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?
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.
E-Mail address of Bharataratna
Dr. A.P.J Abdul Kalam is apjabdulkalam@yahoo.com
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