Opinion Remembering K Kasturirangan: Man and the mission

Every time a person in one of India’s 115 “backward” districts logs in to the internet or the weather office issues an alert to farmers, or people receive a timely cyclone warning, the country reaps the benefits of research by scientists at its premier space agency — ISRO. Unlike their counterparts in the US or the former Soviet Union, India’s science planners did not envision the country’s space programme as an extension of the country’s geopolitical ambitions. India, instead, used its satellites as developmental and modernising forces. K Kasturirangan, who died on Friday at the age of 84, played a defining role in this endeavour. From being part of the team that launched India’s first satellite, Aryabhatta, to preparing the groundwork for the missions to Mars and the Moon, the astrophysicist left his mark on virtually every landmark development in the country’s space odyssey. As ISRO’s head from 1994 to 2003, he steered the agency during a particularly challenging period when India faced strict international restrictions on access to technology.

Early in his career, Kasturirangan was mentored by Vikram Sarabhai. The doyen of India’s space programme believed that funding constraints shouldn’t restrict India’s technology ambitions. Sarabhai’s mantra, “doing more with less”, was at the core of the space technology developed during Kasturirangan’s leadership of the agency. After the 1998 nuclear tests, India was denied the crucial cryogenic technology without which a well-developed space programme could not be built. Kasturirangan, therefore, set great store on indigenisation. The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, perfected under his stewardship of ISRO, became a reliable launcher, whose affordability attracted international clients. Sarabhai’s influence was writ large on ISRO’s remote sensing initiatives that aimed to provide the benefits of India’s space research to farmers, fishing communities, and participants in the health and education sectors. At the same time, Kasturirangan was also a leading voice in the post-liberalisation science policy firmament which believed that India of the 1990s was poised to join the ranks of space superpowers. The fact that the missions to Mars and the Moon cost a fraction of other global interplanetary missions is a testament to the innovations of Kasturirangan’s team.

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Kasturirangan was respected, across political circles, not just as a space scientist but as a scholar who understood the links between knowledge and society. In 2012, the UPA government chose him to head a committee to deal with the complex question of nature-human interaction in the Western Ghats. Five years later, he chaired a panel set up by the Narendra Modi government to draft the New National Education Policy. Kasturirangan will be remembered as a scholar who played a leading role in India’s ascent in the global knowledge economy.