R.K. Prasad’s book has wisely kept away from focusing on Kalam’s professional achievements which are well documented.
In the winters of December 1994, Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam or simply Abdul Kalam as he was more commonly known, was participating in a four-day conference at one of the laboratories of Defence Research Development Organization (DRDO); Institute of Technology Management (ITM) which is located at Mussoorie. Kalam, in his capacity as the secretary of the DRDO, was among those who had to share his views in the four-day conference that was being attended by scientists from across the country and which was to end one day before Christmas.
On 19 December 1994, Kalam, along with top DRDO scientists and a cook, went on a walk on a mountain trek that descends into the valley from the historic “Char Dukan”. As they started climbing down, one scientist, who was heading a laboratory, Dr R. Krishnaswami, suffered a heart attack following which the cook, Diwan Singh, gave him artificial respiration and carried him on his shoulders and ascended up swiftly. Singh’s timely effort ensured the scientist survived that day.
Kalam, who was the chief of the DRDO then, asked the ITM management to hand over an appreciation letter to Singh that was signed by Kalam and also award him as a token of appreciation Rs 1,000, which the then Senior Administrative Officer of ITM, Kush Kumar Mishra, did by sharing ten Rs 100 notes in an envelope to Singh. A special function was organized at ITM to honour Singh. Singh retired from DRDO last month, nearly seven years after Kalam passed away on 27 July 2015, a few days short of what would have been his 85th birthday, on 15 October.
“Kalam, the untold story” (Bloomsbury) written by R.K. Prasad, his private secretary for 22 years, does not talk about this anecdote, but it mentions many genuine “untold” real-life stories about Kalam that makes this 160-page read an essential one not just for those who knew Kalam, like thousands of Indians, but even others who were not aware of his credentials, to understand how someone of even his stature was subjected to petty treatment from politicians and how, despite all these challenges, he ensured that he never deviated from his larger goal which was of dedicating himself to bettering the lives of common Indians. The book, wisely and to avoid repetitiveness of the topic, has kept away from focusing on Kalam’s professional achievements which are well documented in books published earlier and in government’s reports and most notably by the Bharat Ratna award that was given to him in 1997, the last of the such awards that is free of extraneous influences.
Prasad, rather, has shone light on the humane aspect of Kalam that guided his Presidency, his tenure as DRDO chief and his role as Scientific Advisor to the government of India. The book has brought out the bureaucratic, procedural and personal challenges that Kalam faced after he demitted office even as he continued to play the role of “People’s President”.
Prasad, as one would realise while turning the pages, has done an excellent job of ensuring that individuals who admonished and humiliated Kalam for petty reasons, are named but not in a disgraced way in which they subjected Kalam to. The writer has identified many of those individuals and their actions, but without attacking them at a personal level. However, the question of whether Kalam would have agreed to naming the people who wronged him, continues to linger on in the mind of the reader. The fact that most of the bureaucrats and politicians reduce an individual to an unwanted commodity once he loses his or her position is something that is known; what Prasad has done in his book is to bring out these acts in public. Influential politicians of all hues and colour have found a space in the book.
Kalam had crores of admirers across India, something which is well documented in this book and something which was also written and talked about when he was alive, but what Prasad has done differently is that he has sought to reveal how high-ranking officials and powerful politicians would get upset with Kalam because he refused to act subservient to them or follow the “Presidential norm” that is expected from a rubber stamp President, a trait of which his successor was accused of later.
It will perhaps also surprise readers that someone like Kalam, who handled India’s missile programs and similar sensitive issues and then the strategic post of the President of India, has been described by Prasad as someone who lived his personal life in a “disorderly” manner, a finding which a reader too would start to agree with as the book nears its end.
Perhaps it was this “disorderly” way of living which led to Kalam not eating his food on time, sleeping on time or having medicines despite being a diabetic—something which too was discovered by chance as Prasad has brought out—that led to his sudden death. What will ensure that the pages of the book are turned is that the writer has mentioned relatively mundane things which are associated with the office of president and the office of the DRDO chief and the scientific advisor which are not known to most people.
The book also brings out in public the weakness of many powerful leaders who could not rise over their insecurity, opportunism and pettiness which they faced while dealing with him. Some of them continued to exercise this pettiness even after he had passed away. Overall, the life of Kalam, written after his death, has been treated with utmost sensitivity by Prasad and shows how someone like him faced numerous challenges every day and yet, till the time he passed away, never harboured bitterness with anyone. What Prasad has missed out mentioning, and perhaps deliberately so, is the scrutiny that Kalam and DRDO went through from the army and the media following the Kargil war fiasco.
Nevertheless, the stature of Kalam can be guessed from the fact that when Kalam was the DRDO chief, he had a Cabinet rank. After he demitted his office, his successor was accorded a state minister rank and as of now, the DRDO chief is given the rank of a secretary to the government of India.