The Congress on Saturday said it was Nehru's vision of making India self-reliant in the space domain, and his decision to not align with the great powers despite criticism, which has now yielded such rich dividends in space exploration.

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said there has been a lot of commentary in Pakistan's media on the outstanding achievements of ISRO with a lament that the agency made such big strides even though Pakistan's space agency SUPARCO was set up in late 1961, a few months before India's INCOSPAR in February 1962.

"What is not recognised is that from day 1 Nehru stressed SELF-RELIANCE, even as there were some voices in Delhi advocating greater American involvement and some others pleading for closer cooperation with the Soviets," Ramesh said on X.

He said first Nehru, and then Indira Gandhi after him, were clear — the space programme had to be designed, controlled, and executed by Indian professionals in the civil domain.

In this, they were of course guided and influenced by Homi Bhabha, Vikram Sarabhai, Satish Dhawan, P N Haksar and many others, the Congress leader said.

"The foundation and vast infrastructure for science and technology created in the Nehruvian era, was done in the face of trenchant criticism, that being an extremely poor country India could ill-afford such investments.

"Yet it is the vision of a self-reliant and a scientifically advanced nation that yielded such rich dividends," Ramesh asserted.

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