A must read for every Indian. Dr. A P J ABDUL KALAAM'S SPEECH

[Guest guest]

Dr. A P J ABDUL KALAAM'S SPEECH IN HYDERABAD

A must read for every Indian.

"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 whymy 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

11and 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 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 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 MahimCauseway or Peddler

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 km/h) 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 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

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.

 

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"Let's do what India needs from us.

 

Forward this mail to each Indian For a change instead of sending Jokes or junk mails.

Thank youDr. A P J Abdul KalaamHonorable President of INDIA

 

 

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