Or is he merely the RSS’ "poster-boy Muslim", a "Kalam Iyer"
(as his colleagues call him), the kind who takes pride in knowing
Sanskrit but no Urdu, and who plays the rudra veena and reads the
Bhagwad-Gita every day?

The issue has proved divisive enough to split not just the
Opposition, but even the People's Front, which tried to forge a
distinct identity within it. Never before have such heavy charges
been traded between politicians over a single individual, including
Ms Sonia Gandhi. The Kalam issue demands a dispassionate discussion
which goes beyond icons and does not shy away from a good look at our
science and technology establishment.

However, two things should be clear. One, the BJP/NDA is making a big
hullabaloo about a "consensus" around Mr Kalam. But the "Missile Man"
was not its first choice. Its original favourite until June 8 was
Vice-President Krishna Kant. Then, it suddenly switched to
Maharashtra governor P.C. Alexander for reasons connected with the
BJP-Shiv Sena's bid to topple the Congress-NCP state government. This
happened against Mr Vajpayee's wishes and his "understanding" with Mr
Chandrababu Naidu. Mr Naidu went into a sulk.

At this point, the BJP’s internal power dynamics took over. Mr
Vajpayee proposed Mr Kalam's name to outmanoeuvre his own party
colleagues. Thus, it is for cynical reasons that Mr Kalam emerged as
NDA candidate. The Opposition played its cards poorly. Rather than
hold wide consultations and develop a fallback option in case
President Narayanan refused re-nomination, it put all its eggs in one
basket. The Congress did not use its 14 chief ministers to evolve a
multi-party candidate. And the Left didn't apply its mind enough.

Secondly, whatever Mr Kalam’s other qualifications, he lacks
experience in public life, government or Parliament. In our
Constitutional scheme, the President's is a political office. He/she
is not a decorative figure, but is called upon to counsel the Cabinet
and exercise discriminating judgment on sensitive matters. True, the
President need not have a party background. But s/he cannot be
uncoached in politics. Thus, Dr Radhakrishnan was an academic, but
had served as ambassador to the USSR. Barring Gyani Zail Singh and
V.V. Giri, all our Presidents have been men of learning, typically
with high qualifications from world-class universities. But they were
also experienced diplomats, administrators or legislators with a deep
understanding of the Constitution and the peculiarities of our
politics.

Mr Kalam lacks such experience or orientation. He is an engineer who
became a manager of cloistered defence-related programmes, with
little exposure to the broader process of governance. He has an
over-simple, untutored and at times unpardonably naïve understanding
of Constitutional issues, development priorities, and the
relationship between military and human security. Even a casual
reading of his Wings of Fire and Vision-2020 will confirm this.
Naivety marred his first two post-nomination press conferences, at
which he evaded inconvenient questions and took a position on
avoidance of war with Pakistan through nuclear deterrence, which is
at odds with the official view.

Mr Kalam believes India is a "developed nation. We are among the top
five … in terms of GDP… Our poverty levels are falling, our
achievements are being globally recognised today. Yet we lack the
self-confidence to see ourselves as a developed nation." But
underdevelopment is not just a function of GDP. Even in nominal GDP
terms, India is lower than Holland (pop. 15 million). Over half our
population lives on less than $2 a day. The per capita
income-differential between India and the developed world is roughly
1:40, higher than 50 years ago. What should especially shame Indians
is not just poverty, but staggering income inequalities. Growth alone
cannot address these. Mr Kalam has no understanding of these or of
the structural constraints, including hierarchy, caste and
illiteracy, which keep India backward.

Similarly, Mr Kalam shows little comprehension of the complex,
double-edged character of technology itself. Technology can liberate.
But it can destroy too--that’s what nuclear missiles, biological
weapons and mind-control technologies do. Mr Kalam bemoans our
"negativism": "We are the second largest producer of wheat … [and
rice] in the world …" But he doesn’t reflect on the fact that we also
have the second biggest population in the world--and the biggest
collection of the hungry, the crippled, the diseased, the deprived …

Such attitudes do not speak of wisdom. Truth to tell, Mr Kalam’s
thinking is full of poorly constructed, half-baked or undigested
ideas. For instance, he advocates such weird things as "bio-implants"
for "deficient" brains (reminiscent of eugenics?), compulsory
sterilisation, using nuclear fission (why?) to power short-haul
airplanes, and combining the occult with modern science. He believes
India is eminently capable of making anti-ballistic missile shields,
when even the US has so far proved unable to master that technology
which involves, among other things, reliably detecting launches in
distant continents, and then accurately attacking incoming
missiles--akin to hitting a bullet travelling at 24,000 km/sec with
another travelling at the same velocity!

