---Swami
Vivekananda
Walking has been an essential part of my life. Wherever I go
I make it a point to walk five kilometers in the morning. I am particularly
attached to seeing the beauty of the sunrise, the light that precedes its
arrival and my ears are tuned to the songs that birds sing to welcome the
dawning of a new day on this planet. Each time I experience these phenomena ---
the cool breeze, the singing of the birds and the arrival of the sun --- I am
filled with awe at how nature brings together all the elements that go into
making this moment possible and feel thankful to God.
I have been fortunate in that my work has taken me to very
many beautiful places that opened up my mind to cosmic reality. One such was
Chandipur in Orissa.
From Kolkata, the distance to Balasore is around 234 km and
Chandipur is 16 km from the town. The name means the abode of the Goddess
Chandi or Durga. The beach here is surely among the finest in India. At low
tide the water recedes three kilometers as the tides follow their rhythmic
cycle.
The lonely beach, the whispering of tamarisk trees and the
cool breeze create a feeling of extraordinary calm. I used to walk on the beach
to the mouth of the river Suwarnarkha. The river’s vast spread and the
bewitching, ceaseless ripples of its water
were hypnotic in their effect. It was a feeling as close to bliss as I
have ever felt.
We stared test-firing our missiles from the Sriharikota
Range of ISRO but needed our own missile test range. The Interim Test Range
(ITR) was established in 1989 as a dedicated range for launching missiles,
rockets and flight test vehicles. A number of missiles of different class
including the multirole Trishul, multi-target capable Akash, the anti-tank nag
missile, the surface-to-surface missile Prithvi, and the long-range technology
demonstrator Agni have been test-fired from the ITR. BrahMos, the Indo-Russian
joint venture set up to develop supersonic cruise missile has also been tested
aat this range. The ITR has also supported a number of other missions such as
testing of the multi-barrel rocket launcher Pinaka and the pilotless aircraft
Lakshya.
The ITR has also been made capable for testing airborne
weapons and systems with the help of sophisticated instrumentation. Thrust
areas include tracking long-range missiles, air defence missile systems,
weapons systems delivered by the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA), multi-target
weapon systems and high-acceleration maneuverable missiles.
The ITR extends 17 km along the seacoast where a number of
tracking instruments have been deployed along the flight path of the test
vehicles. Some of the significant test facilities at the ITR are a mobile and
fixed electro-optical tracking system, mobile S-band tracking radar, fixed
C-band tracking radar, fixed and mobile telemetry system, range computer, photo
processing system, meteorological system and range safety systems,. An expert system has been developed for
aiding safety decisions during launch. The ITR is slowly but surely growing
into a world-class range.
It was a hot and humid midnight sometime in July 1995. We
were going through the results of the fourth consecutive successful flight of
Prithvi. People’s faces of celebration. More than thirty of us, representing
1,200 hard-working team members, were pondering over the question—what next?
Lt. Gen Ramesh Khosla, Director General Artillery, suggested that Army needed a
flight test on a land range with accuracy of impact at the final destination
within 150 meters. This is called Circular Error Probability (CEP) in technical
terms.
We opened a geographical map of India. There were five tiny
dots at a distance of 70 to 80 km from ITR. These are the Wheeler Islands. We
could not go to the Rajasthan desert for obvious reasons. The Andaman and
Nicobar Islands are far away. At 2.00 a.m. we decide that Wheeler Islands were
the right choice for the missile impact test. Now the search for a suitable
island started. A helicopter was used to survey the area. Someone proposed
asking the fishermen to guide us to the islands.
My two colleagues, Saraswat and Salwan, drove to a place
called Dhamra. From Dhamra, they hired a boat for the day for Rs.250. by the
time they reached the island it was almost dark. Salwan had carried fruits for
eating during the journey but these eventually became their dinner. There was
no option but to stay on the island. It was a beautiful night but my friends,
neither familiar with the sea nor used to being marooned on a deserted island,
spent it rather fearfully—thought they won’t confess it and claim instead that
they enjoyed it. Early the next morning, they began their survey of the island,
which is about 3 km long and 800 meters wide. To their surprise, they saw on
the eastern side of the island a Bagladesh flag flying atop a tree with huts
nearby. The island was probably frequented by fishermen from the neightbouring
country. My friends quickly removed the flag.
Things moved fast thereafter. The district authorities,
including forest and environment officers, visited the island. Soon after, I
got the Defence Minister’s clearance to acquire the islands. The formalities
were gone through with the Orissa government and the forest department ot
transfer the land. I personally met the concerned senior officials to make the
file move to the desk of the Chief Minister. I also wrote a detailed letter to
the Chief Minister explaining why we needed the islands for DRDO work,
specially for use as a range for experimental purposes.
