Why ISRO chairman S Somanath has withdrawn his autobiography

ISRO chairman S Somanath has announced that he was withdrawing from publishing his upcoming autobiography. The move comes after a controversy erupted over some of his alleged critical remarks about his predecessor K Sivan in the book. Somanath confirmed he has decided to withdraw the publication of the book Nilavu Kudicha Simhangal (loosely translated as — Lions that drank the moonlight), in the light of the controversy. What is the controversy about? Let’s take a closer look. The remarks about K Sivan S Somanath, who has played a pivotal role in India’s space exploration missions, was all set to release his autobiography in November. However, after a few copies came out, a controversy erupted. It was about the referenced parts from the book implying that K Sivan, previous ISRO chief and Somanath’s immediate predecessor, may have hampered major promotions that Somanath believed were due. The excerpts from his book were reported by Malayala Manorama. “Persons holding such key positions may have to go through several challenges. One among them is the challenges with regard to getting positions in an organisation,” Somanath told PTI, while responding to the report that claimed his autobiography had some critical remarks about Sivan. He said every person would have to go through some kind of challenges during their journey to reach a top position in an organisation. “More persons might be eligible for a significant post. I just tried to bring out that particular point. I didn’t target any particular individual in this regard,” he explained. ‘There has been some misinterpretation’ Somanath told The Hindu, “There has been some misinterpretation. At no point have I said that Dr Sivan tried to prevent me from becoming the chairman. All I said was that being made a member of the Space Commission is generally seen as a stepping stone to [ISRO’s chairmanship]. However, a director from another [ISRO centre] was placed, so naturally that trimmed my chances [at chairmanship].” [caption id=“attachment_13353472” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] “The book is not intended to teach my life story. Its only intention is to inspire people to chase their dreams while battling adversities in life,” the ISRO Chairman had told PTI earlier. File image/PTI[/caption] “Secondly the book isn’t officially released. My publisher may have released a few copies… but after all this controversy, I have decided to withhold publication,” he added. He admitted he mentioned in his book the lack of clarity in connection with the announcement of the failure of the Chandrayaan-2 mission. India’s second lunar mission in 2019 failed to achieve its soft-landing objective. ‘Chandrayaan-2 didn’t fail due to a communication glitch’ The excerpt from the book that The Hindu obtained shows a discomforting relationship between Sivan and Somanath at the time of Chandrayaan-2. While Sivan publicly communicated an “inability to communicate with the lander” as the reason for failure, Somanath says it was a software glitch and claim that Sivan had not been explicit about it. “That a software glitch was at fault was known only subsequently. However, the crashing of the lander was known on that day itself (6 September, 2019). There was no point in calling it a communication failure… [as Chairman Sivan had described it]. However, every Chairman can choose what they communicate. I believe that whatever success or failure happens should be transparently communicated. I’m not criticising Dr Sivan though,” said Somanath, as per a report in The Hindu. The Vikram lander, which was supposed to softly land onto the moon and then release the Pragyaan rover, strayed from its scheduled trajectory and crashed on the moon on 22 July. Memoir aimed at inspiring people The ISRO chairman reiterated his autobiography was an attempt to inspire people who wish to achieve by fighting challenges and obstacles in life and not criticise anyone. The autobiography, with its mention of his humble beginnings among others, was aimed at inspiring the talented, yet not so confident, he had earlier said. “The book is not intended to teach my life story. Its only intention is to inspire people to chase their dreams while battling adversities in life,” the ISRO Chairman had told PTI earlier. With inputs from PTI