Archival Note
Published in 2006 during A. P. J. Abdul Kalam’s presidency in Vol. 25, Issue No. 24 (16/12/2006), this article is less a profile of Kalam than a reflection on the politics of minority representation. V.T. Rajshekhar asks why some members of historically oppressed groups come to be celebrated by dominant political establishments while others remain excluded or viewed with suspicion. These ideas remain urgent over the last decade with a Dalit and an Adivasi president from the Hindu nationalist party occupying the post.
The article is reproduced here in full. Read today, it can also be situated within a wider discussion about the distinction often drawn between the “good” and the “bad” Muslim—a distinction that is used globally as a liberal strategy to tame minority political power.
The complete, unabridged article is available in the Dalit Voice archives: https://dalitvoice.net/why-upper-castes-are-all-praise-for-abdul-kalam-as-a-good-man/
Why Upper Castes Are All Praise For Abdul Kalam As “A Good Man”?
President Abdul Kalam, the dark-looking, vegetarian Tamil bachelor who is never invited by any Muslim organisation anywhere in India, is called a “good man” by our Brahminical rulers. Maybe he is called good because he has been good to them.
We were all praise for Kalam when he was a scientist in the Defence Department. We then called him “India’s only scientist”. All other upper-caste “scientists” had no achievement to their credit. Collectively, they did a lot of harm to the poor Kalam. Despite all the pinpricks, Kalam went up by his sheer “merit and efficiency”, which no other Brahmin scientist possessed.
MEDIOCRITY GLORIFIED
We have not made any comment on him after he became the President of India. Because, no. 1, we had never heard him speaking face to face. No. 2, out of respect for a Muslim.
But we have read a lot of his speeches, which made no sense. We asked many people their opinion. They gave the same opinion.
Mediocrity is always glorified in this vast intellectual desert called India.
For the first time, we heard him at the Tehelka “Summit of the Powerless”, which he inaugurated in Delhi on Nov. 20, 2006. As usual, the speech made no sense to us or any comrades with us.
HELPED FIGHT PAKISTAN?
His days as a scientist (he was no doubt brilliant) were fully exploited by the upper castes to manufacture rockets, in which he was an expert. Do rockets feed India’s hungry millions? If not, why was he praised and paraded by the fellow scientists, all from the upper castes? Because rockets helped threaten the enemy. Who is India’s enemy? Of course, Pakistan, which is a Muslim country. Did Muslim Kalam help fight Muslims? Was he praised for this?
In other words, the hungry millions did not get any relief from Kalam’s scientific experiments. He catered to the interests of the Brahminical rulers, who considered Pakistan (read Muslim) as their enemy.
In his speech at the Tehelka function, he praised the cock-and-bull story called the Ramayana (Read Dr. Ambedkar’s book Riddle of Rama & Krishna. DSA, 1995) and the Tamil Brahmin religious leader Ramanujacharya. These are music to Brahminical ears.
WHY ALL HIS GRAND “PLANS” IGNORED?
Kalam, as the President, had visited several places and delivered scores of speeches presenting his grand “plans to reduce poverty in 10 years”. The upper castes cheered him but did not implement a single “plan”.
Why did his “plans” always fall on deaf ears? Because these were all economic in content, while the over 85% of India suffered from a disease that was essentially social and cultural in content. That is why Kalam was simply ignored. His most publicised plan was the “PURA Project”. Did anybody implement his project? We have no information.
Brahmins praised him but silently laughed at him. They are not bloody fools to select him as President unless they have made sure that he would serve their interests.
Prime Minister Vajpayee, heading the sworn anti-Muslim party of BJP, wanted an obedient, harmless Muslim as head of state to decorate the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
PRAISE FOR GANDHI KILLERS
How big a simpleton he is could be made out from his profuse praise for a top RSS terrorist leader, Nanaji Deshmukh. He said he had visited Nanaji’s project in MP and was much impressed by the socio-cultural changes it brought about.
How could the RSS be interested in socio-cultural revolution? Maybe Nanaji’s multi-million-rupee experiment converting the MP tribals into good “Hindus”, meaning slaves, impressed him. RSS is doing such socio-cultural experiments in all tribal belts.
Nanaji is senior to Vaidik Vajpayee. He resigned as Union Cabinet Minister to go into the MP forest to continue his “socio-cultural experiment” of enslaving the tribals. How selfless and dedicated he must be. RSS has hundreds of such leaders and workers.
Kalam has been praised for such work. That means even such a brilliant scientist can be taken for a ride by the Brahminical people.
As he was going out after his speech, we caught hold of his hand and questioned his praise of a Hindu terrorist leader.
His answer was: “What if he is an RSS man? He is doing good work.” We said: “RSS killed Gandhi, whom you praised many times in your speech.” He simply walked away without answering.
Brahminical India gets the President it deserves and the Prime Minister it deserves.
