Turning Points (11 page)
AT: Sir, are you talking about the Airborne Surveillance Platform (ASP) crash on 11 January 1999?
APJ: Yes. The ASP crashed into the dense forests near Arakonam.
AT: I spoke once with K. Ramchand about this incident. He was the systems engineer. He told me that the Avro aircraft, with airborne surveillance system mounted atop as a rotodome, took off around 1400 hrs, climbed up to 10,000 ft and set course towards the Chennai coast. The radar testing was carried out between the Arakonam-Chennai coastline. The target aircraft for the mission trial was an AN-32 aircraft, which took off 15 minutes before the Avro. The radar performance was checked with both sea and land clutter. The performance of the radar as reported by the onboard mission crew via VHF (very high frequency) communication was very good. After one and a half hours of flight testing, the target aircraft landed at Arakonam around 1600 hrs. Subsequently, the ASP aircraft set course from Chennai towards Arakonam and descended close to the airfield from 10,000 to 5,000 ft. When the aircraft was about five nautical miles away from the airfield at an altitude between 3,000 ft and 5,000 ft, the rotodome severed away. The aircraft became unstable and crashed killing all the eight occupants.
APJ: I was in a Defence Research Council meeting in my office in South Block when I was told about the crash. I rushed to Bangalore to be with the bereaved families. Air Chief Marshal A.Y. Tipnis was also there. It was a very difficult moment for me, seeing the young wives crying in desperation and parents standing shell-shocked. One lady thrust her infant into my lap, saying, ‘Who will look after this young life?’ Another lady cried. ‘Why did you do this to us, Mr Kalam?’
AT: Ramchand gave me the list of the officers who lost their lives. Sqn Ldr P. Venkataraman was piloting the aircraft. P. Ilango, instrumentation engineer, and K.P. Shaju, radar system engineer, were from the Centre for Airborne Systems (CABS); D. Narasimhaswamy, radar processing scientist, and I. Jayakumar, signal processing scientist, were from the Electronics Research and Development Establishment (LRDE); and Sqn Ldr N.V. Seshu, R. Bhatnagar and S. Ravi were the other air force officers.
APJ: There were hardly any remains. For the comfort of the families, the authorities made coffins and kept them in the community hall.
AT: O my God!
APJ: In my state of profound grief, I could barely mumble a few words in the farewell speech I had to make.
AT: It reminds me of the letter Abraham Lincoln wrote to a mother of five sons who had died gloriously in the civil war.
I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.
I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours, to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.
APJ: The memory of wailing widows, immobilized parents, an innocent infant in my lap and the cremation of symbolic
coffins haunts me sitting here in Rashtrapati Bhavan. Do the few around going through the motions of politics and protocol understand the pain and agony people suffer out there in the laboratories and fields?
AT: What is the message?
APJ: Don’t pretend to be a candle, be a moth. Know the power hidden in serving. We seem to have got stuck with external forms of politics and mistaking them to be nation-building. It is sacrifices, toil and valour that is seldom shown or seen that truly makes a nation.
The crash of the airborne surveillance platform was one of the most tragic events in my life. I have given this conversation to show how deeply I feel about it. As also to convey that it is a long, hard journey while undertaking complex missions. But such setbacks also serve to toughen us.
Angel is free because of his knowledge,
The beast because of his ignorance,
Between the two remains the son of man to struggle.
—Rumi
O
ne of the pillars of development that I have thought a lot about is that we have to create a nation where poverty has been totally eradicated and illiteracy removed. Alongside, we need to evolve a society where crimes against women and children are absent and none in the society feels alienated. These thoughts were prominent in my mind during my visit to Gujarat in August 2002, which I took up
as my first major task immediately after becoming president. The state had been hit by riots a few months earlier, and their impact had left thousands of lives in disarray. It was an important and sensitive task, because it took place under unique circumstances, in a politically charged atmosphere. I decided that my mission was not to look at what had happened, not to look at what was happening, but to focus on what should be done. What had happened was already a point of discussion by the judiciary and the Parliament and continues to be discussed even now.
As no president had ever visited an area under such circumstances, many questioned the necessity of my visit to the state at this juncture. At the ministry and bureaucratic level, it was suggested that I should not venture into Gujarat at that point of time. One of the main reasons was political. However, I made up my mind that I would go and preparations were in full swing at Rashtrapati Bhavan for my first visit as president.
The prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, asked me only one question, ‘Do you consider going to Gujarat at this time essential?’ I told the PM, ‘I consider it an important duty so that I can be of some use to remove the pain, and also accelerate the relief activities, and bring about a unity of minds, which is my mission, as I stressed in my address during the swearing-in ceremony.’
Many apprehensions were expressed, among them that my visit might be boycotted by the chief minister, that I would receive a cold reception and that there would be protests from many sides. But, to my great surprise when I landed at Gandhinagar, not only the chief minister, but his
entire Cabinet and a large number of legislators, officials and members of the public were present at the airport. I visited twelve areas – three relief camps and nine riot-hit locations where the losses had been high. Narendra Modi, the chief minister, was with me throughout the visit. In one way, this helped me, as wherever I went, I received petitions and complaints and as he was with me I was able to suggest to him that action be taken as quickly as possible.
