With ISRO launching the GSLV rocket carrying the Chandrayaan-2 moon mission module on Monday, Indians are celebrating their nation's space prowess. And when national pride is trending, can politics be far behind?
The opposition Congress was among the first major political parties to congratulate ISRO, minutes after the launch of the Chandrayaan-2. The BJP's official Twitter handle posted on Chandrayaan-2 nearly 20 minutes after the launch. While the BJP's tweet congratulated the scientists behind the success of the Chandrayaan-2 launch, the Congress went further.
After a cursory congratulations to “team ISRO” for the Chandrayaan-2 launch, the Congress chose to follow it up with a more detailed tweet, highlighting the role of two Congress prime ministers, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and Manmohan Singh.
The Congress tweeted, “This is a good time to remember the visionary move of India's first PM Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru to fund space research through INCOSPAR in1962 which later became ISRO. And also Dr. Manmohan Singh for sanctioning the #Chandrayan2 project in 2008.” The tweet was complete with an image of Nehru with Dr Vikram Sarabhai, widely regarded as the father of the Indian space programme.
INCOSPAR (Indian National Committee for Space Research) was set up in 1962 for the purpose of carrying out research on the upper atmosphere. INCOSPAR had humble origins, starting with the Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station (TERLS) in Thiruvananthapuram. INCOSPAR was superseded by ISRO in 1969.
Since the formation of the first Narendra Modi government in 2014, the Congress has frequently used major national events to highlight the contributions of its governments to dispel BJP accusations that previous dispensations had achieved little. Key among these have been highlighting the contributions of Nehru, the country's first prime minister.
The Congress also chose to highlight the contribution of Manmohan Singh in sanctioning Chandrayaan-2 in 2008. Chandrayaan-1 was launched in 2008, during the tenure of Manmohan Singh. However, the Congress can be faulted for not mentioning the contribution of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the BJP's first prime minister. Vajpayee had announced the Chandrayaan programme during his independence day speech in 2003!