We had already done preparatory work before moving the
application. There are typical questions about fishing activity in the
vicinity, the disturbance that might be caused to turtle migration and above
all the cost of the islands. Within ten days we got an appointment from the
Chief Minister, I had heard a lot about Chief Minister Biju Patnaik,
particularly about his days as a pilot and his friendship with President
Sukarno. When I entered the Chief minister’s chambers with Maj. Gen. K. N.
Singh and Salwan, he welcome us warmly. To me he exclaimed, ‘Oh my friend Kalam, I
have followed your work from the time of Dr Sarabhai to now, whatever you ask,
I will give.’ In my presence he signed the Orissa government’s decision said,
‘Kalam, I have given the approval you asked for, I know you will use is well.
Your mission—the missile programme—is very important to the country. Anything
needed from Orissa will be yours.’ Then, suddenly, he held me and gave me a
very affectionate hug. He said in a demanding tone, ‘Kalam, you have to give me
a promise and assurance to the nation. The day India makes its own ICBM I shall
be stronger as an Indian.’ There was silence. I had to respond immediately.
Biju Patnaik was a man with a tremendous personality and deeply impressive as a
leader too, one whose love for the nation transcended politics. I looked
straight into his eyes and said, ‘ Sir, we will work for your mission. I will
discuss your thought in Delhi.’
Some forty years ago, the daredevil Biju Parnaik piloted his
Kalinga Airways plane into Jakarta to find Indonesian president Sukarno in the
first flush of fatherhood. Sukarno‘s wife delivered a baby, and the family was
searching for a name for the newborn girl when Bijuda called on them.
Sukarno explained the problem on hand to the visitor from
India. Biju Patnaik cast him mind back to the clouds that had greeted the
baby’s arrival and suggested the Sanskrit equivalent for them. Sukarno’s
daughter was promptly christened Megawati and thus the daughter of the leader
of the world’s largest Muslim nation got a Hindu name. For great men, religion
is a way of making friends; small people make religion a fighting tool.
Many years later, after several political upheavals,
Megawati Sukarnoputri would become first the Vice President and then the
President of Indonesia.
Lament, my friend, at the passing away of a generation of
politicians with a voice, vision and reach that went far beyond our borders.
Lament at our State-sponsored, abnormal and paranoid fixation with a particular
country that has blinded us to the rest of the world, including the Third
World, which we used to head not so long ago. And weep softly at what we have
reduced ourselves to in the comity of nations. For a large county with a
billion people, a country with a thriving industry and a large pool of
scientific talent , a county moreover, that is a nuclear power, India does not
count for as much as it should. In terms of our influence in world affairs,
probably no other country is so far below its potential as we are.
After Pokhran II, the west speaks about India and Pakistan
in the same breath. Is it not in our national interest to demonstrate to the
world that we can think of a world beyond Pakistan, that we are a qualitatively
better, more mature and secular county with a greater commitment to the values
of democracy and freedom?
During march 2002, I was teaching about 200 final year
students of engineering at Anna University and I gave a series of ten lectures
on ‘Technology and Its Dimensions’. On the final day of the interaction, there
was a discussion on Dual Use Technologies. One of the students raised a
question.
Sir, I have recently come across Dr Amartya Sen’s statement
that the nuclear weapon test conducted in May 1998 by India was ill conceived.
Dr Amartya Sen is a great economist and a Nobel laureate who is much respected
for his ideas on development. A comment from such a personality can’t be
ignored. What is your view on his comments?’
‘I acknowledge the greatness of Dr Amartya Sen in the field
of economic development and admire his suggestion, such as that thrust should
be given to primary education’. I said ‘At the same time , it seemed to me that
Dr Sen looked at India from a Western perspective. In his view, India should
have a friendly relationship with all countries to enhance its economic
prosperity. I agree, but we must also bear in mind India’s experience in the
past. Pandit Nehru spoke in the United Nations against nuclear proliferation
and advocated zero nuclear weapons in all the countries. we know the result.
One should note that there are more than 10,000 nuclear warheads on American
soil, another 10,000 nuclear warheads are on Russian soil and there are number
of them in the UK, China, France, Pakistan and some other countries. The START
II and the recent agreements between the USA and Russia only talk about the
reducing the number of nuclear warheads to 2,000 each and even these agreements
are limping. Nobody takes the reduction of warheads in serious terms. There should
be a movement by those who are against the May1998 test in America and Russia
or other Western countries to achieve zero nuclear weapons status. It is
essential to remember that two of our neighboring countries are armed with
nuclear weapons and missiles. Can India be a silent spectator?'
