As I was giving my talk Dr Vijayaraghavan passed a note to me. ‘Your brother is not convinced that you are OK. If you are OK he has to hear your voice.’ An elder brother remains elder all your life! I interrupted my speech to reassure my brother.
To come back to the discussion at the town hall meeting, I was asked a very pertinent question from the audience. ‘Dr Kalam,’ the questioner said, ‘could you please tell me why is raw material exported from many ports specially designed for this purpose?’ This was specially relevant to Jharkhand with its huge storehouse of mineral wealth. In answer, I narrated a conversation I had in Goa. I was on a boat crossing the harbour, on my way to the university for a convocation address, and accompanying me was Dr Jose Paul, Chairman of the Mormugao Port Trust. We started discussing iron ore exports to Japan, much of which take place from Panjim. He told me, 30 million tonnes of iron ore is exported annually from the four ports; of this 17 million tonnes is exported from Mormugao alone. The ore is sold at rather a low price–a few dollars a tonne–as, according to the buyers, it is of inferior quality. As such, its sale did not contribute anything much to the economy. The same ore, utilized here, would, of course, generate far more income because of value addition.
‘What is value addition and could you give an example?’ I was asked in Bokaro and a powerful example came to my mind. When we were working on the satellite launch vehicles in the 1970s, a requirement arose for beryllium diaphragms. These are used in gyros, sensors used to determine the attitude (the position of an aircraft in relation to specified directions) of the rockets or missiles when they are in flight. As these were not available with us, a procurement team was formed to purchase them in the international market. The team was headed by T.N. Seshan, better known now as the former Chief Election Commissioner of India, with Madhavan Nair, Dr S.C. Gupta and I as members. We struck a deal with a company in New York for a hundred beryllium diaphragms.
Three months later, we got a message from the company that since beryllium diaphragms are used to make gyros mounted on intercontinental ballistic missiles, they did not have permission from the State Department to supply them to India. We immediately initiated action to redress the problem in our typical fire-fighting manner. Technology denied was, to us, technology gained.
Meanwhile, it emerged that India has one of the largest deposits of beryllium ore. The ore was exported in those days to Japan, who processed the ore into beryllium rods and sheets and exported them to US companies to transform them into beryllium products such as diaphragms! I received the shock of my life: this was material mined in India and exported to Japan, who processed it and exported it to the US, and the US company refused to give it to India. Where was our sense of initiative? What had happened to our aims? The issue figured prominently in the press and export of beryllium ore was stopped.
The same story is repeated in other areas. The upshot is that India is poor as a nation in spite of its enormous wealth because it does not focus on value addition, be it in mineral or biodiversity products or even grain or fish. In the case of beryllium ore, value addition by at least ten times takes place in refinement itself. Value addition by at least 100 times is achieved during product conversion. And this is what we would be paying Japan or the US, for something that originated from India itself. It is the same with iron ore, and many other exports; only the scale of value addition varies. It is a lesson that must be quickly learnt.
At the same meeting, another interesting question came up. ‘Do you think in politics, purity is possible?’ It was a little outside my purview but there was one aspect to it, raised earlier, which I would like to mention. This aspect is that an entire generation of people representing excellence in all fields–politics, industry, sciences, the arts–emerged in the years leading to independence. Mahatma Gandhi, C.V. Raman, J.R.D. Tata, Pirojsha B. Godrej, Laxmanrao Kirloskar, Ramakrishna Bajaj, Rabindranath Tagore, Dr S. Radhakrishnan, Madan Mohan Malviya … it is a long list. Suddenly there was excellence in every sphere of society and the circumstance making such flowering possible was the vision that the nation had set for itself.
I believe if the nation forms a second vision today, leaders of a stature to suit our ambition will appear once again, in all walks of life, including politics.
The next day, I travelled to Bokaro Steel Plant, the largest steel plant in India. The General Manager of the plant, Mr Tiwari, accompanied me. The scale of the plant was breathtaking. I saw hundreds of men working in an organized way as the sweat poured off their bodies, while the molten steel flowed from the furnace like a river on fire. The iron ore would be available for years, I was told. Impressive as the plant was I was disappointed to see that there were no industrial estates around it, utilizing the steel produced here to make various products. I was told that setting up of industrial estates came under state purview. It brought back my old regret at our compartmentalized thinking. Why this fragmented governance where one agency is alienated from another? Unless development is directed towards state- based industries, working on huge national missions through centralized planning will not do much for real prosperity.
On the flight back to Delhi, I wondered how Jharkhand could best be helped. What was needed were a few major missions to transform the state and a time-frame. The state and the Centre would need to make an integrated effort. Would it be possible?
