Essays

Abdul Kalam was born on 15th October 1931 at Rameswaram in Dhanushkodi, Tamil Nadu, to a working class Tamil Muslim family. He received his degree in aeronautical engineering from the Madras Institute of Technology in 1958. After graduation he joined India's Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) to work on a hovercraft project. In 1962, Kalam moved to the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), where his team successfully launched several satellites. He made a significant contribution as Project Director to develop India's first indigenous Satellite Launch Vehicle (SLV-III) which successfully placed the Rohini space satellite into near earth orbit in July 1980.

In 1982, Kalam returned to DRDO as Director, focusing on Indigenous guided missiles. He was responsible for the development and operationalisation of the AGNI and PR1THVI missiles. This earned him the sobriquet "India's missile-man". He also helped in the formulation of healthcare products using technology developed for missiles.

In July 1992, Kalam became a Scientific Advisor to India's Defence Minister. As the Principal Scientific Advisor to the Indian government, he held the rank of a Cabinet Minister. His work led to the successful Pokhran-Il nuclear tests in 1998, which reiterated India's position as a nuclear weapon state. Kalam was also the Chairman, Ex-officio, of the Scientific Advisory Committee to the Cabinet (SAC-C) and piloted the "India Millennium Mission 2020".

Kalam later took up academia as a Professor of Technology & Societal Transformation at Anna University, Chennai from November 2001 and was involved in teaching and research tasks. Above all, he took up a mission to ignite the young minds for national development by meeting young school students across the country. Kalam was elected the llth president of India and took office on July 25, 2002.

Kalam has the unique distinction of having received honorary doctorates from at least thirty universities, as also India's three highest civilian honours: the Padma Bhushan in 1981; the Padma Vibhushan in 1990; and the Bharat Ratna in 1997. He has recently refused an honorary doctorate from a University, stating he is satisfied with the ones he has earned with his hard work and determination.

His book "India 2020" strongly advocates an action plan to develop India into a knowledge superpower and into a developed nation by the year 2020. Kalam is credited with the view that India ought to take a more assertive stance in international relations; he apparently regards his work on India's nuclear weapons program as a way to assert India's place as a future superpower,                               

Kalam continues to take an active interest in other developments in the field of science and technology as well. He has proposed a research programme for developing bio-    ' implants. He is a supporter of Open source software over proprietary solutions and believes that the use of open source software on a large scale will bring more people the benefits of information technology.

Kalam has been the subject of vicious criticism from leftists in the Indian press, Praful Bidwai being among his staunchest critics, When his name was proposed for the Presidency, a sustained campaign was carried out alleging he was not a. devout enough muslim and was portrayed as a hardline nationalist. In characterstic humility, he ignored these criticism to subsequently emerge one of the most popular Presidents, who has raised the presitige of the Presidency to new heights. He also emerged as a leading candidate for youth icon award in a MTV conducted poll.

He has also been widely criticized for giving his assent for the dissolution of Bihar assembly in the middle of the night without holding any serious discussions with legal experts. This can be attributed to the limited power that the Constitution of India confers on the president. The president can either give his consent to a bill or send the bill back to the Lok Sabha for review. If the Lok Sabha again sends the bill to the president, the president has no other option but to give his consent.

Kalam comes from the Marakkar community from Southern India, a non-Urdu speaking community. His idea of India's interests is modernist and nationalistic. This stands in contrast to the articulation of India's interests by different groups across India's political spectrum. The Congress and its related formations derive their idea of national interest from the ideas expressed by Jawaharlal Nehru that sees India as an historic entity that must stand at the forefront of nations that have won their independence during the 20th century from colonial powers and are trying to create societies with regulated economic systems.

The communist parties of India and its allies see India as an entity of the 20th century and a temporary creation of the current capitalist phase of human society that should someday be a part of a worldwide classless and nationless socialist economy that is the final and inevitable endpoint of human progress.

The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party sees India as an entity inspired by its Hindu heritage that is required to recapture its once glorious position on the world stage, with its current structure of a Nation State being a modern requirement. Kalam's views are inspired partly by Nehru's ideas and those articulated by Hindu nationalists and he attempts to draw the best from both. While rejecting Nehru's role for India as a spokesperson of other nations with perceived common interests, his views also reject the Hindu nationalist idea of a national identity based on a religious heritage. Kalam's point of view however makes no room whatsoever for the Indian left's idea of India. This may be a reason why leftists’ journalists in India have criticized him.

Kalam's belief in the power of technology to resolve society's problems and his views of these problems as a result of inefficient distribution of resources is modernistic. He also sees science and technology as ideology-free areas and emphasizes the cultivation of scientific temper and entrepreneurial drive. In this, he finds a lot of support among India's new business leaders like the founders of Infosys and Wipro who began their careers as technology professionals much in the same way Kalam did.

Kalam observes strict personal discipline, practicing vegetarianism, ceetotalism and celibacy. Kalam is a scholar of Tirukkural; in most of his speeches, he quotes at least one kural. Kalam has written several inspirational books, most notably his autobiography Wings of Fire, aimed at motivating Indian youth. Another of his books. Guiding Souls: Dialogues on the Purpose of Life reveals his spiritual side. It has been reported that there is considerable demand in South Korea for translated versions of books authored by him.