Former president Abdul Kalam?s memoirs reflect his passion for India 2020, but there is little here on the events that shook the country doing his tenure

Take a vision in a pan. Add chopped missions and heat on low flame. Mix well with road maps, action plans, blueprints and programmes. Add refined youth, students, villages and e-governance and stir well. Voila! Your Delicious Developed India 2020 is ready. Garnish with self-reliance and serve hot.

At least 14 years have passed since we were first told how India can?t wait to become a developed nation by 2020. The economy may be crawling, scandals soaring, terror threats rising and polity fragmenting, but none of that matters. Former president APJ Abdul Kalam is convinced that India will become a developed nation in just another eight years, if only we stick to those missions, visions and action plans. His Turning Points: A journey through challenges is mostly a reiteration of the Missile Man?s stated views on development and how we should claim our future.

Presidents owe their nations memoirs of their time in office. Presidential books are best-sellers by default. So, the interest in Turning Points is natural. However, do not expect Turning Points to be another Decision Points. Far from it, in fact. Apart from brief mentions of his childhood and career, this book dwells mostly on Kalam?s vision of ?India 2020? (his book of the same name was published in 1998) when we become a developed nation.

For those thirsting for the former First Citizen?s views on the politics during his days in Rashtrapati Bhawan, Turning Points is a disappointment. Kalam, of course, writes at length about his tenure, but most of it reads like a schedule of events rather than tales from the heart. Recounting speeches to state assemblies, foreign parliaments, the Indian parliament and state legislators hardly makes Turning Points the ?inspiring sequel? to his previous book, as the cover claims. Kalam says he made the Rashtrapati Bhawan a more ?interactive? place by meeting thousands of visitors and instituted e-governance there, which is hardly the kind of stuff presidents are remembered for.

As India?s Missile Man who led the SLV programme that took our first satellite to space, and later led missile and nuclear weapons development, Kalam has worked long years with various prime ministers and defence ministers. But if you expect him to spill the dope on any of them, perish the thought: Kalam is too kind.

So, we find liberal praise for all prime ministers he met: ?These associations were extremely fruitful and left an indelible mark on my mind.? For Kalam, Indira Gandhi was ?a great stateswoman?, PV Narasimha Rao was ?very perceptive on defence issues? and Vajpayee was ?decisive in all his actions while dealing with any national problem?. And Manmohan Singh? ?The prime minister who has applied all his economic skills to enhance growth which has reached as high as 9%.? That last one took the cake. Kalam clearly seems to believe in the speak-no-evil dictum. Does the dictum apply to presidential memoirs too?

In all of the book, Kalam spends precisely four pages on his visit to Gujarat after the 2002 riots. There is nary a squeak on the organised massacres, which continue to remain a blot on India?s secular face. Instead, there is more of boilerplate, like, ?I believe that it is necessary for all of us to work for unity of minds? and ?Essence of a true and vibrant democracy is tolerance for other people?s belief systems and lifestyles.? We are also subjected to lines like, ?Narendra Modi was with me throughout the visit and in a way, this helped me.? And, ?The chief minister assured me that the boy?s education and welfare would be taken care of by the government.? What did Kalam think of the murderers as he toured the burning cities? Not a word. What does he think of the justice delayed as multiple commissions and inquiries drag on? Nothing.

The chapter ?Controversial Decisions? serves little to clear the clouds. The first controversy relates to dismissing the Bihar Assembly, a decision that the Supreme Court called illegal and unconstitutional. Like Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed 30 years earlier, Kalam signed on the government?s dotted line, sparking another firestorm on subverting the Constitution. After Turning Points came out, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar?who won the elections held that year?said the UPA government must apologise to Kalam for pressuring him to sign the dismissal. Kalam says his lawyers had not represented his position properly in court?the only instance in the whole book where the former president sounds bitter. The second controversy is about the Office of Profit Bill, which Kalam returned to Parliament with suggestions. The Bill came back without the changes he suggested but Kalam now cleared the Bill. ?The return of Office of Profit Bill clearly establishes how at the Parliament level, practices that cannot meet the standards of public probity are not properly debated and reviewed with the seriousness they deserve,? is all we are told.

We sympathise with the difficult choices Kalam had to make as president and feel bad for the good man that he is. He may have got bad advice in the first case and been shortchanged in the second, but these are besides the point. What did President Kalam feel when the Supreme Court called his decision illegal and unconstitutional? Did it anger him? What was his reaction to the government that recommended this extreme step? What did he feel when the ensuing Bihar elections swept Nitish Kumar to power? Does he feel the president should have greater powers to reject the Cabinet?s recommendation if he feels it is unwise? Turning Points offers no clue.

The book is sprinkled with stereotyped lines like, ?The state governments and central governments have a single vision of transforming India into an economically developed nation?; ?Efficient, result-oriented and transparent governance is a prerequisite for a developed India and our progress as a knowledge society?; and, ?Each individual has the fundamental right to practice his religious, cultural and language faith.? I?m sure no one will ever dispute such broad statements.

Kalam delights in talking about his pet projects like India 2020 and Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas (PURA). These themes, which clearly occupy a lot of his mind, pop up in the book as frequently as our serial scams. A lot of Turning Points dwells on youth, education, energy independence, rural empowerment, self-sufficiency and sustainable development. His faith in the slowing, scandal-plagued, lumbering country?s ability to become a developed nation by 2020 is touching, if not convincing. The only Twenty20 we seem to have achieved with sterling success in a remarkably short time seems to be in cricket. Perhaps one should take lessons from Lalit Modi?

TURNING POINTS: A JOURNEY THROUGH CHALLeNGES

APJ Abdul Kalam

Harper Collins

Softcover, Pg 182

Rs.199