Let me go back to my experience in the SLV-3 missile and weapons development programmes. They illustrate what I mean by an integrated approach. To succeed in these efforts, we had to adopt a multi- organizational mission mode. Building a rocket is a long process from the drawing board to development and launch. All through the process, a number of reliability factors matter. The first stage is a robust booster rocket system. Before Rohini was put into orbit, the booster rocket had gone through five static trials in the flight hardware in full scale, and it had also been tried out during two experimental flights. That means a proven, developed booster was available when the time came for launch.
An IRBM was not demanded by anyone when the missile programme was conceived in 1982. However, the availability of the SLV-3 booster led to the building of a technology demonstrator–Agni–as part of the approved programme. Agni was launched successfully in 1989 at a moderate budget of Rs 36 crore! Nobody in the world could have anticipated India acquiring IRBM capability in the short period of six years. It happened only because the Agni mission was organized into a multi-institutional programme.
My assessment based on various space and defence projects done as mission mode programmes is that intensive partnership between various participants–government departments, industry, research institutions– brings faster development at lower cost. The same holds in other projects and schemes. Central and state projects integrated as mission mode operations will bring rapid development at minimum cost.
What is keeping us from taking this concept further? Does it sound risky to abandon the time-tested route of checks and balances and go in for a tightrope walk? Or is it that going into mission mode would demand a responsibility: Either one has to show the result or quit?
In October 2001, I got the opportunity to visit Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University in Delhi. The topic I selected for my address to the students was ‘Responsible Young Citizens’. I put forth the importance of India becoming a knowledge society. After the talk, one student asked me an important question, ‘Could you tell me why Indians, particularly educated Indians, excel when they go to the USA and Europe? They become rich also.’
I said, ‘Recently, I read a book– The Horse that Flew by Chidanand Rajghatta which is about Indians who have succeeded in the IT field, especially in America. One quality I noticed in all of those who excelled was that they did not work solo. They worked with their colleagues, irrespective of religious or other differences, and they were not afraid to take risks, starting with the risk of going to a foreign land.’
I met B. Chandrasekhar, who has been a big success as an entrepreneur in Silicon
Valley, when he contributed to our alma mater, Madras Institute of Technology (whose acronym, MIT, is the same as that of the famous institute at Massachusetts) to start an Internet Technology Centre. One fine morning Chandrasekhar sold his 10- billion-dollar company to start another enterprise. When I asked him how he took such chances to build his enterprise, Chandrasekhar told me he loved taking risks. There was one other aspect to the success of his and other companies. For them survival depended on performance. And the better they performed, the richer they became.
I have an experience to tell in this regard. It was 1955. I was in the second year of my course in Aeronautical Engineering in Madras Institute of Technology. Our Director was Dr N. Srinivasan, an aeronautical engineer himself. I was working on a project surpervised by him on designing a low-level attack aircraft. A seven-member student team was allotted this task. Three of them– Vivekanandan, Mahabaleshwar Bhat and I– were given the task of system integration. Our team was supposed to provide the design report with all the drawings in three months’ time. Because data on the engine, control system and some other sub-system drawings coming from my friends got delayed, I also got delayed by more than two weeks in submitting my drawings.
It was a humid evening in the month of August. I was working on the drawing board. Dr Srinivasan, on his way to the tennis court, peeped into my room and looked at my work. He realized that I was nowhere near completion. He said, ‘Kalam, if you do not complete it in three days’ time your scholarship will be stopped.’
That was a big jolt for me. The scholarship was my lifeline, as my father could not afford the high cost of education at MIT. I had to make the best use of the time available. Three days was too short a time to complete it. I would have to work continuously. And this is what I decided to do. I slept on a bench in the college for three nights and went out only for food.
Exactly after three days, Dr Srinivasan visited my drawing board. He spent nearly one hour examining what I had done and said, ‘This is good. You have performed a few weeks’ work in a few days.’ Coming from him, it was a great compliment.
I realized then that if something is at stake, the human mind gets ignited and working capacity gets enhanced manifold. Challenges throw up opportunities. Once one selects a task, one should get immersed in it. Either you will succeed or fail; that risk will always be there. This should not deter you. When you fail, you still have the experience gained to draw upon in the future.
Start by risking your own position for a mission. Either I deliver or I go. Prepare yourself for the endeavour. With effort and perseverance you will succeed. There is always a risk involved when we venture into something new. After all, the process of birth itself is a risky affair. But then the infant starts breathing … and life follows, with all its hopes and aspirations. Breathe in thoughts of success and you will be a success.
SUMMARY
The way to development is through purposeful activity. The young especially have to be guided properly, so that their lives find a proper direction and their creativity is allowed to flower. To facilitate this, certain educational reforms must be initiated.
With regard to improving the pace of development, Centre-state efforts should be coordinated in a few key areas and efforts across sectors and organizations integrated and taken up in a mission mode. The mindset must change, showing willingness to take pragmatic risks. Success will follow.
9
To My Countrymen
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments … .
My Father, let my country awake.
