India's National Magazine
From the publishers of THE HINDU

Vol. 16 :: No. 02 :: Jan. 16 - 29, 1999

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BOOKS

A limited perspective

R. RAMACHANDRAN

Wings of Fire: An Autobiography by A.P.J. Abdul Kalam with Arun Tiwari; Universities Press (India) Ltd, Hyderabad, 1999; pages 180, Rs. 200.

PUBLISHED in the wake of the nuclear tests conducted by India in May 1998, of which Avul Pakir Janulabdeen Abdul Kalam was one of the key architects, one expected this autobiography to provide personal insights into the scientific, technological and politico-strategic compulsions that led to India's nuclearisation. Sadly, the book falls well short of that. Indeed, but for a passing mention in the epilogue, the nuclear tests do not figure in the book at all.

In fact, the book omits the period after 1991, when Kalam assumed the office of Scientific Adviser to the Defence Minister and Secretary of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). The autobiography is a major disappointment on this count - besides on other counts - because only since Kalam came close to the corridors of power in New Delhi and emerge as a major public figure. It was only after he moved from Hyderabad, where he was the Director of the Defence Research and Development Laboratory (DRDL) for nine years, to head the Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (IGMDP) that was launched in 1982, that he began to play an active role in the country's science and technology (S&T) system through his Vision 2020 Programme at the Technology Information and Forecasting Council (TIFAC) of the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and the Self Reliance Mission in Defence Systems, 1995-2005. The book fails to give any insights into Kalam's ideas in shaping these major programmes which, he says in the epilogue, will make India a "developed nation", strong and prosperous. (Even his other book - titled Vision 2020 and co-authored with Y.S. Rajan - that was released last year did not go a great deal beyond what had been set as goals for the country by the task force studies in 17 different disciplines by groups of scientists).

The book reflects Kalam's reminiscences on turning 60, as narrated to Arun Tiwari, his former associate at the DRDL, on the important events that have shaped his life. Tiwari, who was associated with the airframe development of the Akash missile, one of the five missiles in the IGMDP established in 1982 under Kalam, is currently helping realise Kalam's vision of developing cost-effective medical devices through the use of spin-offs from defence research and development, at the Cardiovascular Technology Institute, Hyderabad.

Why Tiwari chose to put to print only now what he penned eight years ago remains unexplained because these eight years would seem to be the most eventful years of Kalam's life. It was during this period that the major DRDO programmes - the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA), the Main Battle Tank (MBT) and the IGMDP itself - witnessed their critical phases and, with the exception of the surface-to-surface missile Prithvi, none of them is close to being produced for the Services. If one is looking for answers to questions regarding problems faced by these programmes - technological, industrial or political - the answers are not in the book. In the epilogue, Kalam says: "This book is interwoven with my deep involvement with India's first Satellite Launch Vehicle (SLV-3) and Agni (the intermediate range ballistic missile under the IGMDP) programmes, an involvement which eventually led to my participation in the recent important national event related to the nuclear tests in May."

IT is generally believed that it was the scientists (Kalam and R. Chidambaram) who had been pressing successive governments since 1995 to go ahead with the tests. Was it really so? If yes, why did Kalam think that the nuclear tests were a necessity? Unfortunately, the book provides no answers. One gets the impression that it is precisely to avoid the predicament of answering this question that the book has been published now - before the consequences of the nuclear tests begin to overshadow all the other events in Kalam's life.

In the book, Kalam has dwelt at length on how Agni was conceived as a delivery system for conventional warheads. We now know that Agni project is being continued as a delivery system for nuclear warheads. In a post-Pokhran interview, he had remarked that Agni "can deliver all kinds of warheads, even flowers." As a participant in the nuclear weaponisation programme, he is certain to have contributed to the changed strategic perception vis-a-vis Agni. But we are not to know how and when this altered perception evolved. Indeed, the book is remarkable for the things it leaves unsaid about the events that Kalam was closely associated with than what it actually says. In fact, the book seems to have been put together in such haste that some of the statements made are dated and are no longer valid. For example, the book says "M.S.R. Dev heads the Augmented Satellite Launch Vehicle (ASLV) project", when in fact, the ASLV is a closed chapter today. Dev was not the Director even during the last ASLV-D4 flight.

