There is a controversy brewing over the government’s decision to hand over late President APJ Abdul Kalam’s post-presidential bungalow to Union Minister Mahesh Sharma as his new official residence. There is even an online petition (signed also by me) to turn the premises into a science centre. This would certainly put the grounds to a far better use than making it the home of a man full of unscientific and obscurantist notions. Still, this row should not lead to further deification of former President Kalam. His work should be seen in the right perspective.
As presidents go, APJ Abdul Kalam was not of the calibre of Dr Rajendra Prasad or Dr Radhakrishnan or Dr Zakir Hussain, but towered over people like Fakhruddin Ahmed, Zail Singh, Pratibha Patil and for that matter possibly the present incumbent. He was certainly not a small man elevated to high office. But the achievements that elevated him to high office and honours were quite modest.
Kalam had little in common with his predecessors. He did not have the educational attainments of S Radhakrishnan, Zakir Hussain and Shankar Dayal Sharma who were genuine PhDs from top-notch institutions. Kalam just has an engineering degree from Madras University. Also, unlike his predecessors, he did not have the political training or the constitutional understanding that the office often tests.
Sum of its failures
His entire professional life was spent in the Defence Research and Development Organization, which has not exactly distinguished itself in any great way. The sum of its failures, indeed, is far greater than its achievements.
The Arjun main battle tank, for instance, is yet to be fully accepted by the Indian Army, and even after its induction, 300 Russian T-90 tanks were imported from Russia. The nuclear submarine project is sought to be cocooned in secrecy, but it is commonly known that the “Advanced Technology Vehicle” is still no more than a paper tiger. It wouldn’t even have seen the sea if the Russians hadn’t chipped in with the nuclear reactor design after our Atomic Energy Commission failed to deliver a usable reactor.
Similarly, the Tejas Light Combat Aircraft is actually the late combat aircraft – it is overdue by well over two decades – so late in fact that it will be fairly obsolete when it enters full service in this decade. Even the 5.56 mm basic infantry combat weapon is a bit of a dud, requiring the frequent import of AK-47 rifles, much to the delight of Delhi’s arms agents.
Change of roles
During his career, Kalam earned a reputation as the father of India’s missile programme. That might be so, but the offspring are nothing worth writing home about. The DRDO’s Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme started by him in 1982 was terminated in 2012. The following missiles and technology demonstration systems were developed under the IGMDP – Agni, a technology demonstration project for re-entry technology; Prithvi, surface-to-air missile with 150km, 250km and 350km range for Army, Air Force and Navy; Akash, surface-to-air missile with a range of 25km and multi-target handling system; Nag, third generation “fire & forget” and “top attack” anti-tank missile; Trishul missile system, which has been completed as technology demonstration.
Yet no Air Force aircraft or Navy warship carries any DRDO developed missile. They deploy mostly imported or co-developed weapons. The Indian Army’s main anti-tank weapon, the wire-guided Milan ATM, is license produced from Matra, and is long obsolete. The Army is furiously pressing for the import of the US-made Javelin anti-tank missile. The IAF and Army anti-aircraft missile batteries are all of Russian origin. The prime minister has got the S-400 anti-aircraft system on his shopping list for his forthcoming Moscow visit.
The Prithvi has an embarrassingly short range, too short for a nuclear warhead and relatively inaccurate for a conventional warhead. The Agni missile tests have added to our lexicon phrases like partial success or partial failure and technology demonstrator. Even so, it can be termed as somewhat of a success. It is deployed, and it takes very little to make a nuclear-tipped missile credible.
When the Akash surface-to-air missile entered service with the IAF in September 2012, it had taken 30 years to develop and built. Shaken by this delay, the Navy and the IAF have sponsored a new development model for their next-generation missiles, which envisages the DRDO moving away from indigenous development and instead operating as a project manager.
The best of the lot
Our missile programme is so far behind times that even North Korea, a woebegone and desolate country, is in all likelihood ahead of us. Like the Pakistanis, even we would have been better off buying North Korean missiles like the Nodong (Pak name Ghauri).
Many also credit Kalam as the being the father of India’s nuclear weapons programme. That programme has, mercifully, had little to do with the DRDO and is almost entirely an Atomic Energy Commission show. What then is Kalam’s kamaal?
Clearly, Kalam was no Werner von Braun who designed the Nazi V-1 and V-2 rockets and led America’s manned flight foray into space with Alan Shepard’s sub-orbital fight. He most certainly was no Kurchatkov, who pioneered the Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons programme.
Yet in 2002, he was the best of the lot the National Democratic Alliance government was considering for the office of president. There was much that was admirable about Kalam. He was honest. He was erudite. He knew Sanskrit. He had translated the Thirukural from Tamil into English. This no doubt endeared him to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Echoing this sentiment, Mahesh Sharma said in September: “Even though he was a Muslim, he was a patriot.” The Bharatiya Janata Party felt that picking a Muslim for the Rashtrapati Bhavan would be somehow helpful after the pogrom in Gujarat in 2002. He was the kamal’s kamaal.
