Torchbearers
Indian core competence in rocketry has been firmly
established again, beyond any doubt. The robust civilian
space industry and viable missilebased defences has
brought India into the select club of nations that call
themselves superpowers. Always encouraged to follow
Buddha’s or Gandhi’s teachings, how and why did India
become a missile power is a question that needs to be
answered for future generations.
Two centuries of subjugation, oppression and denial
have failed to kill the creativity and capability of the Indian
people. Within just a decade of gaining independence and
achieving sovereignty, Indian Space and Atomic Energy
Programmes were launched with a perfect orientation
towards peaceful applications. There were neither funds for
investing in missile development nor any established
requirement from the Armed Forces. The bitter
experiences of 1962 forced us to take the basic first steps
towards missile development.
Would a Prithvi suffice? Would the indigenous
development of four or five missile systems make us
sufficiently strong? Or would having nuclear weapons make
us stronger? Missiles and atomic weapons are merely
parts of a greater whole. As I saw it, the development of
Prithvi represented the self-reliance of our country in the
field of advanced technology. High technology is
synonymous with huge amounts of money and massive
infrastructure. Neither of these was available, unfortunately,
in adequate measure. So what could we do? Perhaps the
Agni missile being developed as a technology
demonstrator project, pooling all the resources available in
the country, could provide an answer?
I was very sure, even when we discussed REX in ISRO
about a decade ago, that Indian scientists and
technologists working together had the capability to
achieve this technological breakthrough. India can most
certainly achieve state-of-the-art technology through a
combined effort of the scientific laboratories and the
academic institutions. If one can liberate Indian industry
from the self-created image of being mere fabricating
factories, they can implement indigenously developed
technology and attain excellent results. To do this, we
adopted a threefold strategy— multi-institutional
participation, the consortium approach, and the
empowering technology. These were the stones rubbed
together to create Agni.
The Agni team was comprised of more than 500
scientists. Many organizations were networked to
undertake this huge effort of launching Agni. The Agni
mission had two basic orientations— work and workers.
Each member was dependent on the others in his team to
accomplish his target. Contradiction and confusion are the
two things most likely to occur in such situations. Different
leaders accommodate concern for workers while getting
work done, in their own personal ways. Some shed all
concern for workers in order to get results. They use people
merely as instruments to reach goals. Some give less
importance to the work, and make an effort to gain the
warmth and approval of people working with them. But what
this team achieved was the highest possible integration in
terms of both the quality of work and human relationships.
Involvement, participation and commitment were the key
words to functioning. Each of the team members appeared
to be performing by choice. The launching of Agni was the