Around the time that prime minister Narendra Modi rose to the ramparts of Red Fort to deliver his 10th Independence Day address, India’s 77th, three unrelated, coincidental moves were afoot that capture the gamut of India’s moment in the world.
One, India and the UAE started settling bilateral trade in their local currencies, the MoU for which was signed last month. The move is a baby step towards internationalizing the Indian currency (INR).
Second, in the ongoing FIDE chess World Cup in Baku, for the first time in history four Indians, including three teenagers — Vidit Gujrathi, Gukesh D, Arjun Erigaisi and R Praggnanandha — have stormed into the quarterfinal stage, guaranteeing one Indian presence in the semifinals.
Third, last Friday, Union home minister Amit Shah brought three bills in the Parliament, introducing a much-needed reform of the Indian criminal justice system by doing away with the British-era Indian Penal Code and replacing it with the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha bill, and the Bharatiya Sakshya Bill — indicating not just a transformation into modernity but also firm steps towards decoloniality.
These three disparate incidents are symptomatic of the rise of a nation that is finally recognizing its potential and is poised to meet its destiny, and the address on Monday by the prime minister dwelled on both the inevitability of India’s rise, and the pitfalls that lies in its wake — delivered by a leader who realizes that history has thrust him into the cusp of a momentous transition.
The achievements of the youngsters in Azerbaijan, or the step towards internationalization of INR are a prognosis of India’s capabilities that are hidden, waiting to be tapped. The unleashing of that potential, however, is incumbent on rightful use of human resources, laborious nation-building and mitigating the birth pangs that must accompany such a momentous exercise. India, for instance, has one of the world’s youngest working-age population, but this demographic dividend cannot be allowed to fritter away.
This urgency was evident in the prime minister’s speech when he said, “today, we have demography, democracy and diversity — this trinity has the power to realise the dreams of the nation… What we do in this era, the steps we take, and the decisions we take one after the other will last for the next 1000 years and is going to determine the country’s direction.
“The youth who writes the fate of India… the sons and daughters of my country… I’d like to tell them that hardly anyone has had the fortune that you have received. And so, we don’t want to lose it.”
A sense of this urgency, that India cannot let this moment pass, pervades Modi’s address throughout. For India to achieve its destiny of becoming a developed nation by 2047 (Vikshit Bharat), the next 25 years is crucial, and according to the prime minister, the young demography must be complemented with a sense of unity in purpose and deeds.
“For the coming 25 years, we should follow only one mantra, this should be the pinnacle of our national character — the message of unity. India’s unity gives us strength, be it north, be it south, be it east, be it west, be it village, be it city, be it man, be it woman; (If) we want to see a developed India in 2047 then we have to live the mantra of Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat.
Modi placed India’s strengths away from big cities such as Chennai, Mumbai and Delhi into the Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities, recalling that when he visited Bali for the G-20 Summit, world leaders were eager to know about the success of the Digital India Programme, and he used to “tell them that the wonders India has done are not limited to Delhi, Mumbai or Chennai; even the youth of my Tier-2, Tier-3 cities are involved in the wonders India is doing,” producing sports icons, scientists, making satellites, “inspiring millions of children to take up the path of science and technology.”
This is a vote of supreme confidence in the future of India that other countries can only dream of. The happy coincidence of a rising economy, young demography, strong leadership and favourable geopolitical currents have offered India a chance to chape the world’s future, and prime minister indicated that India won’t let the chance drop.
He compared India’s opportunity to shape the world’s future in a post-Covid world with the tectonic realignment post-Second World War, stressing that “today India’s exports are increasing rapidly and are based on different parameters. The experts are saying that now India is not going to stop. Any rating agency of the world would be making India proud.
“I can clearly see that after Corona (sic), a new world order, a new global order, a new geopolitical equation is progressing very fast. All interpretations of the geopolitical equation are changing, definitions are changing. Today, my 140 crore countrymen, your ability to shape the changing world is visible. You are standing at a turning point. And the way India has taken the country forward during the Corona period, the world has seen our potential.
“Today India is becoming the voice of the Global South. India’s prosperity and heritage is becoming an opportunity for the world today. Now the ball is in our court, we should not let the opportunity go.”
