Author: Satnarayan Maharaj
Publication:
Date:
Avul Pakir Janulabdeen Abdul Kalam
is a Muslim scientist in predominantly Hindu India. Yet the religious and
social divisions that plague the Indian sub-continent did not prevent 72-year-old
Kalam from emerging as one of India's most distinguished scientists. He
was responsible for India's first Satellite Launch Vehicle, the development
and operationalisation of strategic missiles and their weaponisation.
The Indian Government and people
trusted Kalam to be chairman of the Technological Information, Forecasting
and Assessment Council which has the responsibility to catapult India to
a developed country status by the year 2020.
His counterpart in Pakistan is also
Muslim whose main purposes went beyond the security of his country. The
world now knows that Adbul Qudeer Khan sold Pakistan's nuclear secrets
to other Islamic countries, including Iran. Qudeer was more concerned about
his personal finances and the Islamisation of weapons of mass destruction
technology than the defence of Pakistan.
Adbul Kalam was born at Rameshwaram
in the State of Madras. It was here that the Hindu God Bhagwam Ram of the
Ramayam conducted puja before launching his campaign against the evil King
Rawan of Lanka. Kalam was privileged to have absorbed deeply the Hindu
culture that still dominates India.
In his book titled Ignited Minds,
Kalam wrote: "The core culture (of India) goes beyond time. It precedes
the arrival of Christianity. The early Christians like the Syrian Christians
of Kerala have accepted their Indianisation with admirable determination."
And he asked: "Are they less Christian
because their married women wear the margalsutra (a Hindu necklace made
from beads and gold nuggets) or the men folk wear their dhoti in the Kerala?
"The Indian contribution bestows
on citizens total equality under its contribution," says Kalam. The T&T
Constitution also provides the same protection to all our citizen yet we
face the danger that our sense of unity and purpose is being eroded by
politicians and others who seek to a divide us along racial and religious
faults.
With the permission of India's Prime
Minister Atal Beharai Vajpaye. Abdul Kalam has resigned his position of
leading scientists of India and devotes his time to writing books and delivering
lectures to young people. He visits schools from Assam in the North of
India to Kanya Kumarie in the South.
At one school a student questioned
him about his message to young people that they should dream. "Why dream?"
the young man asked Kalam.
"Dream, dream, dream. Dream transfers
into thoughts. Thoughts result in action. If there are no dreams and no
revolutionary thoughts, no action will emanate. Hence, parents and teachers
should allow their children to dream. Success always follows dreams attempted,
though there may be some setbacks and delays," he has written the Ignited
Minds.
At another school Kalam was asked
who was the first scientist in the world. He told the students that, "science
was born and survives only by questions. The whole foundation of science
is questioning. And as parents and teachers well know, children are the
source of unending questions. Hence the child is the first scientist,"
the renowned scientist proclaimed.
In our own land T&T, our children
are systematically denied the right to dream. We watch with horror as our
young people loose their innocence as they become imprisoned by a culture
of decadence, calypso, Carnival and sex.
The result is HIV/AIDS, unwanted
pregnancies and a generation of young people with little hope in the future.
They think the purpose of life is instant gratification of every lust or
carnal desire. That is the message they get from TV, rap, BET, a few racist
calypsonians and the articles of Selwyn Cudjoe which spread the propaganda
that Carnival and calypso came from Africa.
Children are our future and India
is implementing its vision, not talking about it. India has produced the
world's most sophisticated stock of mathematicians, chemists, physicists
and biologists located in any one country. They spread out to the USA and
Europe to fertilise the minds of children and other scientists.
We at the Maha Sabha want our children
to dream about achievements of Indian scientists who have won Nobel prizes
like Dr Rahaman, Dr Chandrashekar and others. Children at Maha Sabha schools
must not dream about Carnival as Selwyn Cudjoe and others seem to want
for Afro-Trini children. They must dream about building a new society based
on spirituality, success at school and a love of asking questions about
life and nature.
The world's greatest mathematician
in the past 200 years, Srinivasa Ramanujan, was a poor Hindu from South
India. He always dreamed of the Hindu deities talking to him about mathematics.
Prof Hardy of Cambridge University brought him to England to help students
dream about number theory.
We have to liberate our children
from the light of role models leading them to dream about fete, sex, drugs
and spiritual death. We must give them role models like Adbul Kalam, Ramanujan,
Chandrashekar and Rahaman to help them dream.
Satnarayan Maharaj is the Secretary
General of the Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha, Trinidad
