But when its work is done, it falls away quietly.
—Bhagavad Gita
I had a busy tenure as president. In the first year itself one of my goals was to travel around this beautiful land of ours and to go to all the states and see first-hand how people lived there, their environment and their problems, and get a sense of how happy they were. Lakshadweep, the small group of islands off the Kerala coast, is the only territory I could not visit, to my regret. All the others, I visited, once or more than once. Each region had its own fascination. Underlying it all was a simplicity and warmth that is typically Indian.
It is interesting to see how this travel was seen by others. I quote from a report that appeared in Outlook magazine. ‘Kalam is a peripatetic president who has already visited 21 states in the 10 months he has been in office. This is possibly more than what most presidents manage to do in five years. He packs in as many as 15 programmes into these whirlwind tours, arriving the night before to fit in as much as possible into his tight schedule …’
At the end of the presidency, I felt satisfied on two counts. When I look charge there was a feeling of gloom and despondency among students. I used to go and tell them to be confident and try and enthuse them. No youth need be afraid of the future, I would say, since India is progressing well. India will grow and you will too, I told them. Indeed, the growth rate has stepped up in recent years. As the end of my tenure, the mood of the youth was different. They wanted to live in a developed India, and were willing to work for it.
People wondered how I would adjust to life away from a busy schedule as president. However, before I became president, I was deeply engaged in my writing, teaching and inspiring the youth in national and international schools and universities and participating in seminars and conferences. I intended to go back to this routine. I had offers for teaching assignments from Anna University, Chennai; Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), Hyderabad; G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar; Delhi University; IIM Ahmedabad; IIM Indore; IIT Kharagpur; Banaras Hindu University (BHU) and others.
As I visualize it, from 26 July 2007 till now, my mission in life has been further enhanced. My teaching and research has now been well defined at Pant University. My focus there is on how the students can be a nodal point for India’s second green revolution. Pant University is the first agriculture university in the country. It has a very large campus with a huge area available for experimental farming. At Kharagpur, India’s first IIT, I have taught Leadership and Societal Transformation as a Distinguished Professor. At the IIIT in Hyderabad, I started teaching information technology and knowledge products, which are highly relevant for the India 2020 vision. At the BHU and at Anna University, I have been teaching technology and its nonlinear dimension to transform rural economy. At IIM Ahmedabad and at the Gatton College of Business and Economics in Lexington, United States an interactive course was designed to introduce management graduates to the challenges of national and international economic development. The students offered a number of out-of-the-box ideas for development and the strategies needed to realize the ten pillars of a competitive profile for India before 2020. For example, a group of students is working to establish PURA as a public-private partnership venture.
I receive a number of invitations from abroad. Till now, after demitting office, I have visited, on special invitation from the academic, political and industrial communities, the United States, the United Kingdom, Indonesia, the Netherlands, Republic of Korea, Israel, Canada, Finland, Nepal, Ireland, the United Arab Emirates, Taiwan, Russia and Australia. During these tours, I visited universities and research institutions, attended industry and world youth conferences, and shared the mission of a developed India and conveyed the importance of partnerships with other nations for economic development and value-based education. So far, I have attended more than 1,200 programmes, meeting more than fifteen million people, particularly the youth. I have shared the dreams of the youth, how they would like to be unique, and their spirit and their enthusiasm for the great mission of development, combating all challenges. This venture has now been developed into World Vision 2030.
Each of these events has given a new direction to my life. When I look back, I introspect on what I have learnt from the change of course created by these events. Decision making in each case was complex and the events were chronologically very much apart. Still, I find aspiring for new challenges was the foundation for all the decisions. That’s how life is enriched.
It can be difficult to find time for all the things one wants to do. In fact my schedule seems to have a life of its own. It is even more hectic than before, and I am thinking of giving myself a little more room. Just a day ago, I was good-naturedly ribbing R.K. Prasad, who manages my schedules and programmes, how come on return from Mysore on Friday I was fixed for Moradabad and Rampur on Monday, where I had four engagements before being driven back to Delhi late at night, an address to the Pan African e-Network on Wednesday, and then Guwahati on Thursday, back to Delhi on Friday night and again flying out to Lucknow on Saturday morning for a conclave. A recent month’s schedule, that for May, listing engagements, is as follows. The daily appointments, which can be quite a few, are omitted:
Schedule for May 2012
Tuesday, 1 May
Visit Bokaro: Visit Bokaro Steel Plant and address the engineers and address the students of Chinmaya Vidyalaya
Ranchi to participate in the launch of ‘What can I give’ programme
Saturday and Sunday, 5 & 6 May
Visit Chennai and Trichi and Karaikudi
Monday, 7 May
Meeting with 30 students and teachers from Govt Sr Secondary School, Chattisgarh
Wednesday, 9 May
Visit Sanskriti Group of Institutions to launch the ‘What can I give’ programme at Mathura
Visit Pagal Bawa Ashram – an ashram for widows at Vrindavan
Friday, 11 May
Inauguration of the Technology Day Celebrations of the Department of Science and Technology
Saturday, 12 May
Visit Azamgarh, U.P. to inaugurate the Vedanta Hospital and address the students of Azamgarh
Tuesday, 15 May
Inauguration of the International Year of Cooperatives 2012 of the National Cooperative Development Corporation
Thursday and Friday, 17-18 May
Chief Guest at the Graduation Day celebrations of the CMR Institute of Technology
Golden jubilee oration at the Defence Food Research Lab, Mysore
Visit to All India Institute of Speech and Hearing
Visit JSS University and address the students
Monday, 21 May
Chief Guest at the First Convocation of the Teerthankar Mahavir University, Moradabad
Visit Rampur and address the school students of Rampur district
Visit C.L. Gupta Eye Institute and address the doctors/staff
Visit the Moradabad Institute of Technology and address the students
Wednesday, 23 May
Pan African e-Network address to the African Nations
Thursday, 24 May
Visit Guwahati and address the Annual Convocation of the IIT Guwahati
Saturday, 26 May
Address to Hindustan Times–Hindustan U.P. Development Conclave at Lucknow
As one can see from the diversity of the functions, each address has a different subject to tackle, and preparing the speeches is a task in itself.
