Turning Points (16 page)
The return of the Office of Profit Bill clearly establishes how at the Parliament level, practices that cannot meet the standards of public probity are not debated and reviewed with the seriousness they deserve. This can be considered as a starting point for accepting wrong practices that will lead to compromises in formulating and practising a national standard.
Recently, we saw two fasting movements against corruption and many more may get inspired. I was asking myself, why are such movements taking place in our democratic country. This is basically due to the dilution of standards by Parliament itself. Hence, I would suggest that Parliament has to discuss for a minimum of two weeks the issue of corruption without walk-outs, and evolve a time-bound agenda for eradicating this evil in public life. As part of this, it would need to evolve a code of conduct for parliamentarians. If people’s representatives fail in their mission, then the people who elected them may express their frustration and dissent in many forms. Each political party has to take stock of what they have done in their own way to prevent or eradicate corruption through Parliament. The time has come for both Houses of Parliament to deliberate on this issue of corruption and find a time-bound constitutional solution to eliminate this menace,
which includes the recovery of money parked in accounts abroad. Such actions by Parliament in time will bring confidence among the citizens and promote peace and harmony in society which is vital for the accelerated development of the nation.
One of the more difficult tasks for me as president was to decide on the issue of confirming capital punishment awarded by the courts after exhausting all processes of appeals. As a substantial number of cases have been pending in Rashtrapati Bhavan for many years, it is one inherited task that no president would feel happy about. I thought I should get all these cases examined from a normal citizen’s point of view in terms of the crime, intensity of the crime and the social and financial status of the individuals who were convicted and awarded capital punishment. This study revealed to my surprise that almost all the cases which were pending had a social and economic bias. This gave me an impression that we were punishing the person who was least involved in the enmity and who did not have a direct motive for committing the crime. Of course there was one case where I found that the lift operator had in fact committed the crime of raping and killing the girl without doubt. In that case I affirmed the sentence.
In my view while courts are hearing the capital punishment cases they should alert the law-enforcing authorities to intelligently find out the source of sustenance of the individual who is being punished and that of his family.
This kind of analysis may lead to the real person and the motive which has led to the crime.
We are all the creations of God. I am not sure a human system or a human being is competent to take away a life based on artificial and created evidence.
One of the responsibilities of the president is to appoint the prime minister of the country after every general election or whenever an occasion arises for change of the incumbent. On these occasions the president has to satisfy himself there is a party or a coalition which has the required number of members to form a stable government. The process of selection becomes more complex when there is more than one contender laying claim to government in view of none of the parties having a clear majority in the House. In this context, the 2004 election was an interesting event. The elections were over, the results had been announced and none of the parties had the strength to form the government on their own.
The Congress party had the largest number of members elected. In spite of that three days had passed and no party or coalition came forward to form the government. It was a cause of concern for me and I asked my secretaries and rushed a letter to the leader of the largest party – in this case the Congress – to come forward and stake the claim for forming the government.
I was told that Sonia Gandhi was meeting me at 12.15 in the afternoon of 18 May. She came in time but instead of
coming alone she came with Dr Manmohan Singh and had a discussion with me. She said that she had the requisite numbers but she did not bring the letter of support signed by party functionaries. She would come with the letters of support on the 19th, she said. I asked her why do you postpone. We can even finish it this afternoon. She went away. Later I received a message that she would meet me in the evening, at 8.15 p.m.
While this communication was in progress, I had a number of emails and letters coming from individuals, organizations and parties that I should not allow Mrs Sonia Gandhi to become the prime minister of our country. I had passed on these mails and letters to various agencies in the government for their information without making any remarks. During this time there were many political leaders who came to meet me to request me not to succumb to any pressure and appoint Mrs Gandhi as the prime minister, a request that would not have been constitutionally tenable. If she had made any claim for herself I would have had no option but to appoint her.
At the allotted time, 8.15 p.m., Mrs Gandhi came to Rashtrapati Bhavan along with Dr Manmohan Singh. In this meeting after exchanging pleasantries, she showed me the letters of support from various parties. Thereupon, I said that is welcome. The Rashtrapati Bhavan is ready for the swearing-in ceremony at the time of your choice. That is when she told me that she would like to nominate Dr Manmohan Singh, who was the architect of economic reforms in 1991 and a trusted lieutenant of the Congress party with an impeccable image, as the prime minister. This
was definitely a surprise to me and the Rashtrapati Bhavan Secretariat had to rework the letter appointing Dr Manmohan Singh as the Prime Minister and inviting him to form the government at the earliest.
Finally, the swearing-in took place on 22 May with Dr Manmohan Singh and sixty-seven ministers in the splendid Ashoka Hall.
I breathed a sigh of relief that this important task had finally been done. However, I did puzzle over why no party had staked a claim for three days.
