The country remembers President A P J Abdul Kalam, the people’s president on his 10th death anniversary. APJ Abdul Kalam captured the imagination of young people like no other president had before. He made us believe in ourselves and think the sky was never too high. He dreamed of things that never were and wondered why not? As a nation, we constantly come up short, but that did not deter Kalam. He made it his life mission to exhort the young to greatness. India’s young will miss him.
July 27th is the death anniversary of former President APJ ABDUL KALAM. He died this day seven years ago. He died on his feet while delivering a lecture at the Indian Institute of Management, Shillong, exhorting young people to a new vision of India to the end.
Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam had little in common with his predecessors. He did not have the educational attainments of Radhakrishnan, Zakir Hussain and Sharma, who were genuine PhDs from top-notch institutions. Kalam just had a science degree and an aeronautical engineering diploma from Madras University. He did not have the political training of Presidents like Rajendra Prasad, VV Giri and Pranab Mukherjee, whose political and constitutional understanding was tested in politically uncertain times. His entire professional lifetime was spent in the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).
The DRDO has not exactly distinguished itself in any great way. The sum of its failures is far greater than its achievements. Some its failures are most notable. The Arjun main battle tank is still bumbling along. The nuclear submarine project, delivered decades too late, still faces uncertainty. The Light Combat Aircraft is just the late combat aircraft; so late that it will be obsolete when it enters service in the next decade. Even the 5.56 mm basic infantry combat weapon is a bit of a dud, requiring the frequent import of AK-47 rifles, much to the delight of Delhi’s arms agents.
Kalam had earned a reputation as the father of India’s missile program. That might be so, but the offspring are nothing worth writing home about. Our missile program is so far behind times that even the North Koreans, a woebegone and desolate country where people still die of starvation, are ahead of us. Like the Pakistanis, even we would have been better off buying North Korean missiles like the Nodong (Pak name Ghauri), like the Pakistanis have. Many also credit Kalam as being the father of India’s nuclear weapons program. That program has, mercifully, had little to do with the DRDO and is almost entirely an Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) show.
There is much that is admirable about Kalam. He was honest to the core. He was erudite. He knew Sanskrit. He translated the Thirukural from Tamil into English. He was a nationalist with few peers. He only lived for India.
What then was Kalam’s kamaal? Clearly, Kalam was no Werner von Braun, who designed the Nazi V-1 and V-2 rockets and then led America’s manned flight foray into space with Alan Shepard’s sub-orbital flight. He most certainly is no Kurchatkov, who pioneered the Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons program. But he inspired by his sense of hope and ambition.
Yet he is clearly among the best of the Presidents we have had, particularly in recent times. I had the pleasure of being invited by him a few times for one-on-one discussions on Bihar, a state with which he was particularly concerned. He publicly asked several times: “How can India move forward, leaving behind Bihar?” There is much that is admirable about Kalam. He was honest to the core. He was erudite. He knew Sanskrit. He translated the Thirukural from Tamil into English. He was a nationalist with few peers. He only lived for India.
He was also a bachelor and so with no offspring like Zail Singh’s grandson, who shot pigeons in the Rashtrapati Bhavan, or R.Venkatraman’s NRI daughter, who plonked herself there to collect money for her NGO, or like Shankar Dayal Sharma’s grandson, Manu Sharma, who stands convicted of murdering Jessica Lal. The less said for Pratibha Patil, the better. Ramnath Kovind and Draupadi Murmu carry the burden of millennia of oppression and ostracism with quiet dignity, but little more.
But for a modest man with mostly modest achievements, APJ Abdul Kalam captured the imagination of young people like no other president had before. He made us believe in ourselves and think the sky was never too high. He dreamed of things that never were and wondered why not? As a nation, we constantly come up short, but that did not deter Kalam. He made it his life mission to exhort the young to greatness. India’s young will miss him.
Opinions expressed are the author’s own.
