Dr. APJ Abdul Kalaam's speech in Hyderabad.

[OUR HONOURABLE PRESIDENT OF INDIA]


A must read for every Indian.

"I have three visions for India.

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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?

4. 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.

5. 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 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!

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. In India we only read about death, sickness, terrorism, crime. Why
are we so NEGATIVE?

11. Another question: Why are we, as a nation so obsessed with foreign
things?

12. 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?

13. 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.

14. 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.

15. 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. YOUcomeback 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 55mph (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."

16. 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?

17. 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?

18. 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.

19. 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 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.

20. 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?

21. 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 in to 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.

22. 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.

23. 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"

24. Lets do what India needs from us.


Thank you,
Dr. Abdul Kalam
(PRESIDENT OF INDIA)