----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, February 01, 2004 9:17
PM
Subject: 1st Feb 2004: From President
Kalam
As desired by the President of India, this
paper is for circulation.
Thanks
President's Office
The President of
India
DR. A. P. J. Abdul Kalaam's Speech in Hyderabad
"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:
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.
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. 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.
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 orthopaedic
centre. 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 T.Vs, 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 a 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 come back 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 km/h) in
Washington and
then
tell the traffic cop, "Jaanta hai 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 every time 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 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
neighbours, 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.
Dear
Indians, The article is highly thought inductive, calls for a
great
deal of introspection and pricks one's conscience too.... I am
echoing
J.F.Kennedy's words to his fellow Americans to relate to
Indians.....
"ASK WHAT WE CAN DO FOR INDIA AND DO WHAT HAS TO BE DONE TO
MAKE INDIA
WHAT
AMERICA AND OTHER WESTERN COUNTRIES ARE TODAY"
Lets
do what India needs from us.
Forward this mail to each Indian for a change
instead of sending Jokes
or
junk mails.
Thank you,
Dr. Abdul
Kalaam
(PRESIDENT OF
INDIA)
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