doctorate degree was awarded at a convocation presided
over by Prof. Raja Ramanna.
I joined DRDL on 1 June, 1982. Very soon, I realized
that this laboratory was still haunted by the winding up of the
Devil missile project. Many excellent professionals had not
yet recovered from the disappointment. People outside the
scientific world may find it difficult to comprehend how a
scientist feels when the umbilical cord to his work is
suddenly snapped, for reasons totally alien to his
understanding and interests. The general mood and work
tempo at DRDL reminded me of Samuel Taylor
Coleridge’s poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner:
Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath, nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.
I found almost all my senior colleagues living with the
pain of dashed hopes. There was a widespread feeling that
the scientists of this laboratory had been cheated by the
senior officials in the Ministry of Defence. It was clear to me
that the burial of the Devil was essential for the rise of hope
and vision.
When about a month later, Admiral OS Dawson, then
the Chief of Naval Staff, visited DRDL, I used it as an
opportunity to make a point with my team. The Tactical
Core Vehicle (TCV) project had been hanging fire for quite
some time. It was conceived as a single core vehicle with
certain common subsystems to meet the requirements of
the services for a quick reaction Surface-to-Air Missile, an
anti-radiation Air-to-Surface Missile which could be
launched from helicopters or fixed wing aircraft. I
emphasized the sea-skimming role of the core vehicle to
Admiral Dawson. I focussed not on its technical intricacies,
but on its battlefield capabilities; and I highlighted the
production plans. The message was loud and clear to my
new associates—do not make anything which you cannot
sell later and do not spend your life on making one thing
only. Missile development is a multi-dimensional business
—if you remain in any one dimension for a long time, you
will get stuck.
My initial few months at DRDL were largely interactive. I
had read at St. Joseph’s that an electron may appear as a
particle or wave depending on how you look at it. If you ask
a particle question, it will give you a particle answer; if you
ask a wave question, it will give you a wave answer. I not
only described and explained our goals, but also made
them an interplay between our work and ourselves. I still
recall quoting Ronald Fischer at one of the meetings, “The
sweetness we taste in a piece of sugar is neither a
property of the sugar nor a property of ourselves. We are
producing the experience of sweetness in the process of
interacting with the sugar.”
Very good work on a Surface-to-Surface missile with a
vertical riseturn straight line climb-ballistic path had been
done by that time. I was astonished to see the
determination of the DRDL workforce, who, in spite of the
premature winding up of their earlier projects, were eager
to go ahead. I arranged reviews for its various subsystems,
to arrive at precise specifications. To the horror of many
old-timers in DRDO, I started inviting people from the Indian
Institute of Science, Indian Institutes of Technology, Council
for Scientific and Industrial Research, Tata Institute of
Fundamental Research, and many other educational
institutions where related experts could be found. I felt that
the stuffy work centres of DRDL needed a breath of fresh