The conclave at Lucknow on 26 May was held to generate ideas for the development of Uttar Pradesh. As usual I had spent some time preparing my presentation. I was happy to see that the points I made went down well with the experts gathered there and with the new chief minister, Akhilesh Yadav. At thirty-eight, he is the youngest chief minister in the country.
U.P. has the second largest economy in the nation and is richly endowed in natural and human resources. With its 100 million youth, it is home to every fifth youth in the nation. My expe
rt friends tell me that by 2016, out of every 100 skilled jobs being generated worldwide, about eight could come directly from this state alone.
My study of the economic profile of U.P. indicated that 73 per cent of the population is engaged in agriculture and allied activities, and 46 per cent of the state income is generated from agriculture. During the 11th Plan period, the state has recorded 7.3 per cent GSDP (Gross State Domestic Product), exceeding the 6.1 per cent target. The state has over 2.3 million small-scale industrial units. Presently, there are over 2.5 million unemployed youth, of whom 0.9 million are over thirty-five years old.
Keeping these aspects in mind, my presentation considered ways to raise the per capita income from the current Rs 26,051 to more than Rs 100,000 through value-added employment generation, promote a literacy rate of 100 per cent, reduce the IMR (infant mortality rate) to less than ten and remove diseases like leprosy, kala azar, malaria, chikungunya, dengue and TB from the state.
I went on to illustrate how these goals could be accomplished to empower its 200 million people.
One of the suggestions was to make a skill map of U.P. This would mean mapping all the districts in the state with their core competencies in terms of skills across the fields of art, music, handicrafts, agro products and cuisine, among others, and then developing their potential in a focused way.
There were many other specific measures in the presentation. My wish is that dynamic plans for faster development are implemented across the country to make the process interactive and result-oriented.
The 123 Agreement signed between the United States and India is known as the Indo-US nuclear deal. Under this agreement India agreed to separate its civil and military nuclear facilities and to place all its civil nuclear facilities under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards. In exchange, the United States agreed to work towards full civil nuclear cooperation with India. After prolonged negotiations the UPA (United Progressive Alliance) government had to face a trust vote on 22 July 2008 before signing the safeguards agreement with the IAEA.
The crucial element in this trust vote was the Left parties who were supporting the UPA government from outside. They refused to be a party to the agreement. The president of the Samajwadi Party, Mulayam Singh Yadav, and his senior aide Amar Singh were in two minds about the nuclear deal and whether they should extend their support. They were not sure whether the deal would be favourable to India or was being done purely on business considerations by the West, particularly the United States. To clarify the position both Mulayam Singh and Amar Singh desired to meet me at my residence at 10 Rajaji Marg and discuss the merits and demerits of India signing the deal. I told them that in the long run, India has to become self-reliant in thorium-based nuclear reactors. That means, we will have clean and abundant energy for all our development tasks without any strings. The deal will help us to tide over the present shortages with respect to uranium.
One other important issue which came up is the agitation on continuing with nuclear power plants, especially the power plant under construction at Koodankulam in Tamil Nadu, after the tsunami devastation in Fukushima, Japan in March 2011. The agitators belonging to the local villages supported by national and international NGOs were demanding that the work in Koodankulam should immediately stop and they were preventing the engineers from proceeding with the work. Looking at the seriousness of the situation I carried out a detailed study of the safety systems of nuclear power plants in India and the desirability of going ahead with them and published an article in the English-language and regional newspapers explaining why this technology was so essential for the development needs of India.
Simultaneously, I visited Koodankulam with my team to review the 2,000 MW, third-generation-plus plant. I wanted to understand the plant’s safety features and how it was addressing the concerns of the people which had been highlighted in the aftermath of the Fukushima event. I spent the whole day there meeting scientists and experts and the local people and also studying the various facilities of the plant first-hand. I was heartened to note that it is equipped with the latest technologies when it comes to safety. There are four important aspects of safety in nuclear power plants: Structural integrity safety, thermal hydraulic safety, radiation safety and neutronic safety, and it met the requirements of all four.