An essential feature of India’s rise is chipping away at the continued legacies of colonialism. Just as a new set of penal codes, in sync with Indian culture and ethos, have been introduced throwing 19th century British-era laws into the dustbin of history, similarly, the decolonisation agenda stands firmly as the centrepiece of Modi’s definition of a rising India.
“The country,” he said on Monday, “which has come out of the mentality of slavery, is moving forward today with a new self-confidence. The nation is working wholeheartedly to prove the new resolutions. My mother India which was once a powerhouse of energy, but was buried in a pile of ashes, that Mother India has been awakened once again by the efforts, consciousness and energy of 140 crore countrymen.
“Maa Bharti has awakened and I can clearly see friends, this is the period we have experienced in the last 9-10 years. A new attraction, a new faith, a new hope has arisen all over the world towards the consciousness of India, towards the potential of India, and the world is seeing this beam of light that has risen from India as a light for itself.”
The prime minister presented a detailed account with relevant statistics of the job that his government has done since 2014, which he termed “a compelling story of change”, specifying how his government has given Rs 100 lakh crore to the states in nine years, up from Rs 30 lakh crore, Rs 4 lakh crore spent on building houses for the poor, Rs 3 lakh crore towards development of local bodies, among others. He said the result “of all these efforts is that in my first five-year term, 13.5 crore of my fellow poor brothers and sisters have broken free from the chains of poverty and entered the new middle class.”
Linking the upliftment of the poor to nation’s progress, Modi said, “When poverty reduces in the country, the power of the middle-class section of the country increases manifold. And I assure you that in the coming five years, Modi guarantees that the country will be among the top three world economies…. When the purchasing power of the poor increases, the power of the middle class to carry out business grows too. When the purchasing power of the villages increases, the financial system of the town and city runs at a faster pace.”
Worth noting that Modi referred to Manipur twice in his address. Once at the beginning, when he said that peace is tiptoeing into Manipur which has seen a “spell of violence, where many people lost their lives, and the dignity of mothers and daughters was violated.” He said “the people of Manipur have maintained peace in the past few days, and they should continue to foster that peace, as it is the path to resolution. Both the state and central governments are working together to find solutions to the issues and will continue to do so.”
The second instance of his Manipur reference was in context of India’s unity, where he said, “When I talk about unity, and an incident happens in Manipur, the pain is felt in Maharashtra; if floods grip Assam, Kerala becomes restless. If anything unpleasant happens in any part of India, we feel the pain akin to organ donation. It is our social responsibility to make sure that the daughters of my country are not oppressed.”
The political sting in the speech was in its tail. Two points are worth noting. The prime minister constantly addressed the nation as ‘my dear family members’ (mere pyaare parivaar janon), instead of ‘my dear countrymen’. To address the people of the nation as his extended parivaar (family) is to draw a distinction between Modi, for whom his countrymen are the next of kin, and the Opposition parties, that are an alliance of dynastic parties led by the Congress with Rahul Gandhi at its helm.
Modi made two essential political points without naming anyone in the Opposition. One, the legacy of rising India cannot be left in the hands of a corrupt, incestuous elite which has not fully divested itself of the psyche of the colonized, and two, there’s no one better than him to take the country forward.
Taking off from the three charges of ‘corruption, dynasticism, and appeasement’ that BJP had levelled against the Opposition alliance that calls itself I.N.D.I.A., the prime minister said if India were to achieve her dreams, “it is the need of the hour to fight the three evils of corruption, nepotism and appeasement.”
It was interesting to note Modi go ballistic against “a political party” (a thinly veiled reference to Congress) that through “nepotism and appeasement have brought big misfortune to the country” and has “distorted” the country’s democracy through “familial politics”. He said this party operates with the motto of “Party of the family, by the family and for the family,” and accused it of an “appeasement” culture that that “has done the biggest harm to social justice.”
Though this was Modi’s last Independence Day address before 2024 general elections, he promised to return next year and “from this very Red Fort… will present to you the achievements of the country, your capabilities, the progress made by you, the successes achieved with even greater self-confidence.”
Modi still has the grander imagination and a more expansive notion of taking India forward. But two consecutive terms have generated some anti-incumbency. This speech was Modi’s inadvertent recognition of those challenges but equally, a confident statement of intent and belief in his abilities.
The author is deputy executive editor, Firstpost. He tweets @sreemoytalukdar. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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