Dr.
APJ Abdul Kalaam's speech
in Hyderabad makes interesting reading;
Quote: I have THREE visions for India.
In 3000 years of our history people from all over the world have come and
invaded us, captured our lands, conquered our minds. From Alexander
onwards. The Greeks, the Turks, the Moguls, the Portuguese, the British, the
French, the Dutch, all of them came and looted us, 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, their history and tried to
enforce our way of life on them. Why? Because we respect the freedom
of others.
That is why my first vision is that of FREEDOM. I believe that India got its
first vision of this 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 fifty years we have been a developing nation. It is
time we see ourselves as a developed nation. We are among top 5 nations of
the world in
terms of GDP. We have 10 percent growth rate in most areas. Our
poverty levels are falling. 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 incorrect? I have a THIRD
vision. 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. My good fortune was
to have worked with three great minds. Dr. Vikram Sarabhai of the
Dept. 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: Twenty 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
of Scientist. TWO: After my ISRO years, I joined DRDO and got a chance to be the
part of India's guided missile program. It was my second bliss when Agni
met its mission requirements in 1994.
THREE: The Dept. of Atomic Energy and DRDO had this tremendous partnership
in the recent nuclear tests, on May 11 and 13. 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. FOUR: One day an
orthopedic 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 three 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 gram calipers and took
them to the orthopedic center. The children didn't believe their eyes.
From dragging around a three 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 first in milk production.
We are number one in Remote sensing satellites.
We are the second largest producer of wheat.
We are the second largest producer of rice.
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 only obsessed in the bad news and failures and disasters. 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 and a granary. It was this inspiring picture that
everyone woke up to. The gory details of killings, bombardments, deaths,
were inside in the newspaper, buried among other news. In India we only read
about death, sickness, terrorism, crime. Why are we so NEGATIVE? 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. India is
not an under-developed nation; it is a highly developed nation.
Do you have 10 minutes? Allow me to come back with vengeance. Got 10
minutes for your country? If yes, then read; otherwise, choice is yours.
YOU say that our government is inefficient.
YOU say that our laws are too old.
YOU say that the municipality does not pick up the garbage.
YOU say that the phones don't work, the railways are a joke, the airline is
the worst in the world, mails never reach their destination. YOU say that
our country has been fed to the dogs and is the absolute pits. YOU say, say
and say. What do YOU do about it? Take a person on his way to Singapore.
Give him a name - YOURS.
Give him a face - YOURS.
YOU walk out of the airport and you are at your International best. In Singapore
you don't throw cigarette butts on the roads or eat in the
stores. YOU are as proud of their Underground Links as they are. You pay
$5 (approx. Rs.60) to drive through Orchard Road (equivalent of Mahim
Causeway or Pedder Road) between 5 PM and 8 PM. YOU comeback to the parking lot
to
punch your parking ticket if you have over stayed in a restaurant or a shopping
mall irrespective of your status identity. In Singapore you don't
say anything, DO YOU? YOU wouldn't dare to eat in public during Ramadan, in
Dubai. YOU would not dare to go out without your head covered in Jeddah. YOU
would not dare to buy an employee of the telephone exchange in London at 10
pounds (Rs.650) a month to, "see to it that my STD and ISD calls are billed
to someone else." YOU would not dare to speed beyond 55 mph (88 kmph) in
Washington and then tell the traffic cop, "Jaanta hai sala main kaun hoon
(Do you know who I am?). I am so and so's son. Take your two bucks
and get lost." YOU wouldn't chuck an empty coconut shell anywhere other
than the garbage pail on the beaches in Australia and New Zealand. Why
don't YOU
spit Paan on the streets of Tokyo? Why don't YOU use examination jockeys
or buy fake certificates in Boston? We are still talking of the same YOU.
YOU who can respect and conform to a foreign system in other countries but
cannot in your own. You who will throw papers and cigarettes on the road
the moment you touch Indian ground. If you can be an involved and
appreciative citizen in an alien country why cannot you be the same here in
India. Once in an interview, the famous Ex-municipal commissioner of Bombay
Mr.Tinaikar had a point to make. "Rich people's dogs are walked on
the streets to leave their affluent droppings all over the place," he said.
"And then the same people turn around to criticize and blame the
authorities for inefficiency and dirty pavements. What do they expect the
officers to do? Go down with a broom everytime their dog feels the
pressure in his bowels? In America every dog owner has to clean up after
his pet has done the job. Same in Japan. Will the Indian citizen do
that here?" He's right. We go to the polls to choose a government and after
that forfeit all
responsibility. We sit back wanting to be pampered and expect the
government to do everything for us whilst our contribution is totally
negative. We expect the government to clean up but we are not going to stop
chucking garbage all over the place nor are we going to stop to pick a up a
stray piece of paper and throw it in the bin. We expect the railways to
provide clean bathrooms but we are not going to learn the proper use of
bathrooms. We want Indian Airlines and Air India to provide the best of food and
toiletries but we are not going to stop pilfering at the least opportunity. This
applies even to the staff who is known not to pass on the service to the public.
When it comes to burning social issues like those related to women, dowry, girl
child and others, we make loud drawing room protestations and continue to do the
reverse at home. Our excuse?
"It's the whole system which has to change, how will it
matter if I alone forego my sons' rights to a dowry." So who's going to
change the system?
What does a system consist of? Very conveniently for us it consists of our
neighbors, other households, other cities, other communities and the
government. But definitely not me and YOU. When it comes to us actually
making a positive contribution to the system we lock ourselves along with our
families into a safe cocoon and look into the distance at countries far away and
wait for a Mr. Clean to come along & work miracles for us with a
majestic sweep of his hand. Or we leave the country and run away.
Like lazy cowards hounded by our fears we run to America to bask in their glory
and praise their system. When New York becomes insecure we run to England.
When England experiences
unemployment, we take the next flight out to the Gulf. When the Gulf is
war struck, we demand to be rescued and brought home by the Indian government.
Everybody is out to abuse and rape the country. Nobody thinks of feeding
the system. Our conscience is mortgaged to money.
2nd Portion of the speech has been on the net for a long time.
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