Later, I suggested that there should be a special PURA complex adjoining the villages around the plant which would help with education, training facilities and enabling value-added employment for the local population.
I am happy to see that these measures are being implemented and the government has announced that 2 per cent of the profit generated by the power plant is to be allocated for social welfare, rural uplift and enhanced empowerment of the citizens of the Koodankulam region. The functioning of the plant would be part of meeting the goals of energy independence.
The last five years have given me an opportunity to meet millions of children, pursue academics and research in multiple universities both in India and abroad, be a teacher in societal transformation to a large number of management students and contribute my views on pressing national issues. Above all, I was able to catalyse the introduction of life-saving systems in over eight states through the Emergency Trauma Management Programme.
EPILOGUE
Oh! Parliamentarians, the sculptors of Mother India,
Lead us to light, enrich our lives.
Your honest toil is our guiding light,
If you work hard, we all can prosper.
In 2007, as I demitted office, I gave a speech to parliamentarians that I feel has great relevance to all that I have said in the foregoing pages, and gives some points that need to be kept in mind. India’s democratic experience as a free nation has been a phenomenal act of faith. When universal suffrage was adopted in 1951 there was no precedent anywhere in the world where millions of illiterate and property-less people were enfranchised overnight, with the hope that this would produce a quiet and steady social revolution, ensure to all its citizens the extensive list of rights promised to them under the Constitution; bring about a greater sense of national unity; and ensure national security, well-being, and prosperity more than at any time in its history of centuries of crushing alien rule.
As a nation, we have made significant gains in our economic performance, especially in recent years, compared to the historical past. Our successes however are mixed in nature, because our performance on a range of human development and governance indicators has still a long way to go. A new vision and visionary leaders are needed to restore a national sense of missionary zeal to fight for our people, for, by doing so, we are fighting for the world.
Parliament is undoubtedly India’s premier institution, the very embodiment of representative democracy. Parliamentary democracy as a process of governance and a system of national politics has shown great purpose in loosening the historical power structures of Indian society, in sustaining free institutions, and in widening the scope of democratic participation. However, there is little doubt that, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, Parliament as an institution faces greater challenges than ever before since its creation in 1951, especially on matters related to human development and governance.
But what we have to see very clearly is that the effectiveness of Parliament as an institutional instrument of governance, and its capacity to deliberate, produce legislation and provide visionary leadership to the government and the nation, is increasingly dependent upon the functioning of a multiplicity of political parties, their capacities and calculations, rather than Parliament itself as an institution. That is the main reason why I consider it important to share with you the challenges facing the nation, including Parliament as an institution, and suggest ways forward to make India a developed nation by 2020.
There is a general feeling and appreciation that the environment internal and external to India’s system of governance has gone through rapid and apparently irreversible change, especially over the last two deca
des. The challenges posed to national sovereignty, integrity and economic growth posed by these environmental changes need to be addressed coherently and rapidly. With the passage of time, along with increase in size and complexity, social organizations tend to deteriorate and become crisis prone. As a social entity, India’s system of governance appears to have entered a stage of crisis, and this is a clarion call for self-renewal and change.
India is fortunate in having leaders of high ability, competence and vision in government and Parliament. It can also be rightly proud of its multifarious achievements in economic, social and political fields since Independence. Many predict that by 2050, India will become one of the dominant economies of the world. But neither democracy nor economic resurgence can be taken for granted. Constant vigilance is the price of liberty. It is important that democratic processes and functioning, however satisfactory they may appear to be on the surface, cannot be, and should not be, frozen in time. We cannot rest content with past achievements, and ignore recent developments that call for a change in the way we run our society and nation. Economic renewal and positive growth impulses after liberalization are occurring largely outside the governmental and public sectors, and the greatest challenge before us is to re-energize and give a new charter of life to our public institutions.
In the government and public sector, we need marked improvement at all levels not only in terms of output, profits and public savings, but also in provision of vital public services in the fields of education, health, water and transport. Many eminent scholars have also studied the functioning of Parliament, and identified the wide variety of institutional challenges facing the Indian Parliament. I have reviewed them carefully, and shall voice some of their important observations and concerns.
There is an all-pervading feeling in the nation that the time is ripe for improvement in the effectiveness of Parliament as an institution of accountability and oversight. Parliament can use many instruments for ensuring accountability of governmental performance, such as motions on the floor, oversight powers, and the committee system. But these instruments increasingly need rejuvenation. The fact that the Indian economy is globalizing has strengthened our economy. The nation is richer, but great vigilance is needed to enhance the power of Parliament in two respects. Much of economic decision making is now increasingly governed by international treaties, and the Indian Parliament is one of the few parliaments in the world that does not have a system of effective treaty oversight in place. These treaties are by and large a fait accompli by the time they come to Parliament. Hence the power to oversee and legislate on treaties and agreements with foreign nations is urgently required for Parliament.