The search
Dr. Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, the founder of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), was born on April 1, 1889 and died at the young age of 51 on June 21, 1940. The organization RSS he had founded in 1925 has now outlived its founder's total span of life by 14 years. It symbolizes his power of creativity. It seems to me that his Hundredth Anniversary Year 1989 has suddenly made us aware of what actually Dr Hedgewar meant to RSS as an organization collectively and to its Swayamsevaks (volunteers/members) individually.

I remember the biographical details and traits of his personality and character that were told to young Swayamsevaks like me by our seniors, whenever an occasion presented itself. Every event of his life and aspect of his personality were educative and worthy of emulation. There was no way to forget them, but what I recall with much clarity was the manner in which Dr Hedgewar's life and mission were introduced to us. It was extremely sober and human, and was never projected as a model for the Swayamsevaks to imitate or emulate. Instead the focus was on him as a model for our own self-cultivation and self-development. The purpose was to make Swayamsevaks self-reliant rather than dependent on him or his personality or any other individual as such. Although there was no attempt to create a personality-cult around him, still it was impossible not to feel his perceptorial presence. But this presence was very quiet, may be so dormant that it remained undetected for a fairly long time, though now we are reflecting.

I am reminded of an instance in 1980 in Mysore. I had gone there in connection with one of my ongoing research projects. One of my Tamil speaking linguist friends had invited me to lunch. While we were sitting in the dining room waiting for lunch to be served, some commotion in the adjacent room was constantly diverting our attention. My friend's 12 year old son was upset for some reason and was in no mood to heed his mother's pleas to join us. At one point we were talking about the RSS work in Mysore and my friend informed me that his son too had joined a local shakha (RSS-unit) about six months ago. Evidently our conversation was over-heard by the boy and the turbulent room suddenly became calm. My friend called his son to take lunch with the guests. A few minutes later the boy entered and sat down beside his father. His face was freshly washed and his hair neatly combed. His composed face is still imprinted in my memory. I had asked the name of his shakha- incharge, what games he found interesting, etc., and at the same time told him that I too had joined RSS in Agra at the age of eleven. From then on, the boy did not leave the room for the next two hours. He had remained transfixed without exchanging many words with me though I had felt related to him since eternity.

At that moment I felt and realized the real nature and character of RSS and perceived very distinctly the transcendental presence of its founder, Dr Hedgewar. I was the key to unlock many unresolved mysteries. It was an enlightening experience, enabling me to put my earlier experiences in a clear perspective. The many faces, eyes, voices, touches, profiles, reactions and actions, etc., of many senior Swayamsevaks I was associated with, became transparent. All names and figures, events and incidents were merged into one name and face, that of Dr Hedgewar. I had the correct explanations of my many whys: why my fever when I was fourteen, had receded with the touch of Mohanlalji's palm. I had injured my right elbow playing a game at the evening shakha and Mohanlalji, secretary of Kanpur City RSS, had come over for a visit. His palm on my burning forehead had instantly put me to sleep. Or why the low and soft voice of Prem Shankarji had the tremendous force to wake up a young boy at 4o'clock in the morning to attend a week-long camp! On that day in Mysore I had seen in the eyes of that boy the same security of familiar affection and oneness that I had always felt at my shakha at Kanpur. No distance, difference and lack of age, caste, position location, language, family-culture et cetera, were felt between us. Hundreds of Mohanlals and Premashankars at innumerable shakhas of RSS had surfaced in my mind. If I claim that it was cretared by Dr Hedgewar through his personal effort, I shall be betraying logic, because it appears to me to be beyond human power.

But the credit of manifesting this reality of India goes entirely to Dr Hedgewar. He was that seer, who had perceived most distinctly the thread of unity that runs through the entire length and breadth of Hindusthan. He had refused deliberately to accept the so-called divisive diversity in India and considered this to be a ploy of foreign rulers to keep India perpetually divided, weak and self-doubting. His vision, constructive attitude and approach to India's fundamental unity can be perceived in the entire form and functioning of RSS. His identification with RSS was so complete that the only way to reconstruct traits and features of his personality and character is by undertaking an indepth study of the organization itself.

Second Vision For The Nation
India was a subject country, but in the sciences, in the arts, particularly in Science, we could show the West in their own realm that we were equal to them, says Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam
IT IS indeed a great pleasure for me to deliver the Sardar Patel Memorial Lecture 1998 organised by the All India Radio (AIR). The topic of my lecture is : "Second Vision for the Nation—Developed India." The name Sardar Patel immediately brings in front of me the pre-independent India and integration of the nation for development during the beginning of post-independent India. Both these phases of Indian history had seen many events and leaders. Sardar Patel had given a unique leadership in firm decision to time bound actions. Our young people in different fields have in front of them Sardar Patel's life as a doctrine for leadership.

