Nambi Narayan was born on 12 December 1941 is an Indian aerospace scientist who worked for Indian Space Research Organisation(ISRO), he was in cryogenics division(Cryogenics is the branch of physics and engineering which deals with the production and behavior of materials at very low temperature). He was awarded India’s third highest civilian award , Padma Bhushan in march 2019.
Nambi Narayanan was the first boy in a middle-class family, after five girls. His father was a businessman, trading in coconut kernel and fibre. His mother stayed at home to look after the children. Young Nambi was a good student and topped his senior class. He went to an engineering school, got a degree and worked in a sugar factory for a while, before joining the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro). “I always had a fascination for aircrafts and flying objects,” he says.
At the agency, he rose rapidly through the ranks until he won a scholarship to study rocket propulsion systems at Princeton University. He rejoined the space agency when he returned home a year later.
At Isro Mr Narayanan worked with the stalwarts of India’s space programme: scientists like Vikram Sarabhai, its founder and first chairman, Satish Dhawan, his successor, and Abdul Kalam, who later became India’s 11th president.
“When I began working with Isro, the space organisation was in its infancy. We never really had a plan of developing any rocket systems. We were planning to use rockets from the US and France to fly our payloads,” Mr Narayanan says.
But the plan changed, and Mr Narayanan became a key figure in the project to develop homegrown Indian rockets.
It was in 1994 he began to work on the special rocket engine for India called cryogenic engine. Do you know what a cryogenic engine is? A cryogenic engine is a highly efficient rocket systems using hydrogen and oxygen stored . At that time only four countries were having that technique including United States, Japan,France and Russia. He was almost successful in making that engine. But one powerful country did not want India to make such engine. After that a shocking incident took place around Nambi Narayan. He was accused of spying for Pakistan and was arrested and sent to jail in 1994. Two years later in 1996 Central Bureau of Investigation made it clear that all the allegations against him were false.
In 1996, the CBI’s final 104-page report exonerated all of them. Federal detectives said there was no evidence of any confidential documents being stolen from the space agency and sold, or of money being exchanged for drawings of engines. An internal investigation by Isro also found that no drawings of the cryogenic engines were missing. Mr Narayanan went back to work for Isro – though now in an admin role in Bangalore – but his travails hadn’t come to an end. Even after the detectives closed the case, the local government tried to reopen it, and dragged in the Supreme Court, which finally dismissed the case in 1998.
“It was born out of one conspiracy. But the conspirators were different with different motives, and the victims were the same set of people,” says Mr Narayanan.
“Whatever it is, my career, honour, dignity and happiness were lost. And the people who were responsible for this are still scot free.”
In July 2022, a biographical film was made titled Rocket, The Nambi Effect written, directed by R.Madhavan who also played the titular role of Narayanan. The film won the Best Feature Film award at the 69th Indian National Film Awards in 2023.