—Rabindranath Tagore
All through this book I have spoken about the power of the imagination. It lies at the heart of the creative process and is the very substance of life, allied as it is to the power to attract to us what we most desire. This power makes all the difference between the winners and the losers. I would like to see in twenty years a literate and poverty-free India. I dream of an India governed by noble leaders. I dream of a system where the work of scientists and technologists is focussed on specific missions driven by goals relevant to the common man. How is this dream to be made real?
We need to realize that missions are always bigger than organizations, just as organizations are always bigger than the individuals who run them. Missions need effort and the mind provides the purpose. Seen this way, consider, which department or ministry will take man to Mars and build a habitat there? Can 200,000 MW of electric power be generated by isolated efforts in thermal, hydroelectric, nuclear and non- conventional sectors without an integrated effort? Can the second green revolution happen without agricultural scientists, bio- technologists and irrigation experts working together? Without proper diagnostic facilities in clinics and affordable drugs reaching our masses, our biotechnology laboratories and medical councils will continue to perpetuate each other’s survival without serving the purpose of their existence: to set in place the most advanced medical facilities and make these available to the people at reasonable prices.
I have dwelt upon my own experiences that made me aware of the energy field which is created by a vision. It is a power that arises from deep within you. This power is the basis for the movement towards excellence we saw at the time of independence. I have been touched by this power on many occasions while facing a challenge. Pre-independence India reverberated with it. It helped us humble a mighty empire.
Jamshedji Nusserwanji Tata brought the steel industry to India even though the British rulers were not favourably disposed to the idea. Acharya P.C. Ray nurtured the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. We saw the birth of many great institutions like the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, started by J.N. Tata, the Banaras Hindu University established by Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya, and Aligarh Muslim University set up by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan. Some of the progressive maharajas too set up universities, as in Baroda. There are many examples. In all these cases, the motivation was to see India come up in the world, to demonstrate that ‘India can do it’.
Are we in a position to continue that work, revive that spirit of enterprise? Shall we ever see cars designed and manufactured in India dotting the roads in Frankfurt or Seoul? Or Indian satellite launch vehicles place communication, weather and remote sensing satellites of other nations in orbit? Or see India build power stations for the USA, Japan and China? The possibility will remain remote if we stay with the present trend of low aim.
Today we are witnessing good progress in the software sector but almost all of the hardware is imported. Can we rise higher on the value scale there? Can India design an operating system that will become a household name in the world of computers? Our exports consist to a large extent of low- value raw material such as iron ore and alumina. Can we not convert these into a wide range of products that find an international market? We have hundreds of defence production industries but why does India not manufacture and market the Main Battle Tank, missiles, aircraft, guns and other defence equipment? We have the most important core competence in the form of our multifaceted manpower and basic infrastructure. What is that we don’t have?
Let us think what prevents us in undertaking such challenges. We have to analyse how we can give a new dimension to our style of functioning, by cutting across the individual interests of various ministries and even industries and institutions, to follow an integrated action plan. The motive force has to be love for the country. We need a vision that is shared by the entire nation.
In the drive for development, some states are faring better than others in the country. Bright young entrepreneurs have energized the national technology scene. Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai, Delhi and Hyderabad are hubs of business activity. But even though the IT sector is a very visible area of success and has brought in some capital investment, in terms of overall development this is not enough. Even if you take up the IT area as a mission, manpower is the most important need.
Those living away from the cities must also have access to a good education to join the talent pool. And this should happen fast.
My visits to the northeastern states– Tripura and Assam–and to Jharkhand showed me our untapped potential. Tripura’s economy rests on forest products, including bamboo cultivation. It is rich in mineral wealth, as also in natural gas. But the transport facilities are in bad shape. It is difficult to travel, interact and organize business. There is isolation. In Jharkhand too there is mineral wealth besides its resources in terms of forestry products and handicrafts, all of which need to be developed. In Assam, there is no shortage of resources and the state has good educational infrastructure. All the ingredients required for a developed economy are there but there is insurgency and unrest among people. A focussed mission will integrate people.
States such as Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab and Karnataka have made me realize that much can be achieved once efforts are made to channel development funds for improvement in areas such as education and health. These and other states can become good examples of economic development.
Our intellectual forums, political platforms, academic institutions and chambers of commerce are full of discussion and debate. There is noise, a lot of it in fact. There are endless debates, arguments, hypotheses, and theories, and yet there is little progress. However, the theme of a developed India is not discussed in board rooms and technology conferences. I want all of us–institutions, political parties, industries, communities, families, individuals–at every level to take full responsibility for what is good or bad in our situation, for what we possess and that which we do not. This would mean that we stop blaming others for the circumstances we find ourselves in. Taking responsibility also means a willingness to exercise our abilities to the fullest. This will make us worthy of enjoying the benefits that come with effort.