During my tenure I had to take many tough decisions. I had applied my mind totally in an unbiased manner after eliciting opinions from legal and constitutional experts. The primary aim of all the decisions was to protect and nurture the sanctity and robustness of our Constitution.
See the flower, how freely it gives of its perfume and honey.
But when its work is done, it falls away quietly.
—Bhagavad Gita
I
had a busy tenure as president. In the first year itself one of my goals was to travel around this beautiful land of ours and to go to all the states and see first-hand how people lived there, their environment and their problems, and get a sense of how happy they were. Lakshadweep, the small group of islands off the Kerala coast, is the only
territory I could not visit, to my regret. All the others, I visited, once or more than once. Each region had its own fascination. Underlying it all was a simplicity and warmth that is typically Indian.
It is interesting to see how this travel was seen by others. I quote from a report that appeared in
Outlook
magazine. ‘Kalam is a peripatetic president who has already visited 21 states in the 10 months he has been in office. This is possibly more than what most presidents manage to do in five years. He packs in as many as 15 programmes into these whirlwind tours, arriving the night before to fit in as much as possible into his tight schedule …’
At the end of the presidency, I felt satisfied on two counts. When I look charge there was a feeling of gloom and despondency among students. I used to go and tell them to be confident and try and enthuse them. No youth need be afraid of the future, I would say, since India is progressing well. India will grow and you will too, I told them. Indeed, the growth rate has stepped up in recent years. As the end of my tenure, the mood of the youth was different. They wanted to live in a developed India, and were willing to work for it.
People wondered how I would adjust to life away from a busy schedule as president. However, before I became president, I was deeply engaged in my writing, teaching and inspiring the youth in national and international schools and universities and participating in seminars and conferences. I intended to go back to this routine. I had offers for teaching assignments from Anna University, Chennai; Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT),
Hyderabad; G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar; Delhi University; IIM Ahmedabad; IIM Indore; IIT Kharagpur; Banaras Hindu University (BHU) and others.
As I visualize it, from 26 July 2007 till now, my mission in life has been further enhanced. My teaching and research has now been well defined at Pant University. My focus there is on how the students can be a nodal point for India’s second green revolution. Pant University is the first agriculture university in the country. It has a very large campus with a huge area available for experimental farming. At Kharagpur, India’s first IIT, I have taught Leadership and Societal Transformation as a Distinguished Professor. At the IIIT in Hyderabad, I started teaching information technology and knowledge products, which are highly relevant for the India 2020 vision. At the BHU and at Anna University, I have been teaching technology and its nonlinear dimension to transform rural economy. At IIM Ahmedabad and at the Gatton College of Business and Economics in Lexington, United States an interactive course was designed to introduce management graduates to the challenges of national and international economic development. The students offered a number of out-of-the-box ideas for development and the strategies needed to realize the ten pillars of a competitive profile for India before 2020. For example, a group of students is working to establish PURA as a public-private partnership venture.
I receive a number of invitations from abroad. Till now, after demitting office, I have visited, on special invitation from the academic, political and industrial communities,
the United States, the United Kingdom, Indonesia, the Netherlands, Republic of Korea, Israel, Canada, Finland, Nepal, Ireland, the United Arab Emirates, Taiwan, Russia and Australia. During these tours, I visited universities and research institutions, attended industry and world youth conferences, and shared the mission of a developed India and conveyed the importance of partnerships with other nations for economic development and value-based education. So far, I have attended more than 1,200 programmes, meeting more than fifteen million people, particularly the youth. I have shared the dreams of the youth, how they would like to be unique, and their spirit and their enthusiasm for the great mission of development, combating all challenges. This venture has now been developed into World Vision 2030.
Each of these events has given a new direction to my life. When I look back, I introspect on what I have learnt from the change of course created by these events. Decision making in each case was complex and the events were chronologically very much apart. Still, I find aspiring for new challenges was the foundation for all the decisions. That’s how life is enriched.
It can be difficult to find time for all the things one wants to do. In fact my schedule seems to have a life of its own. It is even more hectic than before, and I am thinking of giving myself a little more room. Just a day ago, I was good-naturedly ribbing R.K. Prasad, who manages my schedules and programmes, how come on return from Mysore on Friday I was fixed for Moradabad and Rampur on Monday, where I had four engagements before being driven back to
Delhi late at night, an address to the Pan African e-Network on Wednesday, and then Guwahati on Thursday, back to Delhi on Friday night and again flying out to Lucknow on Saturday morning for a conclave. A recent month’s schedule, that for May, listing engagements, is as follows. The daily appointments, which can be quite a few, are omitted:
Schedule for May 2012
Tuesday, 1 May
- Visit Bokaro: Visit Bokaro Steel Plant and address the engineers and address the students of Chinmaya Vidyalaya
- Ranchi to participate in the launch of ‘What can I give’ programme