The book Thoughts for Change-We Can Do It, co-authored by former President of India, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and A.
The book Thoughts for Change-We Can Do It, co-authored by former President of India, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and A. Sivathanu Pillai, covered the long process of how India’s missile programme began and developed to an impressive level of technology achieved by Indian scientists in the face of many impediments and sanctions by western countries.
Having brought out in that book that “we can do it”, The Path Unexplored, by Pillai, a Padma Bhushan recipient, delves into the journey of the BrahMos missile — coined as a combination of Brahmaputra and Moscva rivers — the highly-successful India-Russia collaborative project and its unprecedented and yet unparalleled achievements in missile technology.
While referring to the “BrahMos Formula”, Dr Kalam had said in 2013: “BrahMos is a fine example of role-model of courage, showing excellent leadership through system design, system integration and system management.” Underscoring the larger dividends yielded by the India-Russia JV, Dr Kalam added: “BrahMos has contributed in national development by providing opportunities in domestic industries — small, medium and large.
And the industries, while actively collaborating with academia, have contributed towards the economic growth of the country in general”, and further stressed, “This successful model must replicate everywhere — both in defence and civil,”
This book describes the journey of BrahMos, a novel collaborative effort between India and Russia which has catapulted India as a world leader in missile technology, by producing the fastest, high-precision supersonic cruise missile, within a relatively short span of time.
While pondering over all hardships, collaborative efforts and all related issues, it occurred to the author, Dr A. Sivathanu Pillai that a book should be written to record the experiences associated with the making of BrahMos. However, with the objective of widely circulating the book to reach everyone, deep technological intricacies have not been discussed and utmost care has been taken in maintaining the secrecy which relates to the design and performances of the weapon system.
The appendix contains the fundamentals required for understanding a missile. The book has been divided into many parts to cover various aspects of the process from design to prototype to testing and finally production.
BrahMos is a versatile supersonic cruise missile system launchable from submarines, ships, aircraft or land, which was successfully accomplished by 2006. At speeds of Mach 2.5 to 2.8, it is the world’s fastest cruise missile, about three-and-a-half times faster than the American subsonic Harpoon cruise missile.
During interaction with this writer and with reference to the immense contributions made by the Industrial Consortium, Mr Pillai said the industry has been a great strength and force multiplier. “Today we have realised the Missile Industry Consortium in India with public-private partnership and in Russia as a corporate entity for large-scale production of BrahMos missile and systems.
It is essential that the public-private consortium established for BrahMos becomes a national model, if we have to achieve self reliance. Therefore, a Military Industrial Complex must emerge for high-tech defence systems,” said Mr Pillai. A number of industries have been identified in India and Russia for the production of different sub systems of the missile.
The Indian industries, in particular, seeing the tremendous growth potential of BrahMos, have invested their own resources and set up work centres. A chapter in the book on the missile industry consortium elaborates on various organisations, which made remarkable contributions like DRDO, especially by RCI, DRDL, R & D (E), ASL and ITR, during the initial stages of design and development of BrahMos. Focusing on the contribution of Russia in the project, Mr Pillai acknowledges how the support and guidance from joint stock company “Military Industrial Consortium” “NPO Mashinostroyenia”, one of the leading aerospace enterprises in Russia, helped India achieve unprecedented milestones in BrahMos, “a shining milestone in the cooperation between India and Russia, producing a system unique with its higher weapon effectiveness, reliability, multi-platform, multi-mission and multi target capability.
Today, it is the leader in cruise missile family and in establishing the brand”, he added. Beginning with one regiment, the Indian Army has now three regiments equipped with BrahMos supersonic missiles. All Indian Navy ships will be equipped with the sea version, with larger ships carrying sixteen and the smaller ones carrying eight. While the air-launched version and a universal launcher are also ready, aircrafts will need modification for installation. While the aim is to produce 100 per cent in India, so far the achievement is of 50.2 per cent.
