It is hardly surprising that APJ Abdul Kalam will be remembered as India’s most popular President. His rise from the son of a boat owner in remote Rameshwaram to one of the movers behind the Pokhran II nuclear tests in May 1998, and finally to the highest office of the land tells a story for a young, aspirational country. He represented the liberating power of education for the poor and lower middle-classes; the role of technology in stamping India’s place in the world order; and, above all, the importance of leadership skills in achieving major goals. Kalam was an important figure in India’s satellite and missile programmes, having played a role in developing the Agni and Prithvi missiles and the PSLV and SLV-III satellite launch vehicles. This was a triumph of his ability to motivate a team of highly skilled professionals to go flat out in the national interest. It was his nationalist impulse that culminated in the successful nuclear tests of May 1998. And, it was in no small measure due to him that India developed its indigenous space and defence capabilities in the shadow of the sanctions that followed. Kalam embodied the ‘Make in India’ spirit long before the expression had been coined. In an interview to Frontline in September 1998, soon after the Pokhran tests, he said that “developed India” should be a strong, food-secure economy, with a “self-reliant” national security system and a “standing in the world”. It may seem like an oversimplified prescription, but that was Kalam — he invariably stuck to the bald basics in a beguilingly complex world, inviting both praise for his clarity and criticism for his seeming lack of nuance.
At the root of Kalam’s charm was his almost naïve positivism, which stood out in sharp contrast to the overall cynicism in our midst. He spoke incessantly on the potential of education and good health to liberate the country from social evils, including communalism. But Kalam was also the product of a certain socio-political context. His personal secularism, reflected in the ease with which he accepted Hindu culture, drew unfair criticism from his adversaries, who claimed this made him a model Indian Muslim in the eyes of the Sangh parivar . This subtle labelling ensured he was not as apolitical a figure as he was in real life.
President Kalam was no rubber stamp. After the Gujarat riots, he surprised everyone by visiting relief camps there. His biggest political error was to endorse President’s rule in Bihar in 2005. As if to make up for this lapse, he returned the ‘office of profit’ Bill to the UPA government for reconsideration, and for good reasons. That probably cost him another term. Kalam remained the peripatetic teacher till he breathed his last; his manner unaffected by power, or the absence of it. His intellectual simplicity was what endeared him to the people.