PERHAPS it is Kalam's good nature that inhibits him from passing judgment on anyone. He only speaks good about all people. If he does have any criticisms to voice, he has kept them to himself. However, when he describes the events that followed the successful launch of SLV-3, one can sense his bitterness. In spite of the successful launch and the Padma Bhushan that followed, he did not continue as the Director of the SLV project. He left the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and moved to the DRDO. Why did he choose to move when major launch vehicle programmes such as the ASLV and the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) were on the anvil in ISRO? There are no clear answers to these questions. In an interview he gave a business magazine recently, he said: "Basically it was because of the urge to design and develop a missile system... At ISRO, the feeling grew in a sort of integrated way. I had felt that missile was the right thing to do..."

The book brings out Kalam's fascination with missiles from the day he happened to see a painting at the offices of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) depicting Tipu Sultan's army battling with missiles. At ISRO, he carried out conceptualisation studies on Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles (IRBMs) and Inter Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) after the SLV's success. In the book he says that his recommendation for building 1.8 m diameter solid motor was never considered, but "it paved the way for the formulation of the Re-Entry Experiment (REX) which, much later on, became Agni." But his introspective remarks about the next SLV-3 flight, which he witnessed from outside the Control Centre for the first time, are revealing, albeit in a subdued sort of way. "Was I hurt at the coldness of the new environment? Perhaps yes, but I was willing to accept what I couldn't change. The unpalatable truth I had to face was that by becoming the focus of media attention, I had become the cause of bitterness among some of my senior colleagues, all of who had equally contributed to the success of SLV-3. And because bitterness was real I had to reason it out. But can these things be reasoned out?" It would seem that Kalam took the first opportunity to move out of ISRO following the bitter aftermath of the SLV success. Kalam, however, refrains from elaborating on the issue. (Incidentally, there is some editorial lapse around these parts in the book where there is some repetition (pages 102-103). There are also a few other bloomers like "Ammonium percolate", "Impact diode" and "Diamont missile".)

Another striking fact is that Kalam does not talk about how the team zeroed in on the third design (SLV-3). Did Werner von Braun's remarks result in some changes? Kalam does not also talk about how the various missile designs in IGMDP were arrived at. The book implies that the decision to launch an integrated programme was taken overnight. What gave Kalam the conviction that five missiles could be developed concurrently? Does Prithvi belong to the Devil heritage? There is one paradox in ISRO's and the DRDO's rocket programmes. ISRO seems to have concentrated on solid fuel instead of liquid fuel when the DRDO should have followed that route because solid fuel is good for missiles and liquid for launchers. And how did Agni, Kalam's dream, come to be designed as a two-stage rocket with both solid and liquid fuel, and what was the basis on which SLV was chosen as its first stage? Kalam prefers not to provide these details.

NOTWITHSTANDING these omissions, the autobiography does provide a good deal of insight into Kalam's nature, both as a human being and as a man-manager of great patience, besides his perseverance and judgment. It is true that technology management in India has acquired a new paradigm following the IGMDP's approach to tapping talent from across the country rather than from within the confines of a given organisation. Kalam talks at length about how his understanding of human nature and what he calls an ability to communicate laterally, helped bring together disparate groups to work on a single mission with dedication.

Kalam may have only had a peripheral interest in a book on management he found in a hotel lobby while waiting to meet Vikram Sarabhai. But it seems to have triggered in him a sub-conscious and continuing interest in managing technology and has successfully evolved a paradigm that suits the Indian context. Kalam would have us believe that God willed it so. Indeed, this intense facet of religiosity and his unbending faith in God comes across loud and clear in the book. He says in his introduction: "All these rockets and missiles are His work through a small person called Kalam in order to tell the several million mass of India to not ever feel small or helpless. We are born with a divine fire in us. Our efforts should be to give wings to this fire and fill the world with the glow of its Goodness."

Another facet is his interest in literature; he freely quotes from various poems. There is also a sprinkling of Kalam's own verses in the book. His verse,

If you want to leave your footprints
On the sands of time
Do not drag your feet

perhaps sums up his attitude towards commitment to achievement.

The disappointing end to his successes with the hovercraft project, the Rocket Assisted Take-Off (RATO) project, and the redesigning of the SLV fourth stage for the French Diamant rocket, did not deter Kalam's conviction, confidence and will to reach any new goal he set for himself. Was carrying out a nuclear test one such goal? We may never know. But his words will certainly inspire young people and enable them to shed the "all-pervasive self-defeatist attitude in the Indian scientific community" - as Kalam himself would like them to.

It may be Kalam's simplicity (call it naivete) and his ascetic existence that are the key to his achievements in whatever tasks he took up. The book is certainly a window to the man's character if not into his technological mind which many readers would have expected the autobiography to reveal. Perhaps that was Kalam's intention. One only wishes that it had addressed his experiences over the last eight important years as well.