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A.P.J. Abdul Kalam: India's missile man, an indomitable spirit (Obituary)
New Delhi, July 27
An enthusiast till the last
for sharing ideas with students and youth, it was not surprising that
former president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam was delivering a lecture at the
IIM-Shillong when he collapsed and died in a hospital shortly
afterwards.
His last tweet on Monday sounded enthusiastic "Going
to Shillong.. to take course on Livable Planet earth at IIM." His handle
@APJAbdulKalam, described him as "Scientist, teacher, learner and
writer. Served as the 11th President of India (2002-07). Working for an
economically developed nation by 2020."
Popularly known as
India's "Missile Man", Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam crowned a
illustrious acientific career with a term as india's first citizen after
the then Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA)
government put forward his name as K.R. Narayanan's successor. He was
recipient of India's highest civilian honour - the Bharat Ratna - in
1997.
One of India's best known scientists, Kalam was full of
ideas on how to solve India's problems - on bridging the rural-urban
divide through his pet concept of PURA or "Providing Urban amenities in
Rural Areasa - for empowering villages, and also to use solar power in a
big way to tide over India's energy needs.
PURA, Kalam said, was
about giving a cluster of villages physical, electronic and knowledge
connectivity and he had in mind creating about 7,000 PURAs across the
country.
"I believe that connectivity is the key to bridging the
rural-urban divide. The core-competence of the village will enable the
production of competitive products for national and international
markets. This will lead to rural enterprises which will create jobs in
villages and lead to a vibrant economy in India's hinterland. That is
how prosperity will emerge in the rural environment," he said in an
interview to Wharton in 2008.
He enumerated five traits that a
leader, especially the president of India, must have. "The leader must
have vision. Without vision, you cannot be a leader. Second, the leader
must be able to travel into an unexplored path. Normally the tendency is
for people to travel along well-laid out ways. Third, the leader must
know how to manage success, and even more importantly, failure.
"The
fourth trait is that the leader should have the courage to make
decisions. Fifth, the leader should have nobility in management. Every
action of the leader should be transparent. And finally, the leader
should work with integrity and succeed with integrity," he said in the
same interview.
Kalam had also drawn up an elaborate plan to
power Rashtrapati Bhavan with solar power, but his term ended before he
could implement it. He believed that besides solar, India should also go
in for nuclear energy and also bio fuels from jatropha plant and algae.
Born
on October 15, 1931 at the Hindu pilgrim town of Rameswaram in Tamil
Nadu, Kalam specialized in aeronautical engineering from Madras
Institute of Technology and in 1958, joined the Defence Research and
Development Organisation (DRDO).
He moved to the Indian Space
Research Organisation (ISRO), where he was project director of India's
first indigenous Satellite Launch Vehicle (SLV-III), which successfully
injected the Rohini satellite in the near earth orbit in July 1980 and
made India a member of the exclusive Space Club.
In his
two-decade stint in the space agency, he was responsible for the
evolution of ISRO's launch vehicle programme, particularly the PSLV
configuration.
He rejoined DRDO in 1982, and planned the
programme that produced a number of successful missiles, earning him the
"Missile Man" nickname. He took up the responsibility of developing
indigenous weapons as the chief executive of the Integrated Guided
Missile Development Programme (IGMDP). He was responsible for the
development and operationalisation of Agni and Prithvi missiles.
From
1992 to 1997, Kalam was scientific adviser to the defence minister, and
later served as principal scientific adviser (1999-2001) to the
government with the rank of cabinet minister.
He played a prominent role in the country's 1998 nuclear weapons tests, Pokhran-II, which established Kalam as a national hero.
He
also gave thrust to self-reliance in defence systems by progressing
multiple development tasks and mission projects such as Light Combat
Aircraft.
In 1998, Kalam put forward a countrywide plan called
Technology Vision 2020, which he described as a road map for
transforming India from a less-developed to a developed society in 20
years, and called for, among other measures, increasing agricultural
productivity, technology as a vehicle for economic growth, and widening
access to health care and education.
From November 2001, Kalam was professor, technology and societal transformation at Anna University, Chennai.
He
wrote four books - "Wings of Fire", "India 2020 - A Vision for the New
Millennium", "My Journey" and "Ignited Minds - Unleashing the power
within India".
One of the most distinguished scientists of India
with the unique honour of receiving honorary doctorates from 30
universities and institutions, he was was awarded the Padma Bhushan in
1981, and Padma Vibhushan in 1990 before the Bharat Ratna.
Not many known that he was a poet too. His favourite poem was "The Vision", which he also recited in parliament.
"I climbed and climbed/Where is the peak, my Lord?
I ploughed and ploughed/Where is the knowledge treasure, my Lord?
I sailed and sailed/Where is the island of peace, my Lord?
Almighty, bless my nation/With vision and sweat resulting into happiness".
On
July 22, Kalam tweeted: "An indomitable spirit stands on two feet..
vision and firm thought". It could serve as an apt description for him.