India has been invaded in the last 3,000 years by a
succession of conquerors, including the British, French, Dutch and Portuguese,
either to enlarge their territory or to spread a religion or to steal the
wealth of our country. Why is it India never invaded other countries . is it
because our kings were not brave enough? The truth is Indians were tolerant and
never understood the true implications of being ruled by others for
generations. But after the long independence struggle when we got united and
has physical economic prosperity as the only goal? The only way to show the
strength of the country is the might to defend it. Strength respects strength and not weakness. Strength
means military might and economic prosperity. The decisions and policies of the
United Nations Security Council are dictated by the countries who possess
nuclear weapons. How is it we did not get a seat in the Security Council so far
but now other nations are recommending that India be made a member?
In this regard, there is another incident I would like to
narrate. My friend, Admiral L. Ramdas, who retired as the naval chief, told me
that he and a group of people would hold a demonstration before Parliament
protesting against the nuclear test carried out in May 1998. I replied to my
friend that he and his group should first demonstrate in front of the White
House and Kremlin against the large quantity of nuclear warheads and ICBMs
there.
I call to my people to rise to greatness. It is a call to
all Indians to rise to their highest capabilities. What are the forces which
lead to the rise or fall of nations? And what are the factors which go to make
a nation strong? Three factors are invariably found in a strong nation; a
collective pride in its achievements, unity and the ability for combined
action.
For a people and a nation to rise to the highest, they must
have a common memory of great heroes and exploits, of great adventures and
triumphs in the past. If the British rose to great heights it is because they
had great heroes to admire, men like Lord Nelson, say, or a the Duke of
Wellington. Japan represents a fine example of national pride. The Japanese are
proud of being one people, having one culture, and because of that they could
transform a humiliating military defeat into a triumphant economic victory.
All nations which have risen to greatness have been
characterized by a sense of mission. The Japanese have it in large measure. So
do the Germans. In the course of three decades, Germans. In the course of three
decades, Germany was twice all but destroyed. And yet its people’s sense of
destiny never dimmed. From the ashes of the Second World War, it has emerged a nation
economically powerful and politically assertive. If Germany can be a great
nation, why can’t India?
Unfortunately for India, historic forces have not given a
common memory to all communities by taking them back to their roots a
millennium down the ages. Not enough effort has been made in the last fifty
years to foster that memory.
I had the fortune of learning many of our religions in the
country from my childhood, in high school and then onwards for nearly seventy
years. One aspect I realize is that the central theme of any religion is
spiritual well-being. Indeed it should be understood that the foundation of
secularism in India has to be derived from spirituality.
It is because our sense of mission has weakened that we have
ceased to be true to our culture and ourselves. If we come to look upon
ourselves as a divided people with no pride in our past and no faith in the
future, what else can we look forward to except frustration, disappointment and
despair?
In India, the core culture goes beyond time. It precedes the
arrival of Islam; it precedes the arrival of Christianity. The early
Christians, like the Syrian Christians of Kerala, have retained their Indianness
with admirable determination. Are they less Christian because their married
women wear the mangalsutra or their menfolk wear the dhoti in the Kerala style?
Kerala’ Chief Minister, A. K. Antony, is not a heretic because he and his
people are part of Kerala’s culture. Being a Christian does not make him an
alien. On the contrary, it gives an added dimension to his Indianness. A. R.
Rahman may be a Muslim but his voice echoes in the soul of all Indians, of
whatever faith, when he sings Vande
Matram.
The greatest danger to our sense of unity and our sense of
purpose comes from those ideologists who seek to divide the people. The Indian
Constitution bestows on all the citizens total equality under its protective
umbrella. What is now cause for concern is the trend towards putting religious
form over religious sentiments. Why can’t we develop a cultural—not
religious—context for our heritage that serves to make Indians of us all? The
time has come for us to stop differentiating. What we need today is a vision
for the nation which can bring unity.
It is when we accept India in all its splendid glory that,
with a shared past as a base, we can look forward to a shared future of peace
and prosperity, of creation and abundance. Our past is there with use forever.
It has to be nurtured in good faith, not destroyed in exercises of political
one-upmanship.
The developed India will not be a nation of cities. It will
be a network of prosperous villages empowered by telemedicine, tele-education
and e-commerce. the new India will emerge out of the combination of
biotechnology, biosciences and agriculture sciences and industrial development.
The political leaders would be working with the zeal born of the knowledge that
the nation is bigger than individual interests and political parties. This
attitude will lead to minimizing the rural-urban divide as progress takes place
in the countryside and urbanites move to rural areas to absorb the best of what
nature can give in the form of products and wealth.
The most important and urgent task before our leadership is
to get all the forces for constructive change together and deploy them in a
mission mode. India is a country of one billion people with numerous religions
and communities. It offers a wide spectrum of ideologies, besides its
geographic diversity. This is our greatest strength. However, fragmented
thinking, compartmentalized planning and isolated efforts are not yielding
results. The people have to come together to create a harmonious India.
The second vision of the nation will bring about a
renaissance to the nation. The task of casting a strong India is in the hands
of a visionary political leadership.