I have selected for my lecture, a few facets of the contributions of certain leaders in shaping today's India. I am specifically addressing the scientific, technological and industrial linkages to the political freedom and efforts for economic prosperity. It is fascinating to observe that in the pre-independent period itself, towering scientific personalities, industrial leaders and educationists emerged in different parts of India under the colonial rule. What made India produce such great minds, in such circumstances?

Pre-independent era—The birth of first vision
The seeding for the national independence took root around 1857 or even before. I see the relationship between the urge for independence and the emergence of great minds. As the independence movement grew; it brought out the best of leaders like Lala Lajpat Rai, Lokmanya Tilak, Mahatma Gandhi, Jawahar-lal Nehru, Sardar Patel, Abul Kalam Azad, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Veer Savarkar. The list, if we take it from each part of the country, will be very big. This national movement had also brought forth the best of scientists and technologists. Though there was no full-fledged effort at the British ruled governmental level to bring up Indian science, industries and education, we have seen world class scientific leaders generated during the pre-independent period. I have selected examples of scientific leaders like Sir C.V. Raman, the first Indian Nobel laureate in science. He got the Nobel Prize at the time of pre-independence. His life clearly indicates a built-in-spirit to make the nation scientifically great. In one of his talks to a young audience, he said, "...to me, everything I see is incredible, something absolutely incredible. We take it all for granted. But I think the essence of the scientific spirit is to look beyond and to realize what a wonderful world we live in... . The moment you ask 'Why is the sky blue?' you go deeper and deeper into the problems of physics...". For Sir CV Raman, science is a beautiful gift to humanity. For Indians, he gave a meaning to scientific temper.

Sir C.V. Raman started his career in the Office of the Accountant General, Calcutta. But the scientific mind in him probed and probed. Fortunately, it was supported by a great educationist Mr Ashutosh Mukherjee, who encouraged the youngster to pursue his research. What strikes some of us is that the birth of 'Raman Effect' which brought him the Nobel Prize, did not come out of a grand establishment with major scientific environments. I believe, the urge to show the world the excellence of Indian minds would have been one of the major motivating factor behind Sir C.V. Raman's scientific achievement. The same is the case with Prof. S. Chandrasekhar, the great astrophysicist. There are some interesting quotations from his biography. I quote from a book Chandra by Mr Kameshwar Wali :

"Chandra grew up in what was a golden age of science, art and literature in India, spurred on partly by the struggle for independence. J.C. Bose, C.V. Raman, Meghanad Saha, Srinivasa Ramanujam and Rabindranath Tagore by their achievements in scientific and creative endeavours, became national heroes along with Jawaharlal Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi and a host of others active in the political movement. Did their success produce an enduring atmosphere for creativity, or did the prevailing cultural and social conditions hamper a healthy growth of sustained activity? Over the years, Chandra and I have discussed various facets of science in India and experiences of some of the eminent Indian scientists. The following excerpts reflect Chandra's thoughts on these matters." "Chandra : I mean it is a remarkable thing that in the modern era before 1910, there were no (Indian) scientists of international repute or standing. Between 1920 and 1925, we had suddenly five or six internationally well known men. I myself have associated this remarkable phenomenon with the need for self-expression, which became a dominant motive among the young during the national movement. It was a part of the national movement to assert oneself. India was a subject country, but in the sciences, in the arts; particularly in science, we could show the West in their own realm that we were equal to them."

Similar were the thoughts of the great physicist Dr J.C. Bose. When you see the scientific museum in Calcutta, where some of his inventions are displayed, one can note that he was much ahead in the world in the field of microwave related research. Similarly, Dr S.N. Bose's scientific work on atomic physics was admired by Albert Einstein who translated Bose's work in German. The fact that the Indian minds had always excelled over the centuries was again shown when Ramanujam blossomed into the mathematics world. Similarly, in the engineering field, contributions of the towering personality like Sir M. Visveswarayya were remarkable. Some of them bear testimony even today like Krishnaraja Sagar dam and industries in Mysore.

