For Abdul Kalam, distinguished scientist, 11th president of India, and speaker at the inaugural Budh Singh and Kashmir Kaur Dhahan Lecture at Carleton Oct. 3, the three things that matter most in a peaceful society are education, education, and education.
The event was hosted by the Canada-India Centre for Excellence in Science, Technology, Trade and Policy at Carleton.
From this opening address to the full crowd at Porter Hall, Kalam laid out his three-dimensional approach for a “prosperous and peaceful society on the planet.”
The first component, he said, is education. He congratulated Carleton on its success in scientific and engineering research, in the social sciences, and in its international business and public affairs and policy management programs.
The primary stages of education, too, he said, are very important, especially between the ages of five and seven.
“Give me a child for seven years and afterwards let god or the devil take the child,” he said, quoting a proverb.
The second component of this enlightened society, Kalam said, is the transformative power of religion to promote good human values. He asked the crowd, “Can we bring the spiritual component of religion to bring peace to the world?”
For the third component, economic development, Kalam talked about one of his books, India 2020, in which he describes a plan to turn India into a developed nation by 2020. He said the way to do this is “knowledge connectivity,” which will uplift the quality of life of those below the poverty line.
When Kalam was elected as president in 2002, he had the support of both major Indian political parties, the Indian National Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party, and held presidency for five years until 2007.
He told the crowd that before taking presidency he asked his academic colleagues — Kalam was a teacher at the time — whether he should accept the position. They told him not to, but he did anyway. He said he could use the position to market his economic vision of India, India 2020, to the government.
“I did it,” he said, to a round of applause.
Kalam, who has many accomplishments, said one of his most important is that he has addressed and inspired five million youth over the last decade.
Indeed, there were many youth at Kalam’s Carleton address, like Kashyap, 12, who said Kalam was very funny and had good answers for his questions.
His friend Amogh said his favourite part was Kalam’s poem, “I Will Fly,” which he got the crowd’s help to recite.
The last lines are:
I am not meant for crawling
Because I have wings
I will fly
