Modi’s 15th August Speech

• Prakash Pohare

Use of religious and communal symbols and self-praise is seen everywhere – be it the occasion in the country or abroad, in Parliament or election rally or any other occasion! Incomplete truth, condemnation of white lies, new scams, these are the five main elements in every speech of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Every year on the occasion of Independence Day, his speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort has never been an exception before, and this time, the question of being an exception did not even arise, because the general elections are to be held after eight months. Through his speech from the Red Fort, Prime Minister Modi has set the agenda for the general elections to be held next year. This time, while addressing the ‘140 crore family members’ instead of the ‘countrymen’, he presented the report card of the last nine and a half years of his government and said, “Even next year on August 15, I will come to hoist the national flag at the Red Fort and will also inaugurate all the schemes after 2024, whose foundation stones are being laid now.” His statement reminded us of the statement made by Devendra Fadnavis ‘Meech Yedaar, Meech Yedaar’ (Roughly translates to - I will come to power again, only I will.)

‘Parivarvad’ (Dynasticism) remains Modi’s favourite issue in political discourse. He said that dynastic politics is hollowing the country and those doing dynastic politics are promoting corruption and appeasement, due to which the fight for social justice is weakening. Modi did not mention the name of any party, but indirectly his target was the opposition parties. Regarding the appeasement he talked about, he did not clarify which party was appeasing whom, but everyone knows that the word ‘appeasement’ is used by Modi and his party in relation to minorities.

Instead of talking about the present, Prime Minister Modi usually talks either about the past or the distant future. He did the same even today. He said that 1000-1200 years ago there was an invasion on the country, in which the king of a small state was defeated, but at that time people had no idea that the same incident would trap India in slavery for a thousand years. Although this statement of Modi is based on arbitrary interpretation of history and incomplete truth, but through this, he was pointing towards the attack of Mahmud Ghaznavi.

According to the teachings received from the RSS, Modi always mentions Muslim rulers while referring to the period of slavery. The 200 years of British rule is rarely mentioned in his speech. Today’s speech was no exception. After mentioning this thousand-year-old event, he briefly mentioned the freedom struggle and the governments formed after independence and then came to his tenure of ten years. Rejecting the work done by all his predecessors, he said that before he came to power in 2014, the governments formed by manipulations for three decades did not do any work; Atal Ji’s tenure being a part of it.

Patting his back, Modiji said that for the first time in 2014, the country got a working stable and strong government with full majority, which took the country out of the quagmire of problems and took it forward rapidly on the path of development. Indirectly seeking the mandate from the countrymen for 2024, he said that it should be believed that whatever steps we take, whatever decisions we take, will determine the direction of India for the coming one thousand years. Earlier, Modi had been talking about the coming 25 and 50 years, but this time, taking a long leap, he directly talked about 1000 years.

In his ‘third term’, Prime Minister Modi is guaranteeing to make India the country with the third largest economy in the world. Even in today’s speech, he repeated this guarantee, but the reality is that his guarantee is not a guarantee, but a simple mathematics, under which if the situation remains normal by 2027, India will become the country with the third largest economy in the world. At that time, it would not matter which party or coalition is in power in the country. It will not make any difference.

The reason why India has become the fifth largest economy leaving Britain behind, despite the economy being in deep waters for the last three years, is hidden in the exploitation of the farmers and the reduction in the prices of their agricultural produce. If there was no demonetisation and no lockdown, then India would have become the third largest economy in 2022 itself; it is all owed to the businessmen who did business despite the heavy rates of GST and gave a record-breaking GST collection and due to the imposition of tax, petrol and diesel became costlier and government revenue increased due to record-breaking sale.

No matter how much Modi pats his back and curses his preceding governments, but the fact is that the work of speeding up India’s economy has been done between 2004 and 2014 under the Manmohan Singh government. When Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s government was removed in 2004, India’s GDP was $ 722 billion, which increased to $ 2039 billion in 2014. That means, there has been a three-fold increase in 10 years. After this, the pace was fine in 2014-15, but due to demonetisation at the end of 2016 and the subsequent GST and Corona epidemic, the economy collapsed badly. Despite this, the GDP in 2023 became $ 3737 billion. That is, there was an increase of 84 percent. Prior to that, there was an increase of 183 per cent during Manmohan Singh’s tenure. It is estimated that GDP will grow by 38 percent in the next four years and India will become the third largest economy. This is a simple guaranteed math.

However, these GDP figures present a rosy picture of the country’s economy, but these figures do not reveal the real economic picture of the country. The real picture of the economy is reflected in per capita income, in which India is not even among the top 10 countries. But Modi never discusses this even by mistake.

Modi said in his speech that there are no serial bomb blasts and terrorist attacks under his rule and changes are now being seen in Naxal affected areas too. His claim is true to some extent, but the kind of violent incidents that the people of the Prime Minister’s party’s affiliated organizations are carrying out every day within the country, do they not come under the category of ‘terrorism’? Modi mentioned Manipur in his speech and claimed that peace is now being established there but the reality is that now the Naga community has also got involved in the Kuki-Meitei conflict there. In his speech, the Prime Minister neither explained why the situation in Manipur had deteriorated so much nor did he explain what his ‘double-engine government’ was doing to solve the problem there.

In his speech, the Prime Minister did not even mention the promises like providing a house to every person by 2022 and doubling the income of farmers. Now, Modi never talks about his initial promise of providing employment to two crore people every year and, even today, there was no mention of unemployment in his speech. He tried to save his face by linking rising inflation to five global causes, saying that if his government had not taken measures to control inflation, the situation would have been more serious. Overall, it was clearly visible that the Prime Minister’s speech was like an election rally, in which he addressed his supporters.

(The writer is Editor of Marathi daily ‘Deshonnati’, Hindi daily ‘Rashtra Prakash’ and weekly ‘Krishakonnati’)

The author can be contacted at 9822593921