Three Visions for India
Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, 10/18/98
ABSTRACT - Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, the father of India's integrated guided missile program, states three visions for India based on the achievements and progress that he has witnessed in the history of the nation and during his own career as a missile scientist. Dr. Kalam's three visions for India are FREEDOM, DEVELOPMENT, and STAND UP. The focus of his presentation is on developing India to its fullest potential, while standing up to the rest of the world with fully validated self-respect for the achievements that have been obtained in the modern time.


If we are not free, no one will respect us.
I have three visions for India. In 3,000 years of our history, people from all over the world have come and invaded us, captured our land, and conquered our minds. From Alexander onwards, the Greeks, the Portuguese, the British, the French, the Dutch -- all of them came and looted us and 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, and their history, nor tried to force our way of life on them. Why? Because we respect the freedom of others.

That is why my first vision for India is FREEDOM. I believe that India had its first vision of freedom 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 50 years, we have been a developing nation. It is time to see ourselves as a developed nation. We are among the top five nations of the world in terms of gross domestic product (GDP); we have 10% growth rate in most areas.

Our poverty levels are falling, and 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 right?

I have a third vision, that 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. India must stand up to the world.

My good fortune has been to work with three great minds: Dr. Vikram Sarabhai of the Department 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 is the 20 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 as a scientist. Two: After my ISRO years, I joined DRDO and got a chance to be part of India's guided missile program. It was my second bliss when Agni met its mission requirements in 1994.

Three: The Department of Atomic Energy and DRDO had this tremendous partnership in the recent nuclear tests, on May 11 and 13, 1998. 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.

Why is the media here so negative?
One day an orthopaedic 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 3 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 g calipers and took them to the orthopaedic center. The children didn't believe their eyes -- from dragging around a 3 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 second largest producer of wheat in the world. We are the second largest producer of rice. We are the first in milk production. We are number one in remote sensing satellites. 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 obsessed only with bad news and failures and disasters. Do we not realize that self-respect comes with self-reliance?

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 farm and granary. It was this inspiring picture that everyone woke up to. The gory details of killings, bombardments, and deaths were inside the newspaper, buried among other news. In India, we read only about death, sickness, terrorism, and crime. Why are we so negative?

I want to live in a developed India.
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!

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