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7/15/2020 A Tribute: Satish Dhawan (1920-2002) – A Quarterly Publication of ACCS

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Home > Volume 4 Issue 1 > A Tribute: Satish Dhawan (1920-2002)

A Tribute: Satish Dhawan (1920-2002)

 Rajendra K. Bera, Chief Mentor, Acadinnet  Volume 4 Issue 1  0

On 25 September 1920, in pre-independent India, Devi Dayal and his wife were blessed with a son they
named Satish, in Srinagar, Kashmir. During his lifetime Satish Dhawan would become an iconic gure in
India’s higher education system and raise India’s space program to levels then considered a dream. Along
the way, he guided and mentored several talented people who too served India with great distinction and
honor; the most prominent among them was the self-e acing Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam (1931-
2015), the Missile Man of India, a distinguished aerospace engineer, highly decorated with India’s national
civilian honours (including the Bharat Ratna in 1997) for his immense contributions in building the base for
India’s rocket and missile technology. He was an inspiration to civil society. Abdul Kalam eventually served
as the 11th President of India from 2002 to 2007. Kalam had nothing but sheer admiration for Dhawan. He
wrote, “The unique feature of his teaching was that he created a spirit of research and enquiry in me,
taught me how to design without giving me the design.[1]

Satish Dhawan himself was a gifted student. This is evident from his unusual academic pro le: a BA in

physics and mathematics (1938), an MA in English literature (1941), and a BE (with honors) in mechanical
engineering (1945) from the Punjab University, Lahore. In 1946 he travelled on a government scholarship

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