The British nation was lion-like the hero. I only gave the roar.

— Winston Churchill

We are too much in the habit of paying attention to the brilliant, noisy and ephemeral manifestations of human activity, to great events and great men, instead of trying to understand the great but slow and imperceptible changes in social institutions and economic conditions, which constitute the real, interesting and permanent basis of human evolution. The cult of individualism began with the Renaissance. Later the cult was connected with the rise of capitalism and the doctrine of laissez - faire. Individualism was the basis of the 19th century philosophy of individualism. This philosophy of rugged individualism culminated in the Nietzsche a dictum: Not mankind but supermen is the goal. Mankind does not improve. It does not exist. It is an abstraction. All that exists is a vast ant-hill of individuals. The aim of all experiments is not the happiness of the mass, but the improvement of the type. What is good? All that increases the feeling of power. What is bad? All that comes from weakness. This contempt for the masses and exaltation of the individual bred Fascism, leading mankind to world War II.

As against the cult of the individual, Bismarck, the Iron chancellor of Germany said in the Reichstag on April 16, 1869: ""We cannot ignore the history of the past, nor can we create the future. I would like to warn you against the mistake that causes people to advance the hands of their clocks, thinking that thereby they are hastening the passage of time. My influence on the events I took advantage of is usually exaggerated; but nobody would demand that I could make history. I could not do that even in conjunction with you, although together, we could stand up against the whole world. We cannot make history: We must writ while it is being made. We will not make fruit ripen more quickly by subjecting it to the heat of a lamp and if we pluck the fruit before it is ripe we will only prevent its growth and spoil it."

What Bismarck said boils down to saying that general historical circumstances are more potent than the strongest individual. Let us examine the case of Napoleon and his generals. Had there been no French Revolution (1789), They would have all died as barbers, dyers, peddlers, compositors, actors and fencing masters. Bessieres was a barber, Bruna was a compositor, Lannes was a dyer and Jourdain was a peddler. The French Revolution opened the way for them to prove that they were military geniuses. Great talents appear everywhere, whenever the social conditions favourable for their development exist.

The relationship between great men and history is dialectical. The objective conditions mature within the womb of history, giving birth to great individual who understands and fully makes use of the historic opportunity. Making use of the Biblical phrase, "in the fullness of time’, the great man is always found. This is proved by the simultaneous discovery of a number of scientific theories. The theory of Probability was discovered independently by Fermat and Pascal; Calculus by Leibnitz and Newton, Algebraic Conics by Descartes and Fermat, Non - Euclidean Geometry by Lobachersky, Gauss and Rumann, Topology by Mobius and Listing, the law of Natural Selection by Darwin and Wallace, Mendel - Morgan theory by Mendal, De Vris, Correns, Tschermark.It should be noted that all these great scientists and mathematicians were ignorant of what the co - discoverer was doing. They came to the same conclusion quite independently of one another. Einstein said." Had I not discovered the theory of Relativity, Langevin would have done it." Bolyai Farkas has put it beautifully: "Many things have an epoch in which they are found at the same time in several places, just as the violets appear on every side in spring".

It is not accidental that Raphael, Da Vinci and Michelangelo were almost contemporaries. Hayden (1732-1809), Mozart (1756-1791), Beethoven (1770-1827) and Schubert (1793-1828) blossomed forth almost simultaneously. Pissaro, Monet, Van Gogh, Gaugin and Cezanne appeared at the same time. Picasso and Matisse were the north and south poles of 20th century art. So the talents appear everywhere, whenever the social conditions favourable for their development exist. They are the product of an historic trend. As Taine has put it: When a fresh step in the evolution of civilization calls into being a new form of art, scores of talents who only half express the social thought appear around one or more geniuses who express it perfectly. Rembrandt was the contemporary of at least 19 Dutch painters.

A great man is great not because his personal qualities give individual features to great historical events, but because he possesses qualities that make him most capable of serving the great social needs of his time. Carlyle calls great men beginners. This is a very apt description. A great man is precisely a beginner, because he sees further than other and desires things more strongly than others. He solves the scientific problems brought up by the preceding process of intellectual development of society. He is a hero. But he is not a hero in the sense that he can stop or change the natural course of things, but in the sense that his activities are the conscious and free expression of this necessary but unconscious course. Herein lies his significance and his significance is colossal. He emerges as an icon.

Coming to Pakistan, who is the hero? Who is the father of Pakistani atom bomb? Most of the Pakistanis name only one individual, Dr. A.Q. Khan. Yes, he made his contribution as a metallurgist, an expert at building centrifuges - hollow metal tubes that spin very fast to enrich natural uranium in its rare U - 235 isotopes, which is an excellent bomb fuel. Dr Khan’s mastery of this difficult art proved vital to Pakistan’s acquiring a nuclear arsenal. But how about many other scientists who made equally vital contribution, some even stake their lives? They were silent, dedicated, patriotic scientists. The Pakistani atom bomb was the result of collective effort of many brilliant scientists. (The sentence in big letters). As I have proved that all great scientific discoveries cannot be attributes to single individuals. No less a person than Einstein bears it out. Then who is the real hero? May I submit that it is the great Pakistani nation who starved and set apart ten billion dollars for the project? In return they expect that their leaders would pay heed to their real problems of grinding poverty, education, health-care and above all employment