It is more than half a century since India has attained freedom. Bearing the brunt of the changing time, during this period, India, today is standing in the front row amongst the developing countries. Since this country, having a population of more than one thousand million, has to have its own and proper rank among the developed countries with its might, it has to proceed in the direction of accomplishments in various fields and reach its target—a dream which this ancient most country had envisaged a very-very long time ago.
It is a matter of great luck that India has as its President a great personality like Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, who has fought his way to greatest heights with his hard work, honesty, truthfulness, dutifulness, constant vigilance, simplicity and determination, and sitting at this height he is working his way out towards fulfilling his dream of making a constructive use of the boundless energy of the people of India and making this country shine in its own glory. He is a person who has a picture of India in his mind which reflects economic, tactical, educational, social, religious, and spiritual progress—a picture, which, seen from any corner and any angle, will reflect self-accomplishment only.
Such incarnations, who are consistently engrossed in their efforts to bring glory to their motherland, are rarely born. Dr. Kalam is a Bharat Ratna in real sense. He is one in whom sparkles the brilliance of sovereignty of India, its capability, its philosophical aspects, far-sightedness and the usefulness of the meaningful mantra of invoking the fire of vitality. Dr. Kalam is that extremely capable and scholarly scientist and engineer of rocketry and nuclear technology, in whose true dutifulness we get a glimpse of that past of India which encompasses all aspects of the philosophy of ‘Satyam’ and ‘Shivam’. It was because of the influence of the divine aspect of Lord Shiva that Dr. Kalam named his wingless aircraft (the hovercraft) Nandi.
Dr. Kalam, having gone through the history of India, finds that this country, during the peirod of slavery for about two thousand years, has had to face with spears, bows and arrows, and swords, in its own unorganized manner, those cruel and brutal invaders who were the epitome of cunningness, who came to India as shrewd traders, with an eye on territory and not trade, with guns and explosives in a very calculated and planned manner.
And the people of India continued to be routed by them as they were not organized tactically. Otherwise how could it have been possible for Alexander, the Mongols, Iranians, Turanians, Nadir Shar, Ghazanavi, Gouri and Abdali (of whom Pakistan is very proud) to have come to India in thousands and shed the bood of millions? The ‘divide and rule’ policy has injured India badly in the past and put its people shackled as slaves. Had the contemporaries of Chandragupta Maurya and Hemchandra Vikramaditya rendered their full-fledged support to them, the picture and history of India would have been different today. It is the internal feuds and mutual jealousy among the people of this country which caused the battle of Mahabharata to take place on the battlefield of Kurukshetra, as a result of which a great number of valiant warriors plunged into permanent sleep and, along with them, went into deep sleep our self-accomplished power and energy for centuries together.
The fact that India was a great power is in itself not part of mythological stories but is part of our glorious past. This country, in the distant past, had its own aircraft, missiles and telecommunication system; but the warring communities, fighting among themselves, and their false ego, made these as a dormant reserve of our glorious past. Today, the policies of Chanakya, concerning war strategy, are being investigated at the administrative level.
…It is a matter of great coincidence that the two decomissioned aircraft which had fascinated Dr. Kalam most at the Madras Institute of Technology during his academic life, became a great source of inspiration for him, and this very fascination led him to choose his career in aeronautical engineering as a specific branch. He was no more interested in physics. Dr. Kalam mentions in his autobiography—‘‘Only after obtaining B.Sc. did I realize that physics was not my subject.’’
Another great coincidence that brought a rare opportunity in his life was when he was asked to proceed to America for a six-month training programme on sounding rocket launching techniques at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) work centres. Dr. Kalam started his work at the Langley Research Centre (LRC) in Hampton Virginia; and towards the end of his visit he went to the Wallops Flight Facility at Wallops Island in East Coast, Virginia. There, in the reception lobby, he saw a painting depicting a battle scene with a few rockets flying in the background. This kind of painting, at a Flight Facility, should not arouse someone’s curiosity, as it is something most commonplace at such a place. But what really caught his eye was that the soldiers, who were launching rockets, were
dark-skinned, and not white. Thinking that dark- skinned people with such racial features are found in South Asia, he became very curious; and one day, when he went near the painting to have a closer look, he found that it was Tipu Sultan’s army, fighting the British. This was something which filled Dr. Kalam with pride as he felt that a fact which was forgotten in India, Tipu Sultan’s own country, could be seen commemorated so far away from this country, in America.
Quoting Benjamin Franklin—‘‘Those things that hurt instruct’’—Dr. Kalam says that the kind of impression he had of the Americans was that they do not suffer their problems. They rather meet their problems head on in an attempt to get out of them.
Later, Dr. Kalam found out from Indian history that Tipu Sultan had a very huge stock of rockets in his army. There were 27 brigades in his army which were called ‘Kushoons’, and each brigade had a company of rocket men who were called ‘Jourks’. The British in the battle of Turukhanahally in 1799, captured more than 700 rockets and subsytems of 900 rockets from the army of Tipu Sultan. Tipu Sultan was killed in the battle as a result of treachery of his minister of state. The traitor could never understand what loss he had caused to his country by conniving with the British. The result was that William Congreve took away all the rockets and their subsystems to England. Dr. Kalam says—‘‘With the death of Tipu, Indian rocketry also met its demise—at least for 150 years.’’
But where there is a will, there is a way. The painting that Dr. Abdul Kalam saw in America, became a source of inspiration for the rebirth of rocketry in India. The rocket technology was reborn in India because of him only.
Dr. Abdul Kalam submits very humbly that the credit of rebirth of rocketry goes to Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Prime Minister of India. It was because of his technological vision that rocket technology was encouraged in our country and brought to the present level. In any democratic country, for any project envisaged for the welfare of the nation as a whole, it is very important to muster sufficient political support and its patronage. While extending due reverence to Prof. Vikram Sarabhai as his mentor and as one who always rendered suitable guidelines when required, Dr. Kalam remembers two other great scientists—‘‘Dr. Brahm Prakash and Prof. Satish Dhawan—who not only rendered suitable guidelines to him to help him proceed on the path of progress, but also stood like a rock to protect him when in difficulty.
The positive result of all this is that rocketry has become a great achievement of this country today.
