At a personal level, I've held
astronomy close to my heart from the time I was a child. In fact I still prize
the "Earth, space and the universe" paperback quiz books my mother
bought me a long time ago. I believe it
was only natural to feel a very real sense of crackling excitement to have
heard ISRO's ambitious plans and finally, to have seen PSLV-XL take India's
maiden interplanetary satellite into space. But then of course happiness is an
evanescent thing. That vicious question repeated yet again; and
again and again. "Is India really justified on spending so much ?"
I am not really interested in
specifying "spending on what" because as a matter of fact, to the
assailants, if I may take the liberty of calling them so, it does not matter.
Not one bit! As long as the BBC can show a photograph of a rag picking girl
from a garbage dump, any expenditure that is not directly linked to feeding a
destitute is unethical. I cannot agree enough that a large number of people in
India live in ruthless poverty. I cannot stress enough that empathy and action from the
state and from each citizen towards such grossly underprivileged people is of
paramount importance. But it needs to be understood- India is not merely a
monochromatic, painfully romantic BBC photograph.
And what numbers are we talking
about..?! Taking into account the complexity of such a mission, I think the
project is quite literally, a complete bargain. At a cost of INR 450Cr (c. USD 73 million) the mission is a meager 0.02% of India's 2013
budget. An interesting comparison would be an Indian family hatchback which
takes roughly the same amount to develop. Speaking of cars, a friend of mine posted this a few days back for the mileage obsessed Indian: "The orbiter is slated to travel a distance of roughly
780 million km on its journey to Mars which works out to be less than 7 Rs/km." That is in fact cheaper than a god damn auto rickshaw in Bangalore although I think actually anything is cheaper than an auto ride in
Bangalore. Even if you smoked a few less cigarettes during the
course of the project, you would have contributed to a better probably a little more useful form of
fire and smoke. Apart from the fact that it is genuinely low-cost, I
wonder the critics know how much space missions generally cost. The Curiosity
rover project was developed at a cost of $2 billion. That's twice the amount of
India's entire annual budget on space research. Agreed, the size of the project
is much smaller. But even on a comparable
project, the US would spend close to ten times of what ISRO has managed to do
it in. And given the extremely tight schedule of 15 months, its a no brainer
that the effort is by any yardstick, a commendable one.
Here's another thing that really baffled
me. This tweet aired on a BBC telecast said, "I think they do not
want our aid money anymore" Unfortunately, that's the bane that follows
the position and title of being a fast growing yet 'developing' nation. From
personal experience, for many Europeans, India is typically a place with a lot
of slums and a lot of call centers - both of which, take away tax-payer money
in the form of aid and take away jobs in the form of back office services. The
tweet reflects a very human tendency to prescribe to a rather sanctimonious
ideology of relegating beneficiaries to servile yes men. In an interesting turn
of events nonetheless, India has pledged to contribute $10b to Europe's aid as
a part of the IMF 'firewall' against further economic crises. I'm not too sure
India is really telling the IMF or beneficiary
countries what to do or not to do with their own tax payers' money and I think the gesture needs to be mutual.
And speaking of foreign aid by the way, India is the largest donor towards polio
eradication, having contributed a total sum on $2 billion. This is from a WHO report -
Not Indian propaganda. Aid is charity, a sign of solidarity and most of all the
epitome of benevolent human relationship. Its never a license to dictate.
For the record, detractors are
not just outside. There is a large breed of home grown critics as well. For
obvious reasons, they are the ones that irk me the most. First of all allow me
to say this - "Get a life !" Having said that, allow me also to give you reasons so as to
why they should get a life. The
primary objection is very closely linked to expenses. About expenses, noted journalist and
social activist Praful Bidwai, for example, is of the opinion, "Completely
disproportionate in quantity". He says that while a multitude is living in
poverty, spending 450Cr on a space mission is totally disreputable. Now, lets take some stats into account.
