I have three visions for India. In 3000
years of our history people from all over the world
have come and invaded us, captured our lands,
conquered our minds. From Alexander onwards. The
Greeks, the Turks, the Moguls, the Portuguese, the
British, the French, the Dutch, all of them came and
looted us, took over what was ours. Yet we have not
done this to any other nation. We have not conquered
anyone. We have not grabbed their land, their culture,
their history and tried to enforce our way of life on
them. Why? Because we respect the freedom of others.
That is why my first vision is that of FREEDOM. I
believe that India got its first vision of this in
1857, when we started the war of independence. It is
this freedom that we must protect and nurture and
build on. If we are not free, no one will respect us.
My second vision for India is DEVELOPMENT. For fifty
years we have been a developing nation. It is time we
see ourselves as a developed nation. We are among top
5 nations of the world in terms of GDP. We have 10
percent growth rate in most areas. Our poverty levels
are falling. Our achievements are being globally
recognized today. Yet we lack the self-confidence to
see ourselves as a developed nation, self-reliant and
self-assured. Isn't this incorrect?
I have a THIRD vision. India must stand up to the
world. Because I believe that unless India stands up
to the world, no one will respect us. Only strength
respects strength. We must be strong not only as a
military power but also as an economic power. Both must
go hand-in-hand. My good fortune was to have worked
with three great minds. Dr. Vikram Sarabhai of the
Dept. of space, Professor Satish Dhawan, who succeeded
him and Dr. Brahm Prakash, father of nuclear material.
I was lucky to have worked with all three of them
closely and consider this the great opportunity of my
life.
I see four milestones in my career:
ONE: Twenty years I spent in ISRO. I was given the
opportunity to be the project director for India's
first satellite launch vehicle, SLV3. The one that
launched Rohini. These years played a very important
role in my life of Scientist.
TWO: After my ISRO years, I joined DRDO and got a
chance to be the part of India's missile program. It
was my second bliss when Agni met its mission
requirements in 1994.
THREE: The Dept. of Atomic Energy and DRDO had this
tremendous partnership in the recent nuclear tests, on
May 11 and 13. This was the third bliss. The joy of
participating with my team in these nuclear tests and
proving to the world that India can make it, that we
are no longer a developing nation but one of them. It
made me feel very proud as an Indian. The fact that we
have now developed for Agni a re-entry structure, for
which we have developed this new material. A Very
light material called carbon-carbon.
FOUR: One day an orthopedic surgeon from Nizam
Institute of Medical Sciences visited my laboratory.
He lifted the material and found it so light that he
took me to his hospital and showed me his patients.
There were these little girls and boys with heavy
metallic calipers weighing over three kg. each,
dragging their feet around. He said to me: Please
remove the pain of my patients. In three weeks, we
made these Floor reaction Orthosis 300 gram calipers
and took them to the orthopedic centre. The children
didn't believe their eyes. From dragging around a
three kg. load on their legs, they could now move
around! Their parents had tears in their eyes. That
was my fourth bliss!
Why is the media here so negative? Why are we in India
so embarrassed to recognize our own strengths, our
achievements? We are such a great nation. We have so
many amazing success stories but we refuse to
acknowledge them. Why? We are the first in milk
production. We are number one in Remote sensing
satellites. We are the second largest producer of
wheat. We are the second largest producer of rice.
Look at Dr. Sudarshan, he has transferred the tribal
village into a self-sustaining, self-driving unit.
There are millions of such achievements but our media
is only obsessed in the bad news and failures and
disasters.
I was in Tel Aviv once and I was reading the Israeli
newspaper. It was the day after a lot of attacks and
bombardments and deaths had taken place. The Hamas had
struck. But the front page of the newspaper had the
picture of a Jewish gentleman who in five years had
transformed his desert land into an orchid and a
granary. It was this inspiring picture that everyone
woke up to. The gory details of killings,
bombardments, deaths, were inside in the newspaper,
buried among other news. In India we only read about
death, sickness, terrorism, crime. Why are we so
NEGATIVE? Another question: Why are we, as a nation so
obsessed with foreign things? We want foreign TVs, we
want foreign shirts. We want foreign technology. Why
this obsession with everything imported. Do we not
realize that self-respect comes with self-reliance?
I was in Hyderabad giving this lecture, when a 14 year
old girl asked me for my autograph. I asked her what
her goal in life is: She replied: I want to live in a
developed India. For her, you and I will have to build
this developed India. You must proclaim. India is not
an under-developed nation; it is a highly developed
nation.
Allow me to come back with vengeance. Got 10 minutes
for your country?
