Moon landing

Lessons can be learned

India deserves full kudos for the successful landing of the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft on the south pole of the moon, which catapults into the exclusive club of countries, even more exclusive than the nuclear club, which have achieved a moon landing, along with China, the USA and Russia. Of course, the most exclusive club of them all is those two countries, the USA, and Russia, in its USSR avatar, which managed manned moon landings. India and China have only made their achievements this century, so the space race was essentially a two-horse race.

The Chandrayaan programme has had its share of successes and failures. The crash of the Chandrayaan 2 back in 2019 was a devastating blow to the entire program, recovering from which took four years. In a way, this was a repetition of that mission, succeeding this time.

While credit goes to a lot of people, and rightfully so, one person who should be remembered is Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, who dealt with the ordinary problems of governance, which included a messy Partition, and wars with Pakistan (1948) and China (1962), and also set himself the task of preparing an educational infrastructure which would enable the country to compete.

Because of the network of Indian Institutes of Technology, started in 1950 (23 all over India), India has got a large number of scientists and engineers. True, much of the population is still uneducated, but with a population of 1.4 billion, even a sprinkling of trained professionals is very many. They have been enough not just to provide the manpower needed to make the moon landing, but also to achieve the dominance in information technology that the country has.

Pakistan was unable to replicate this and install the foundations required to develop an evolved education system in the country early on, following partition, nor has been thus far been able to introduce reforms that would put it on a track to achieve it. Budgetary outlays aside, there is also the matter of political stability.

The country has faced multiple political crises in the past two decades, which includes one out of the four martial laws the country has been through. No Prime Minister to date has completed a full 5-year term as a result of a continuous disregard for the principles of democracy on which the country was founded and the constitution according to which it should be run.

There should be no shame or pain in praising what India has achieved. Rather it should be a point of introspection. We too should strive for the environment that was created so much in advance of this achievement that fostered the ambitions and talents of those responsible for this feat.

Behind this was a stable system. The stability is not shown by the long Prime Ministership of Jawaharlal Nehru, but by the fact that the system continues today. Those who are celebrating India’s achievement the hardest, the BJP, are actually the ones who threaten the Nehruvian consensus which made the landing possible, with their divisive Hindutva ideology.

Editorial
Editorial
The Editorial Department of Pakistan Today can be contacted at: [email protected].

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