No. 2 Machine Man

Address by Prof. Humayun Kabir at Radio Theatre “Gopal Bagh”, Coimbatore
9.9.1948

SPEECH

Well, what is the education, outside, to draw your attention?
Generally in India there is a very great lack of discipline. You must have discipline. Unless you have discipline, you can not do anything at all. Why is it that a machine works so well? Because in a machine every part does exactly what it is expected to do. And, certainly, if each part of the machine says “I am going to act something to my own line or according to my own inclination”, no machine can run.

I do not know so much about your doings here. I many parts of India, when ten boys get together or when ten grown-up men go together, they do not know how to speak to one another and there is a pandemonium. Before one can say what he wants to say, a second person will interrupt, and before he can say what he wants to say, a third person will be interrupting, and so on nobody knows what he wants to say. Similarly I do not know when I see all of
you walking together I am not sure you can walk together in a disciplined manner. But when you look at an army or when you look at the police, or fire brigade, you will find that a small group of people are able to control their march, because they act and re-act upon another.

You must have a live mind. What has happened when you listen to some of Mr. Naidu’s orders.

But still you have a right to think, you have the right to question everything and it is part of your education also to try to question and try to understand and I am sure that however infurious he may be, you go straight to him and say “You have given this order, I do not understand why you have given this order?” Why you should do that? Why, I think, he will also try to tell you why he has given that order.

An Industrial Scientist Inventor’s Record, in “National Herald”
30.8.1948

NEWSPAPER ARTICLE

“Gopal Bagh” is ordinarily the residence of Mr Naidu. He had built up nine blocks in the premises. An a tenth was added in June this year to house this Industrial Education Exhibition which he inaugurated on June 15.

Walking into this special Pavilion, one saw a huge pile of machinery, the best “friends” of Mr. Naidu! Why, it is even said, that Mr Naidu himself is more “a machine” than “Man”, but that is what his enemies say!Here in this Pavilion one saw a few varieties of aero engines – Rolls-Royce, Pratt and Whitney – and many other types. Then, there were the various types of what they call the “Do All” machines, marvelous pieces of machinery produced by Germany and the U.S., all of which Naidu took pains to buy at the cost of lakhs of rupees for his various factories in Coimbatore, with a child’s enthusiasm, during his numerous visits to those countries.

“The whole exhibition is unique”, Sir CV Raman, one of the spectators, told me after going round. He said not a word in exaggeration. I myself have seen similar exhibitions, but I believe this is the first one of its kind in India, at least in South India. The value of it could be summarized as giving a clear, plain idea to the man in the street, of some essential machinery in every day working in the modern world. Many a man might have been hitherto imagining to himself that the machines are great mystery, indeed unfatho-mable mystery! Naidu, the creator and utiliser of machines, has now proved to those who saw his exhibition, that though the machines are to some extent “mysterious”, they are never unfathomable mysteries. For that, South Indians who had an opportunity to see this well-organised exhibition felt grateful to Mr Naidu.