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As presidents go, APJ Abdul Kalam was not of the calibre of Dr Rajendra Prasad or Dr Radhakrishnan or Dr Zakir Hussain, but towered over people like Fakhruddin Ahmed, Zail Singh, Pratibha Patil and for that matter possibly the present incumbent. He was certainly not a small man elevated to high office. But the achievements that elevated him to high office and honours were quite modest.
Kalam had little in common with his predecessors. He did not have the educational attainments of S Radhakrishnan, Zakir Hussain and Shankar Dayal Sharma who were genuine PhDs from top-notch institutions. Kalam just has an engineering degree from Madras University. Also, unlike his predecessors, he did not have the political training or the constitutional understanding that the office often tests.
Sum of its failures
His entire professional life was spent in the Defence Research and Development Organization, which has not exactly distinguished itself in any great way. The sum of its failures, indeed, is far greater than its achievements.
The Arjun main battle tank, for instance, is yet to be fully accepted by the Indian Army, and even after its induction, 300 Russian T-90 tanks were imported from Russia. The nuclear submarine project is sought to be cocooned in secrecy, but it is commonly known that the “Advanced Technology Vehicle” is still no more than a paper tiger. It wouldn’t even have seen the sea if the Russians hadn’t chipped in with the nuclear reactor design after our Atomic Energy Commission failed to deliver a usable reactor.
Similarly, the Tejas Light Combat Aircraft is actually the late combat aircraft – it is overdue by well over two decades – so late in fact that it will be fairly obsolete when it enters full service in this decade. Even the 5.56 mm basic infantry combat weapon is a bit of a dud, requiring the frequent import of AK-47 rifles, much to the delight of Delhi’s arms agents.
Change of roles
During his career, Kalam earned a reputation as the father of India’s missile programme. That might be so, but the offspring are nothing worth writing home about. The DRDO’s Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme started by him in 1982 was terminated in 2012. The following missiles and technology demonstration systems were developed under the IGMDP – Agni, a technology demonstration project for re-entry technology; Prithvi, surface-to-air missile with 150km, 250km and 350km range for Army, Air Force and Navy; Akash, surface-to-air missile with a range of 25km and multi-target handling system; Nag, third generation “fire & forget” and “top attack” anti-tank missile; Trishul missile system, which has been completed as technology demonstration.
Yet no Air Force aircraft or Navy warship carries any DRDO developed missile. They deploy mostly imported or co-developed weapons. The Indian Army’s main anti-tank weapon, the wire-guided Milan ATM, is license produced from Matra, and is long obsolete. The Army is furiously pressing for the import of the US-made Javelin anti-tank missile. The IAF and Army anti-aircraft missile batteries are all of Russian origin. The prime minister has got the S-400 anti-aircraft system on his shopping list for his forthcoming Moscow visit.
The Prithvi has an embarrassingly short range, too short for a nuclear warhead and relatively inaccurate for a conventional warhead. The Agni missile tests have added to our lexicon phrases like partial success or partial failure and technology demonstrator. Even so, it can be termed as somewhat of a success. It is deployed, and it takes very little to make a nuclear-tipped missile credible.
When the Akash surface-to-air missile entered service with the IAF in September 2012, it had taken 30 years to develop and built. Shaken by this delay, the Navy and the IAF have sponsored a new development model for their next-generation missiles, which envisages the DRDO moving away from indigenous development and instead operating as a project manager.
The best of the lot
Our missile programme is so far behind times that even North Korea, a woebegone and desolate country, is in all likelihood ahead of us. Like the Pakistanis, even we would have been better off buying North Korean missiles like the Nodong (Pak name Ghauri).
Many also credit Kalam as the being the father of India’s nuclear weapons programme. That programme has, mercifully, had little to do with the DRDO and is almost entirely an Atomic Energy Commission show. What then is Kalam’s kamaal?
Clearly, Kalam was no Werner von Braun who designed the Nazi V-1 and V-2 rockets and led America’s manned flight foray into space with Alan Shepard’s sub-orbital fight. He most certainly was no Kurchatkov, who pioneered the Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons programme.
Yet in 2002, he was the best of the lot the National Democratic Alliance government was considering for the office of president. There was much that was admirable about Kalam. He was honest. He was erudite. He knew Sanskrit. He had translated the Thirukural from Tamil into English. This no doubt endeared him to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Echoing this sentiment, Mahesh Sharma said in September: “Even though he was a Muslim, he was a patriot.” The Bharatiya Janata Party felt that picking a Muslim for the Rashtrapati Bhavan would be somehow helpful after the pogrom in Gujarat in 2002. He was the kamal’s kamaal.