As Princeton-based physicist M.V. Ramana says, Mr Kalam tends to
"dress up even mediocre work with the Tricolour to pass it off as a
great achievement. In his autobiography, he says he
reverse-engineered a Russian rocket-assisted take-off system, simply
borrowing the crucial motors. Publicly, however, it was passed off as
an 'indigenous development' ". Here lies the crux. Mr Kalam is not a
scientist. He has discovered nothing new about the physical world. He
is an engineer who has manipulated aspects of the physical
reality--essentially to military ends. His doctorate is honorary,
like Ms Jayalalithaa's.

The performance of the two institutions closest to him, Indian Space
Research Organisation and Defence Research and Development
Organisation, has been deeply unsatisfactory. Besides the rather
primitive, short-range Prithvi (range, 150-250 km), their most
important achievement has been the Space Launch Vehicle rocket. But
this used an imported, not Indian, guidance system. The SLV-3 was the
base for the original Agni (range, 1,500-2,500 km). But that Agni
model went through three tests--one success, one failure, and one
"limited success" (i.e. partial failure) before being declared a
"technology demonstrator", rather than a prototype that would fly.
Since then, there has been a longer-range Agni-II (2,500 to 3,000 km)
missile, and a renamed, wholly new, Agni-I (range 700-900 km)
unrelated to the original missile. Both were developed largely after
Mr Kalam quit the DRDO.

India's Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (launched
1983) is hardly a success story. Of the five different
missile-classes it was meant to develop, only two have become
(quasi-)operational. The Trishul, Nag and Akash are nowhere near
that status, despite long delays and massive cost-overruns. No Indian
Navy or Air Force ship or plane carries a DRDO missile. The army's
main anti-tank missile, the Milan ATM, is French in origin. All three
forces’ anti-aircraft weapons are of Russian origin.

To be fair, Mr Kalam must be judged by the performance of the DRDO as
a whole. He headed it for long years. This record is embarrassingly
poor. The DRDO has never completed a major project on time. Its
weapons are often of indifferent quality, e.g. the 5.56 mm basic
infantry gun. Some of its big-ticket projects, like the AWACS
Advanced Airborne Warning Systems or the aircraft carrier, are big
disasters. Three of its most expensive projects, the Main Battle
Tank, Light Combat Aircraft, and Advanced Technology Vessel (nuclear
submarine) have each soaked up Rs 2,000 crores-plus, without
delivering results. The Arjun MBT is so heavy that the army prefers
Russian T-90 tanks. The LCA doesn’t even have an Indian engine. And
the ATV’s design isn't ready--after 20 years of "work".

The DRDO can annually burn Rs 3,600 crores of public money without
producing decent results--at least partly because it is shielded from
public scrutiny, including the Comptroller and Auditor General's.
Such "power without responsibility" has given the military-industrial
complex (MIC) a bad name everywhere. In India, jingoism and
militarist nationalism have made the MIC a holy cow. In this respect,
Mr Kalam represents the seamy, undemocratic side of the Complex. His
elevation to India's highest office will not only depoliticise and
lower its stature. It will put the terrible stamp of militarisation
on Rashtrapati Bhawan.

In principle, elevating Mr Kalam to the Presidency is no different
from making Dr A.Q. Khan Pakistan's president in a warlike situation.
Mr Kalam will also serve to whitewash the BJP after the Gujarat
carnage. His "Hindutva-friendly" image will marginalise all those
Muslims who don't follow the Sangh stereotype: i.e. Urdu-speaking
meat-eaters who don't read the Gita, but who are no less Indian for
that. India's non-executive President is meant to reflect and defend
a pluralist culture. Mr Kalam does not. He, it bears recalling,
refused to publicly condemn those culpable for the Gujarat massacre;
he only said the events were "very sad". Is that the kind of
presidential wisdom and candour we deserve?--end--