There is always a question asked, why inspite of our great scientific and technological population, India has not generated many Nobel laureates. Of course, to our credit today, we have three Nobel laureates on science. They are—Sir C.V. Raman, Prof. S. Chandrasekhar and Prof. Hargobind Khorana. Sir C.V. Raman grew totally with the Indian environment and excelled. What is the message? The message is that the post independent Indian environment is not congenial to bring out the best, build and support them. Particularly, science needs continuous nurturing for a long period. There could be setbacks after setbacks. Yet, the promoters of the researchers should have strong minds to continue the nurturing; then alone will a few original beautiful flowers blossom. Can we learn from the pre-independence experiences? The Presidency Colleges at Madras and Calcutta, had University education inspite of the British rule. Also educational opportunities were widespread with missionary zeal. This higher education environment generated a situation to produce many educationists in India. After independence we have a large spread of higher education all over the country. In day to day life, I see bright Indian men and women, boys and girls who come from various parts of our country. There is an excitement among them, but apparently we are not giving a sufficiently enabling environment for many of these flowers to blossom and spread the fragrance. Why is it? We need to ponder as to how we can provide in the whole country such an enabling environment.

I would like to narrate an incident. A young man, Loveligen, from a remote area of Kerala, who could not complete his science graduation, wrote to me saying that he has discovered a new mathematical theory and he would like to talk to me. I saw in the letter that the boy was very sincere. Since he had written to me, I thought our specialist team can study his work and direct him to the right type of researchers. I called this boy to Delhi for a few days. What surprised us was that he had arrived at part of the equations of the Ramanujam's number theory, which this boy was not at all aware of. He had discovered something and added some new points to it and the result is new. To a great extent the achievements in the field of mathematics generally seem to come out of a desire to look into the beautiful aspects of nature, including natural phenomena such as the star studded skies, which have always interested the astronomers from time immemorial. An additional contributory factor seems to be an inherent drive towards recognition of patterns even if it be in the sense of mathematical sequences of series. It is interesting to note that Loveligen has currently delved into the equally exciting topic of power sequences and series. What I felt was that he needed a good mathematical education or a patronage of a good mathematics teacher. It is like having Prof Hardy for Ramnujam, the mathematics genius to come. I asked this boy why he didn't meet a mathematics teacher. He said, meeting a mathematics teacher is an expedition. He says, it is below their dignity to meet somebody who is not even a graduate. How do we promote this kind of young and enthusiastic mind? If there was no Sivasubramania Iyer, my elmentary school teacher, I wouldn't have tasted higher education. Can our teachers and philanthropists or the social activists spot these flowers to blossom? Those who spot such talents and make them flower and blossom will themselves be a different kind of a flower as described in the Bhagwat Gita : "See the flower, how generously it distributes its perfume and its honey. It gives to all, gives freely of its love. When its work is done, it falls away quietly. Try to be like the flower, unassuming despite all its qualities. What a beautiful message for all generations of this Nation.

There may be hundreds of such minds spread over the country. They are looking for many of the gifted senior scientists and professors to encourage their thinking and lead to best contribution in the field. We have to shed the minimum educational qualification 'syndrome for the sake of encouraging and discussing the young minds' dreams. Throughout the country, the educated community, blessed with higher educational potential, shoud encourage the creative minds wherever they are, irrespective of their regions. Science and technology have all the ambience for transforming the nation into a developed nation.

Excellence in science need not always be measured in terms of the Nobel Prize winner. Also it is not enough for a nation as a whole to concentrate only on pure research. Scientific creativity can also blossom through technological tasks and applications as Viswesvarayya, Dr Homi Bhabha and Prof. Vikram Sarabhai proved in their missions. In the post-independence India there were many excellent examples of applications of scientific minds to agriculture, atomic energy, space, defence and industrial research. I will discuss this later.

Coming now to the industrial field, Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata brought the steel industry in India even though the British rulers were not favourably disposed to the idea. Acharya P.C. Ray brought up the chemical and pharmaceutical industry. Likewise, in the pre-independent period we see the birth of many great institutes like the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore started by J.N. Tata, the Banaras Hindu University by Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya, and the Aligarh Muslim University by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan. There were also some Indian Maharajas who started and nurtured universities like the one in Baroda. There are many such examples in both the industrial and the educational fields. In all these cases the basic motivations have been to show the urge to build the Nation and demonstrate to the world that "India can do it".

So far we have briefly seen how in the pre-independent period new scientific thoughts and innovations, industrial educational system had emerged with inner conflicts and emotions to establish a competitive scientific education and industrial system in India. We have seen scientists cluster during a period. I am elated to note that a music trinity of great saints, Thyagaraja Swamigal, Muthuswamy Deekshidar and Shyama Sastrigal emerged at the same time in south within a 50 km radius. What we note is that, the movement of independence generated the best of leaders in arts, science, technology, economy, history and literature. Based on the text of the Sardar Patel Memorial Lecture delivered in New Delhi recently. The author is Scientific Adviser to the Defence Ministry.