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Nuke President

By Kamal K.M

20 July, 2002
Countercurrents.org

As I watch T.V and see the news flashing on the screen that the renowned nuclear scientist and the father of Indian missile programme A.P.J. Abdul Kalam is going to be the presidential candiate for the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) and with all indications sure to become the next president of India, two scenes from the renowned documentary film maker Anand Patwardan's latest documentary 'War and Peace' comes to mind.


First incident is a public address by Abdul Kalam just after the nuclear test conducted by India in Pokhran in 1998. He was recounting an experience he had in Ahmedabad while participating in a public meeting there.

"When can I sing a song in praise of India ?" a young girl approached and asked him.

The girl's brother was living in United States. When he came home he was singing songs in praise of America. She too wanted to sing a song praising India. But she found nothing to be proud of. It is from this frustration that the question arose, Abdul Kalam opined. What Kalam was referring to was, now, after these nuclear tests, Indians like this girl can be proud of their country. Now, they can sing songs in praise of India. What he failed to mention was that these songs would be composed in the melancholic 'raaga' arising from the rubble of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Second incident is a public rally addressed by the union minister and B.J.P leader Pramod Mahajan. He was addressing a crowd of working class people in Maharashtra. He said he was overwhelmed by the patriotic fervor of an Indian student he met on his visit to the USA just after the nuclear tests. The student thanked him for making the Indians living in America to be proud of their country by going nuclear.

These two opinions are expressed by two people operating in two different spheres of Indian political system. One is a scientist and the other is a politician. But they sound the same. Unfortunately the sound of the Sangh Parivar.

Now that the scientist, the czar of Indian science and technology and one from the minority community to boot, is going to be the president of India, we have to listen to this sound a little more closely and ask why they sound the same.

It is with great fanfare that the architect of Indian nuclear Bomb is led to the presidentship of India. No one puts forward any political reason to oppose him. The media is singing his eulogies. Everyone seems to be pleased.

We are told that A.P.J Abdul Kalam is the best choice for presidentship-

1. Abdul Kalam being the father of Indian missile technology and the architect of Indian nuclear bomb, gave India 'major power' status and thereby became a national hero.

2. A new positive precedent set by appointing a celebrated scientist over an active politician

3. Sending out a message to the Muslim community who were recently hunted down in Gujarat that the BJP government is not against them

Let's take a closer look at these propagandist and jingoistic arguments

1. The nuclear bomb did not give India major power status but only impoverished the country more by pushing up the defense budget and cutting down on welfare schemes like food, education and public health. If the defense budget for 98-99 was Rs 41,200 crores, it reached a staggering amount of Rs 65,000 crores in the current financial year. At the same time amounts allocated for welfare schemes were going down. During the current financial year only Rs 4,900 crore is allocated for total literacy programme, Rs 2,200 for women-child welfare programme, Rs 2,005 for human resource development and Rs 1650 crores for primary education. Defense spending had been showing the same pattern in Pakistan too. And top of it all is the threat of nuclear war between India and Pakistan making these countries the most dangerous place to live.

2. We will have to take the next two arguments together. India had seen much more eminent scientists from Dr.C.V.Raman to Dr. M.S. Swaminathan. But none of them could achieve Abdul Kalam's political status. What makes Kalam different? The answer is simple, none of them were a 'hero'.

Kalam now occupies a political space designed and demanded by 'hindutwa' which is becoming more and more fascist in its strategies and practices. Indian democracy is being militarised. Voices of dissent are crushed. Patriotic feelings are whipped up. Tensions are created at the border to keep the nation in a state of war and thereby crushing the voices of democratic dissent. The politics of diversity is done away with and a politics of hatred is propagated. Like every militarised system, an enemy is created, now, most dangerously in its own society. The fascist Hindutwa ideology has identified the Muslim as the 'other' and the politics of hatred is spreading very rapidly, glimpses of which we came to see in Gujarat recently. And this precipitated into the military drama at the border.

The dream of Hindutwa is to crush the eternal enemy, Pakistan, beyond recovery. They had been demanding for the nuclear bomb for long. Abdul Kalam, the master mind of the Indian nuclear bomb and missile technology was their hero and champion. He was the builder of the 'Hindu Bomb' over the 'Muslim Bomb'.

The political space that Abdul Kalam occupies in Indian politics is nothing but the one created by the Hindutwa and he can have no claim of being a secular member of the minority community as he is being projected. That's how Kalam's religion gets the better of the intolerant politics of the Sang parivar.

And that's how a hard core politician of the Sang Parivar like Pramod Mahajan and the most eminent scientist of the nation use the same language while speaking of nuclear bomb. And that's how the next president of India is going to use the same language of the Sangparivar while speaking of the Indian Nuclear Bomb.

(Kamal K.M is a student in the film and television institute of India, Pune)