1 more such story..read it...
A really Inspiring Speech by Dr.A.P.J.Abdul Khalam in Hyderabad !
Date: Tue, 25 Jun 2002 16:42:07 +0530
Dear Friends,
A really inspiring speech.
Dr. APJ Abdul Kalaam, the missile man, the man being considered for the
position of the 'First Citizen of India', delivered this speech in Hyderabad.
A must read for every Indian
Quote: I have three visions for India. 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. 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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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. 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 greenery.
It was to this inspiring picture that everyone woke up to. The gory details
of killings, bombardments, deaths, were inside in the newspaper, buried
among other news. In India we only read about death, sickness, terrorism,
crime.
Why are we so NEGATIVE? Another question: Why are we, as a nation so
obsessed with foreign things? 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?
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.
Allow me to come back with vengeance.! Got 10 minutes for your country?
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.
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 YOU comeback 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 55 mph
(88 km/h) in Washington and then tell the traffic cop, "Jaanta hai sala main kaun hoon (Do you know who I am?). I am so and so's son. Take your two bucks and get lost." 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.
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? 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. 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
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. 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! ?
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 into 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. 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.
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"
Unquote: Lets do what India needs from us. Forward this mail to at least
100,00,00,000 Indians to rekindle the awareness as a first step.
This visionary Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam who rose from a poor family to Become the doyen of our space research sounds like M.K. Gandhi to his fellow Indians to prepare themselves for the freedom fight in the earlier part of
the last century. The only difference is that this message comes from the
earlier part of this century to provoke further our patriotic instincts and
can be well understood only by the educated like us and we should all take
a pledge and team up behind this great soul as part of his "Sena" to take
India out from its present mess.