I remember one scene, when I visited a relief camp. A six-year-old boy came up to me, held both my hands and said, ‘Rashtrapatiji, I want my mother and father.’ I was speechless. There itself, I held a quick meeting with the district collector. The chief minister also assured me that the boy’s education and welfare would be taken care of by the government.
While I was in Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar, people from all sections of society wished to talk to me and express their problems and views personally. In one such gathering, nearly 2,000 citizens of Ahmedabad surrounded me. The interaction was in Gujarati and a friend of mine translated. I was asked about fifty questions and received 150 petitions.
My visit to two important places in Ahmedabad was indeed significant, particularly in the light of the riots. I called on Pramukh Swamiji Maharaj at Akshardham where he welcomed me. I discussed with His Holiness the mission of achieving unity of minds and bringing a healing touch to Gujarat, which has given to the nation great human beings like Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Vikram Sarabhai.
I also visited Sabarmati Ashram, where I met many ashramites and saw the agony writ large on their faces, even as they mechanically carried out their normal chores. I witnessed similar sentiments at Akshardham as well. As I was wondering why, I realized that both these institutions, by virtue of their inherent love and respect of human beings and their spiritual environment, work to bring happiness, peace and progress to society and could therefore not accept a situation of inflicting avoidable pain. I say this because in our land, with its heritage of a highly evolved civilization and where great men were born and stood tall as role models for the entire world, communal riots with their attendant tragedy are an aberration that should never happen.
All through my visit only one thought occupied my mind. We have many important tasks at hand to improve the lot of people and to accelerate the process of development. Should not development be our only agenda? Any citizen following any faith has the fundamental right to live happily. No one has the right to endanger the unity of minds, because unity of minds is the lifeline of our country, and makes our country truly unique. After all what is justice, what is democracy? Every citizen in the country has a right to live with dignity; every citizen has a right to aspire for distinction. To access the large number of opportunities, through just and fair means, in order to attain that dignity and distinction is what democracy is all about. That is what our Constitution is all about. And that is what makes life wholesome and worth living in a true and vibrant democracy, the essence of which is tolerance for people’s belief systems and lifestyles.
I believe that it is necessary for all of us to work for unity of minds. The increasing intolerance for the views of others and increasing contempt for the way of life or religion of others, or the expression of these differences through lawless violence against people cannot be justified in any context. All of us have to work hard and do everything to protect the rights of every individual. That is the very foundation of the democratic values which I believe are our civilizational heritage and the very soul of our nation.
After I finished my two-day tour, the media wanted a message from me, for which a press meet was organized. I expressed my thoughts through a statement in which I urged the need for an intensified movement to completely eliminate communal and other forms of strife and bring about unity of minds.
Each individual has the fundamental right to practice his religious, cultural and language faith. We cannot do anything to disturb that.
I am a world citizen,
Every citizen is my own kith and kin.
I
have not been much of a foreign traveller as my hands were always full with time-bound national tasks throughout my professional career. As the first citizen of the country, however, receiving heads of state in India and honouring our own commitments by visiting foreign countries were official requirements. Whenever foreign delegations visited, the enthusiastic Rashtrapati Bhavan team worked hard to shower them with hospitality and present the accomplishments of our country. For me, the most
important aspect of these visits was how to present the core competencies of our country and how to learn from the practices of other countries for our benefit. From this was born the concept of the World Knowledge Platform, which I developed in discussion with many specialists and dignitaries. We shared our concerns on environmental degradation and discussed the necessity of energy independence. We showed visitors Indian capabilities in IT, e-governance and pharmaceuticals. I was happy that every meeting or visit was geared towards implementing some mutually beneficial bilateral or multilateral programme.
Each of my visits abroad was important in its own way. In Sudan, discussions centred on building an oil pipeline from the southern part of the country to the capital Khartoum costing nearly a billion dollars in which India would cooperate. Today oil is flowing from Sudan to India. In Ukraine there was a very hectic programme. The visit resulted in advances in space cooperation. However, I give only a few highlights of those journeys. I went to South Africa in September 2004. President Thabo Mbeki requested that I address the Pan African Parliament, representing fifty-three African countries, in Johannesburg. I gladly accepted the request and as my team and I prepared for my speech, we pondered what we could offer to connect the African nations with India’s core competencies. This led to the emergence of the concept of the Pan African e-Network, which would provide education, health care and e-governance services from twelve universities and seventeen specialty hospitals from India and Africa and also connect all the presidents of the Pan African nations to enable smooth exchange of ideas between them.
The initial budgetary estimates by experts indicated that it would cost $50 million to $100 million to establish the e-Network. Before presenting the proposal to the Pan African Parliament, I briefed the prime minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, who felt that the proposal was in tune with the Focus Africa theme of the Government of India and would be a useful tool for cooperation between the Pan African countries and India.
The Pan African e-Network Project, which has now achieved considerable momentum, was formally inaugurated by the Government of India on 26 February 2009. Today, the e-Network has become a good example of fulfilling international social responsibility.
