What the moon-landing teaches us

From the partial defeat of Chandrayan-2 came the stupendous success of Chandrayan-3, as did numerous other success stories which emerged from the learnings from mistaken policies. Our failures helped us course correct to veer the country to its path of progress. For, as Chinese Philosopher Confucius said, our glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

Edison failed 10,000 times before creating our commonly used electric bulb. However, he went on to say, “I have not failed. I have found 10,000 ways that do not work."

We are on the moon! All of us have seen the live pictures of this happening. Chandrayaan-3 soft landed on the South Pole of the moon on 23rd August, 2023, and we became the first country to do so. Naturally, the entire country is euphoric.

ISRO scientists involved in this project have spelt out that the success of Chandrayaan-3 is linked with the failure of Chandrayaan-2. In 2019, Chandrayaan-2 had almost succeeded but its lander got derailed and had a hard hit on the moon’s surface.

We remember the picture of the then director of ISRO crying due to the last minute failure of the mission and the Prime Minister consoling him by patting him on his back. This failure worked as a resolve for the scientists to succeed. Chandrayaan-3 team worked to find solutions to correct the failures. It will not be incorrect to say that the success of 23rd August has come from the womb of failure of 2019.

Lessons, not failures

Our greatest glory is not in never falling but in rising every time we fall, as Confucius said. It is only when we risk failure that we discover things. The famous scientist Edison failed 10,000 times before creating our commonly used electric bulb. However, he went on to say, “I have not failed. I have found 10,000 ways that do not work.” Learning from failure is not only a formula for an individual’s success but it is true everywhere, be it a country, a company, an institution or an entity.

Economic policy U-turn

The history of our country post-independence is a testimony to the formula that success is linked to learning lessons from failure. Our economy had reached an alarming situation before we changed gears in 1991. We had been earlier following a system of too much government control in our economic activities. The system used to be called ‘license-raaj’. There was an atmosphere that even for a small thing, government permission was needed.

We realised our failure when we found that we had hardly any foreign exchange left with us for imports. We had to even mortgage our gold reserves for the immediate need of foreign exchange. We had to reach out to the IMF with a begging bowl. Mistakes in the economic policy were realised by the then government in 1991 and we did away with the excessive controls of the government. The license and permit requirements were abolished. Measures were taken to increase the ease of doing business. Private sectors were encouraged. The new measures started giving dividends.

Today, after encouraging a free economy since 1991, we have become the fastest growing major economy. We have now become the 5th largest economy since the sad situation of near-bankruptcy, and we are also heading to the position of being the 3rd largest economy, possibly in three years’ time. Failure made our policy planners to introspect and the defects were identified in our policies. New policies were brought in and so came our super success.

Taxed too much!

Another success story linked with the realisation of our failure is in our taxation system. There was a time when India was a largely taxed country. There existed a taxslab of 97.5 percent in the highest tax bracket. Then there also existed wealth-tax, gift-tax and estate-duty. So much so that in the highest tax bracket, you might have had to pay more than you earned. Indirect-taxes like sales tax, central excise duty, customs duty further burdened the people. The high incidence of both direct and indirect tax had a negative impact. So taxpayers preferred to hide their income and also devised ways to evade indirect tax. There used to be no growth in the tax collection proportionately to the rate of taxes while there used to be a huge growth of black money.

A new ‘parallel-economy’ emerged which used to be almost of the same size as the budgeted economy. The parallel economy that got created out of money on which no tax was paid had many serious side-effects—criminal activities, smuggling, drug trafficking etc.

The country realised the wrong tax policies and the same were corrected. Our income- tax slabs were drastically reduced. Today the highest income tax slab is limited to 30 per cent (with some small surcharge) for individuals. In the case of companies too, tax rates have been brought down to 25per cent in most of the cases, and to a maximum of 30per cent plus small surcharge in some cases. Tax rates are even less than 25per cent in certain specified cases. Under indirect-tax we have GST which avoids taxation at multiple points. The net result is that there is buoyancy in the tax collection and a sizable reduction even in black money. Our annual budget has a cushion of sizable revenue collection today and this money is being used in our development works.

ISRO scientists involved in this project have spelt out that the success of Chandrayaan-3 is linked with the failure of Chandrayaan-2. In 2019 Chandrayaan-2 had almost succeeded but its lander got derailed and had a hard hit on the moon’s surface.

Blighted foreign policy

While narrating the successes linked with some failures in the policies of our country, one is also reminded of the foreign policy of the past and now. That too has undergone a complete makeover. We had begun with a foreign policy on an idealistic note while also expecting the same idealistic behaviour from others. We had entered into an agreement of ‘Panchsheel’ with China. We propagated the slogan of ‘Hindi-Chini-bhai-bhai.’ We portrayed ourselves as being a great friend of China.

All this happened during the 50s, being the first decade after independence. But nothing happened as per our expectation as China attacked us in 1962 and captured a big area of ours. Almost 3,000 of our soldiers got martyred. Even today, 34,000 sq.km of our area in Ladakh is with them. The shock of 1962 was not only about our military defeat but also the defeat of our foreign policy.

We changed our foreign policy thereafter and started making India stronger irrespective of what others said. We broke Pakistan in 1971, when Bangladesh got created, in the place of East Pakistan. Today, we do not tolerate cross border terrorism and neutralise the terrorists, if necessary, in their own land with the help of the army and air force.

China has also learnt its lesson in the Galwan Valley. China knows that India today is not the India of 1962. We have reached a stage where we are even exporting war equipment. India is respected the world over as we care for other countries and help them whenever they need, while at the same time we are becoming militarily stronger. We have learnt our lessons from our defeat in 1962.

We all have experienced failure. Failure is the absence of an intended success. But, the fact remains that we learn more from our failures than from success. We find out what does not work. We learn about ourselves in the process. Failure hurts initially but we learn the great virtue of resilience which works as a skill for building an architecture of success. We also learn humility, as failure demolishes our ego. Flexibility, creativity and skill of innovation are born from failures and they later make us more successful. Failure forces us to examine what went wrong and this introspection leads us to success. Not giving up after failure is the tool to success and this is applicable in all fields. One may encounter many defeats but one should resolve not to get defeated.

We should learn to embrace our failures otherwise we may get frustrated. One who fails and gets up is stronger than the one who never tried.