After a long time we have a Prime Minister or 'Pradhan Sevak' as he called himself who can actually communicate. Mr. Modi's skills as an orator were never in doubt after his election campaigns but he excelled himself at the Red Fort on Independence Day.
Mr. Manish Tewari of the Congress complains "it is unfortunate that the Prime Minister got bogged down in pedestrian issues without being able to rise to the occasion"
Unfortunately, Mr. Tewari, what are 'pedestrian issues' for you are in fact the most pressing issues for the country at large. Enough has been said about the PM's speech in the media and I do not intend to go over the same ground. I will restrict my comments to the issues that stood out from a common man's perspective.
What was refreshing was a national leader who took on the most serious of women's issues head on. As he correctly put it the nation needs to put a check on it's men folk, or 'boys' as Mr. Mulayam Singh Yadav would call them. The fault for getting raped does not lie with women for heaven's sake! He was equally upfront about the abhorrent practice of female foeticide and our alarming sex ratio. I hope his strident message is driven home in the patriarchal heartlands of Haryana and other states where these practices are rampant.
Mr. Modi said that people may laugh when he talked about sanitation and toilets. He is only taking a leaf from the father of the nation who talked of little else! It is easy to snigger at such a discussion and that too from the ramparts of the Red Fort. I am very sure that those who do so have never faced the ignominy of their mother, sisters, wife or daughters having to use the 'world's biggest bathroom'. Apart from poor hygiene, they are at great risk of molestation and rape. The fact is that India has become a vast cess pool. Our towns and cities are filthy beyond description. Uncollected garbage lies around, roads are never swept and are full of encroachments. Our rivers have become sewers in which nothing can live as we dump untreated sewage in them from all our major cities.
The real issue which I think Mr. Modi recognizes very clearly is about practical and relevant social change. As a society our moral. ethical and social compass has gone awry. Traditional bonds of clan, family and fear of the law have loosened and there is a whole new generation that carries confused messages from the media, internet, bollywood, godmen and their own peer group. Harnessing the 'youth bulge' of India is challenging in any case and it was compounded by our weak kneed, senile and decrepit leadership that could not even begin to understand the 'New India'. Even today the likes of Mr. Tewari would like to hear grandiose pronouncements of intention rather than practical prescriptions for a New India.
Mr. Manish Tewari of the Congress complains "it is unfortunate that the Prime Minister got bogged down in pedestrian issues without being able to rise to the occasion"
Unfortunately, Mr. Tewari, what are 'pedestrian issues' for you are in fact the most pressing issues for the country at large. Enough has been said about the PM's speech in the media and I do not intend to go over the same ground. I will restrict my comments to the issues that stood out from a common man's perspective.
What was refreshing was a national leader who took on the most serious of women's issues head on. As he correctly put it the nation needs to put a check on it's men folk, or 'boys' as Mr. Mulayam Singh Yadav would call them. The fault for getting raped does not lie with women for heaven's sake! He was equally upfront about the abhorrent practice of female foeticide and our alarming sex ratio. I hope his strident message is driven home in the patriarchal heartlands of Haryana and other states where these practices are rampant.
Mr. Modi said that people may laugh when he talked about sanitation and toilets. He is only taking a leaf from the father of the nation who talked of little else! It is easy to snigger at such a discussion and that too from the ramparts of the Red Fort. I am very sure that those who do so have never faced the ignominy of their mother, sisters, wife or daughters having to use the 'world's biggest bathroom'. Apart from poor hygiene, they are at great risk of molestation and rape. The fact is that India has become a vast cess pool. Our towns and cities are filthy beyond description. Uncollected garbage lies around, roads are never swept and are full of encroachments. Our rivers have become sewers in which nothing can live as we dump untreated sewage in them from all our major cities.
The real issue which I think Mr. Modi recognizes very clearly is about practical and relevant social change. As a society our moral. ethical and social compass has gone awry. Traditional bonds of clan, family and fear of the law have loosened and there is a whole new generation that carries confused messages from the media, internet, bollywood, godmen and their own peer group. Harnessing the 'youth bulge' of India is challenging in any case and it was compounded by our weak kneed, senile and decrepit leadership that could not even begin to understand the 'New India'. Even today the likes of Mr. Tewari would like to hear grandiose pronouncements of intention rather than practical prescriptions for a New India.
As Ayn Rand put it so pithily:
“No principle ever filled anybody's milk bottle”
Here is an alternate point of view. If it was not so pathetic I would laugh at it's absurdities:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ndtv.com/article/opinion/pm-s-red-fort-speech-lacked-vajpayee-s-gentle-humour-576814