YOU say that our government is inefficient. YOU say
that our laws are too old. YOU say that the
municipality does not pick up the garbage. YOU say
that the phones don't work, the railways are a joke,
the airline is the worst in the world, mails never
reach their destination. YOU say that our country has
been fed to the dogs and is the absolute pits. YOU
say, say and say.
What do YOU do about it? Take a person on his way to
Singapore. Give him a name - YOURS. Give him a face -
YOURS. YOU walk out of the airport and you are at your
International best. In Singapore you don't throw
cigarette butts on the roads or eat in the stores. YOU
are as proud of their Underground Links as they are.
You pay $5 (approx. Rs. 60) to drive through Orchard
Road (equivalent of Mahim Causeway or Pedder Road)
between 5 PM and 8 PM.
YOU comeback to the parking lot to punch your parking
ticket if you have over stayed in a restaurant or a
shopping mall irrespective of your status identity. In
Singapore you don't say anything, DO YOU? YOU wouldn't
dare to eat in public during Ramadan, in Dubai. YOU
would not dare to go out without your head covered in
Jeddah. YOU would not dare to buy an employee of the
telephone exchange in London at 10 pounds (Rs. 650) a
month to, "see to it that my STD and ISD calls are
billed to someone else." YOU would not dare to speed
beyond 55 mph (88 kph) in Washington and then tell
the traffic cop, "Jaanta hai sala main kaun hoon (Do
you know who I am?). I am so and so's son. Take your
two bucks and get lost." YOU wouldn't chuck an empty
coconut shell anywhere other than the garbage pail on
the beaches in Australia and New Zealand. Why don't
YOU spit Paan on the streets of Tokyo? Why don't YOU
use examination jockeys or buy fake certificates in
Boston? We are still talking of the same YOU. YOU who
can respect and conform to a foreign system in other
countries but cannot in your own. You who will throw
papers and cigarettes on the road the moment you touch
Indian ground. If you can be an involved and
appreciative citizen in an alien country why cannot
you be the same here in India. Once in an interview,
the famous Ex-municipal commissioner of Bombay
Mr.Tinaikar had a point to make. "Rich people's dogs
are walked on the streets to leave their affluent
droppings all over the place," he said. "And then the
same people turn around to criticize and blame the
authorities for inefficiency and dirty pavements. What
do they expect the officers to do? Go down with a
broom every time their dog feels the pressure in his
bowels? In America every dog owner has to clean up
after his pet has done the job. Same in Japan. Will
the Indian citizen do that here?" He's right. We go to
the polls to choose a government and after that
forfeit all responsibility. We sit back wanting to be
pampered and expect the government to do everything
for us whilst our contribution is totally negative. We
expect the government to clean up but we are not going
to stop chucking garbage all over the place nor are we
going to stop to pick a up a stray piece of paper and
throw it in the bin. We expect the railways to provide
clean bathrooms but we are not going to learn the
proper use of bathrooms. We want Indian Airlines and
Air India to provide the best of food and toiletries
but we are not going to stop pilfering at the least
opportunity. This applies even to the staff who is
known not to pass on the service to the public. When
it comes to burning social issues like those related
to women, dowry, girl child and others, we make loud
drawing room protestations and continue to do the
reverse at home. Our excuse? "It's the whole system
which has to change, how will it matter if I alone
forego my sons' rights to a dowry." So who's going to
change the system? What does a system consist of? Very
conveniently for us it consists of our neighbors,
other households, other cities, other communities and
the government. But definitely not me and YOU. When it
comes to us actually making a positive contribution to
the system we lock ourselves along with our families
into a safe cocoon and look into the distance at
countries far away and wait for a Mr. Clean to come
along & work miracles for us with a majestic sweep of
his hand. Or we leave the country and run away. Like
lazy cowards hounded by our fears we run to America to
bask in their glory and praise their system. When New
York becomes insecure we run to England. When England
experiences unemployment, we take the next flight out
to the Gulf. When the Gulf is war struck, we demand to
be rescued and brought home by the Indian government.
Everybody is out to abuse and rape the country. Nobody
thinks of feeding the system. Our conscience is
mortgaged to money.
Dear Indians, The article is highly thought inductive,
calls for a great deal of introspection and pricks
one's conscience too....I am echoing J.F. Kennedy's
words to his fellow Americans to relate to
Indians.....
"ASK WHAT WE CAN DO FOR INDIA AND DO WHAT HAS TO BE
DONE TO MAKE INDIA WHAT AMERICA AND OTHER WESTERN
COUNTRIES ARE TODAY"
Lets do what India needs from us.
- ( Late) Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam
- ( Late) Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam
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