Roosevelt Hotel (owned by PIA) on the fashionable Madison Avenue as the doctor turns to his wife Adeela, sitting next to him. “Having lived here for three decades, I must now do whatever I can in my own humble way to help fellow Pakistanis.” As if he were appealing to Adeela to understand why she must now raise their college-going children alone in the US, not to mention the drying up of family income with the ‘breadwinner’ gone.

Gently supportive and actively involved is how one would describe her: “Definitely, he must do what needs to be done,” she chips in her vote of confidence. “I love Pakistan and want to serve it ... and I know this sounds so horribly cliched, but how else to put it?”

The ‘love bug’ hit him way back in 1976 when he was training as a doctor in the US. The expatriate doctors started with a philanthropic organization that later bloomed into Pak-PAC (Political Action Committee). “Interacting with the powerhouses both in the political and public arena all over America became our goal,” says Ashraf, who, as founder-president, lobbied hard to have his voice heard. “We were the first organization to fight for the rights of foreign doctors which I am very proud to say resulted in an important legislation spearheaded by Senator Ted Kennedy some 10 years ago.”

Along with networking with America’s movers and shakers, Nasim Ashraf and his organization, APPNA (Association of Pakistani Physicians of North America), launched Sehat project with the money they raised to run health programmes in all the four provinces of Pakistan, servicing an audience of over 200,000 villagers.

“After Kargil, the doctors here started ‘Americans for peace & justice in South Asia’, bringing to the notice of US think-tanks and media the atrocities committed in Kashmir. We took our voice wherever it was necessary to tell Pakistan’s side of the story,” says Ashraf.

As we travel through the 30-year-epic of expatriate experience via engaging thumbnail sketches, before I can raise two questions that begin to needle me, he continues (streaking to DC from Islamabad): “I was the first Pakistani to meet President Bush after 9/11.” Ashraf needn’t go any further. I get the picture. As Musharraf’s personal emissary and representative of Pakistani-Americans, one knows exactly the power and reach of this developing dynamo who now desperately wants to pull together his American clout for edification of his Commission on Human Development back home.

Why has he chosen to serve Musharraf’s military government instead of a democratically elected leader? What happens to him after October? Is he not going to be replaced by some robber-baron — as Sting puts it — come October?

“My answer to your first question is that this is the first time I am convinced that development is in the forefront of Pakistan’s agenda, receiving the kind of political commitment that it merits. President Musharraf set up a Task Force on literacy long before 9/11, and not after Bush administration pledged money for education, as many would have the world believe.”

To ensure that no dirtbag ‘democrat’ dips into the multimillion-dollar fund that will fuel the Commission, President Musharraf is soon to pass an Ordinance — after the Law Ministry vets it — making the Commission a permanent fixture (along with Dr Nasim Ashraf?)

Among patrons, his stellar list includes Edhi, Jemima Khan, Princess Sarvath, Moeen Qureshi and Kassim Shamsh Lakha. Ashraf has already secured a mighty pledge from UNDP to finance the start-up of the Commission and become its active partner. He has the (overeager) ear of the European Union. He has excited the World Bank’s interest in his ‘Incubator’ scheme, which will throw up 1,000 volunteers per district, mushrooming into 100,000 strong in the next four years.

“The idea is to motivate volunteers through proper training in health awareness, adult literacy, employment opportunities by giving them decision-making powers.”

Billionaire philanthropists like Bill Gates and Ted Turner are being eyed by Ashraf. It pays being a global player with access? Unlike our homegrown variety, insufferably unsophisticated and embarrassingly avaricious in their dealings with foreign donors.

Trenchant to Nasim Ashraf’s action-plan is volunteerism. The key to the kidney doctor’s success is his visceral sense: “A time had come when I just couldn’t face myself in the mirror ... I had to return home to help ... like me, there are hundreds of expatriates waiting to serve ... they have written from all over the world offering to volunteer their time. I will borrow their talent and skills to start a national volunteer movement.”

Touching the grassroots act as the spur as he gets up each morning to launch a thousand ships across a Pakistani wasteland scorched by cyclical poverty and ignorance, is he a likely lightning rod for Musharraf? Maybe, or maybe not.