On the wee hours of Saturday, 7th September, ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) lost touch with Vikram Lander, when it was only 2.1 kms away from the lunar surface. While rest of the country stayed awake witnessing history being created, Pakistan’s Federal Minister of Science & Technology Chaudhry Fawad Hussain was also up to give company to us. As Indians along with the people from science and technology community across the world hailed ISRO for the remarkable feat, Fawad Hussain decided to mock India and ISRO for even attempting it. A bit rich coming from a country which specialises in sending terrorists to the neighbouring country on which it has to depend even for medicines.
Former Goa Congress leader and editor-in-chief of Goa Chronicle and Indian Expose, Savio Rodrigues wrote an open letter to Chaudhry Fawad Hussain on how while India is orbiting around the moon, Pakistan is orbiting around terrorists.
His open letter which was first published on Indian Expose has been republished here verbatim with his permission.
It is with great amusement I read your tweets on India’s unmanned effort to the moon.
I hope you are aware that the Chandrayaan 2 is currently orbiting around the moon and will continue to do so.
The unexpected outcome of Vikram Lander not going as per the plan of ISRO and the loss of communication is mere technical uncertainty. This uncertainty will be cleared post the analysis of data over the next couple of weeks.
The biggest learning, history of science has taught us, is that there is no concept of failure only learnings. It is through learning that science has advanced phenomenally and aggressively over the years.
You revelled on social media – Twitter to be precise – over the #IndiaFailed hashtag. I as common Indian citizen has not seen it as a failure. We may have not got the desired result but once our scientist analysis our data we would learn what we need to do better and what we have done right.
You are the Minister of Science and Technology for your country. It is a country I don’t look upto to fondly due to our estranged relationship as nations.
Having said that and keeping as nations, our politics aside, science and the technological advancement in the frontiers of space science is not a proprietary to a nation but a learning for all nations.
It is disappointing that as a Minister of Science and Technology you do not possess the scientific temperament to understand and comprehend that science is for the benefit of every human.
The success of the planned outcome of Vikram Lander touching the surface of the moon would have help not only India but through India the entire world; to understand new dimensions of space explorations and would even give us learnings to that could be adopted in science applicable for our own planet’s benefit.
As an Indian and as a human, I possess an appreciation for science and it’s advancements. Space exploration is not a science that will bear immediate fruits but will set stepping stones for future generations globally. It will open doors to go where no man or woman has ever ventured into in outer space.
Most individuals living on this planet have an in-built scientific temperament and when one develops a scientific temper then it appreciates any nation, even an enemy nation if they have done something progressive in the field of science.
Unfortunately your juvenile, hate-filled and condescending tweets does not reflect on the prowess of India’s space mission but a lack of character, statesmanship and scientific temper in you as a representative of a nation.
Let me take you through the lack of progress of Pakistan as a nation experimenting the field of space exploration.
The Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO) which was set-up in 1961, took a shocking 50 years to launch its first communication satellite into the Orbit. In this effort too, you took assistance of China and used Chinese-made launch vehicle with aid from a subsidiary of the China Aerospace and Technology Corporation.
The Chandrayaan 2 Mission was a success in many ways but one of its most important moot points of its success was that the ISRO scientists built the space ship and the Vikram Lander indigenously and did not rely on assistance of another nation or aid from another nation. We did seek but it did not come at the time we wanted it and our scientists decided to build on its own.
The problem with SUPARCO has and will always be funding which has been denied on numerous occasions by your own country and other countries. The reason has been the fact that there has been very little progress or advancements in space exploration related sciences. In this vicious circle of lack of funding and lack of advancement in science your country has failed to ensure a sustained growth rate of scientific advancement and innovation.
Funnily SUPARCO started 8-years before ISRO started and look at the leaps that our scientists have taken in the field of space explorations. Your nation’s performance sadly looks pale in front of what my scientists have achieved. Developed countries have applauded India’s scientific advancements and even our performance with Chandrayaan 2 and Vikram Lander has been appreciated and encouraged by many nations.
You can make tall claims that SUPARCO sent the Hubble Telescope into space, but the world knows the truth. You got trolled on Twitter for this ill-informed statement. Your own people mocked your intelligence and might I add, glaring stupidity.
Let me be brutal. If you are going to make an army general instead of a scientist to head your space research program, you have not understood the nature of science or the importance of a scientist in a leadership role. It is like asking a dentist to do an eye cataract surgery.
Of course the reasons to the discussions taken by your government is no concern of mine, but to me it defies logic and borders on irrationality.
You boldly stated not too long ago that Pakistan would launch its first manned mission into space in 2022. I seriously doubt that Pakistan would even come close to achieving such a phenomenal feet in the field of space exploration. My estimate is that it would take at least 15-years or more years to achieve such a manned space mission.
It is good that in March 2019, SUPARCO took part in the Global Space Congress for the first time held at Abu Dhabi. Those are good and positive steps.
The little yet commendable feats you have achieved as a nation in the field of space sciences has never been indigenous, it has always been through partnership with China, Russia or UK. That’s because you don’t foster a positive scientific temperament in your nation. This was clearly visible in your series of tweets over India’s Chandrayaan’s 2 Moon Mission. You are not a man of science and you do not know to appreciate science.
When a nation has a Minister of Science and Technology like you, who acts as a juvenile and completely lacks the scientific aptitude to understand science and space exploration, it is going to be lagging behind.
Write it down somewhere. Post the Chandrayaan 2 Mission, India will make gigantic leaps in our Space Mission initiatives. It will be a formidable power in space explorations it will do it indigenously and with strategic partnerships with other nations.
The only temperament your nation possess is a temperament to breed terrorists. So do not worry about India’s space mission. While Chandrayaan 2 is orbiting around the moon and will do so for the next whole year, Pakistan as a nation is orbiting around terrorists.
I hope you take my open letter in the spirit that we as the world need to grow and advance in science in all spheres, so instead mocking or belittling, be matured and stop making a fool of your position and your nationality, you are after all a minister of a country.
Jai Hind!
