Vikram Sarabhai
I was looking for inspiration. I wanted to get answers on why India was lagging behind in research. To start, I tried reading life stories of renowned Indian scientists of the past. That is when I came across the life and times of Vikram Sarabhai.
Born with a silver spoon in his mouth and as part of India’s nuclear and space programme’s early years, Vikram was not just a physicist but also an institution builder. He played leading roles in setting up many institutions in India among them IIM-A and ISRO.
What set Vikram apart from others from his generation was that despite being a scientist by training, he always insisted on weighing the benefits accruing to a community by spending funds on fundamental research against competing demands from essentials like food programmes. During the space race, he had warned developing nations against setting up space programmes just for the glamour of it and creating a sham image.
Vikram kept his fellow scientists motivated by laying emphasis on the indigenization of technology. He once aggressively opposed the government’s decision to contract Canadians to set up an earth station in India.
“Where will the Indians experiment if not in India? Will the Canadians ask us to build it for them?”
Eventually, the government allowed Vikram to build the station himself.
When leading India’s atomic programme, he noted that just exploding an atomic bomb would not lead to national security unless we also had economic and social security. What he was against was taking positions without the means to back them up.
“We can only go step by step”
However, Vikram lacked touch with the masses. He was not familiar with the rural folk whose lives he wanted to impact and eventually did. But, despite all that, there is inspiration in Vikram’s life for all young Indians. The decisions he took and the nation he built.
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