India, in 2013-14 will spend Rs. 27250Cr on the Sarva Siksha Abhiyaan alone, Rs
37330Cr on Family Welfare, Rs. 33000Cr on Rural employment and a whopping Rs
125,000Cr (estimated) on the Food Security Bill. By any standards, these are really, really large numbers. For a moment, I'd have to
agree with Mr. Bidwai that the expense on the MOM is disproportionate, albeit
only in the diminutiveness of its financial backing. So the argument that India doesn't have its
priorities sorted out with regard to social welfare begs to be thrown out of
the window. And for God's sake, Mumbai alone spent 600 crores on crackers on
Diwali night - by the way some of which were rockets too. Instead of pinning the
blame on a handful of scientists and engineers who've made the most out of the
bare minimum offered, probably people such as Mr. Bidwai may better serve the
nation using their journalistic skills and 'activist' clout to help figure out
where these enormous funds go.
But then of course, you might
ask, what's the point of it all? Why do it in the first place? Let me start
with the less important financial part. From Aryabhata to Mangalyaan, there
have been 72 Indian satellites sent into space. When Aryabhata was launched in
1975 we were completely dependent on the Russians and the Europeans with 60% of the first 25
satellites being put into orbit by a foreign launch vehicle. Today that figure
is down to 16%. In fact, India launches satellites for developed
nations such as Japan, Israel, Germany, France among others. To be exact with figures,
ISRO has helped launch a total of 35 such satellites. With the cost of
launching a satellite being anywhere between 50 and 400 million USD, I can't
comprehend how someone is unable to see the savings and the potential income
ISRO's missions entail. And by the way who are these people employed at ISRO?
Indians. Who builds most of the infrastructure? Indian companies. That's home
grown employment from home grown revenue generating work. Last time I
checked, that's the most robust way to a society's economic evolution. Did I miss a meeting..? Antrix, ISRO's marketing wing reported a net income of 1.5 billion Indian rupees in 2008. Do I need to say more on how
space exploration is profitable.. or that if it is of any use at all ?!!
So much for the present and the future. Take a peek into the past too. Cyclone
Paradeep made landfall on the shores of Orissa on 28 October, 1999. By the time
the storm had subsided, over 10,000 people had lost their lives. Our main handicap
was the lack of advanced remote sensing satellites and Doppler radars. In stark contrast, Cyclone
Phailin's death toll was 45. Are you listening ? 45..! Among other things, a direct result of investment
in satellite technology. Can you put a price tag on the expenditure on
technologies such as these that have helped save countless lives..? One should
probably google the Cospas Sarsat system to know how space
technology has direct impact on lives here- close to the ground. And where do you think GPS and your SatNav comes from? And what about
national pride..? Where did that go..? Has it come to mean nothing! Does Rabindranath
Tagore's Nobel prize for literature have no meaning because it has no
substantial economic merit. Does the fact that one can't put to use the
contents of Gitanjali onto an assembly line and churn out low quality so called 'blockbuster' bollywood movies make it irrelevant to national pride.
All this so vividly brings Oscar Wilde to mind who defined so
accurately saying, "A cynic is a person who knows the price of everything,
and the value of nothing." No country has succeeded on its maiden
attempt to Mars, more than half of all Mars missions have failed. Can one not
foresee the challenge, the immense national
pride if we are to nail it or even the courage to have attempted something as audacious as this? I hope we understand the role this will play on the
young minds to whom the older generation will bequeath the role of carrying
India's technology and status to greater heights. Somewhere in the last 10 years, an ever growing number of young
Indian engineers have gone from I want to join NASA to I want to work for ISRO.
I'm not convinced the critics actually appreciate the gravity of a shift or
even the beginning of such a shift that's taking hold of India's enormous youth.
I so wish they could stand from my viewpoint and watch the vista - a view that
has infinite hope, boisterous energy, a calm assured confidence and deep down inside, a
sense of innocent pride.
And hey, the ISRO guys seem to have
a decent sense of humor too. Especially with regard to the subtlety in timing. So, the title
of this piece in their honor.
