Today India launched an unmanned rocket to the Moon. It is a very significant technological milestone for India. India has been off first base, second base, third base and this is the home running. The sky is the limit- do not mean that literally this time.
There are millions living in abject poverty in India that is true. So could India afford to spend the US$ 79 million to send a rocket to the Moon when millions of her people live in grinding poverty and death? The debate on that will rage on for many moons. But what is not beyond dispute is that India has come a long, long way in a very short time.
In 1947 as a newly independent nation, India took its stand to chart the course the nation was to follow. We all want peace, freedom, liberty, economic prosperity – that is simple enough. The real challenge is how to get all these things without being side tracked as so many other nations have done. It is like playing a game of base-ball; every one wants a home run but only a few actually score one and the majority never even get off the start block.
Starting block: create a social and political system capable of making optimum use of the nation’s resources, both material and human, for the good of all. The temptation is to create a self serving system and damn everyone else. Democracy has its weakness, still it is the only system devised by mankind to date capable keeping the egotistic tendencies in check, particularly those in leadership positions, and the nation efforts firmly focused on the common good.
India’s democratic system has had its up and downs. The democratic train was nearly knocked off track, for example, when some leaders have assumed greater power than was allowed in a true democracy or when some individuals used the gun to achieve their own selfish ends. Then country’s democratic institutions were rocked to their foundations. The institutions and democracy survived; they were rock solid. Thanks to India’s founding fathers, Mahatma Ghandi, Nehru and others, India was founded on strong democratic institutions and the country was off to a flying start to first base.
In the next 60 years India has built on its good start to go on to second and third base; building on country’s economic and technological success so it can invest more on its people to give them better health, education, etc. A better educated and healthier populous then built an even stronger and better economy; thus turning an economic success into an economic boom with the technological prowess and managerial finesse to take on the challenge of building and successfully launching a rocket to the moon.
Julius Nyerere, the first President of Tanzania, once mourned of how Africa was puzzling about crossing the road when the Americans had successfully sent a man to the Moon and see him safely back to Earth. That was in the 1970s and today Africa is still scratching its bold head about crossing the road.
Africa has had the great the great misfortune of having people like Robert Mugabe, brutal and ruthless dictators, who saw independence as an opportunity to enrich themselves and did not care about the common good. So we never got off the starting block.
One would think the second generation of leaders would have realised the folly of dictatorial rule and would now want embrace and implement democratic rule. Instead we Tsvangirai and his lot hell bend on rehabilitating the dictator, Mugabe, and the whole dictatorship in so mad-hare power sharing scheme! Ironically, he was elected on a democratic change ticket.
We all celebrate India’s milestone achievement in the successful building and launching of the lunar rocket. India can now hold its head high and stand as an equal to any other nation. As for Africa, it will be many, many moons yet before we can ever hope to accomplish such a fit of building and launching a space rocket. Meanwhile we will continue to scratch our bolding head about crossing the street!
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