Dr. APJ Abdul Kalaam's Speech

[Guest guest]

dear friends

Here is a speech given by Dr.Abdul Kalaam. Please read it.

 

regards

 

A.SELVAKUMAR

 

HERE GOES Dr. Abdul Kalaam's Speech,

 

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, and 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 orthopaedic 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 callipers

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 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 years 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, and 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. 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 or 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. 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 "

End of Speech

 

Lets do what India needs from us. Forward this mail to each Indian for a

change.