Red Fort speech is just rhetoric
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi's speech addressing the nation on the 77th Independence Day was all empty promises and invalid claims. The opposition parties last week moved a no-confidence motion in Parliament over the government's inaction to deal with the Manipur ethnic violence. The BJP's response to that was simply repurposed to use in the August 15th speech. Both speeches ended up being political statements aimed at the 2024 elections. On both occasions, PM Modi claimed that he will win the next election and become PM for a third time. In every sense, the speech at Red Fort was aimed at belittling and ridiculing opposition parties. It also had several empty claims that are far from reality. The only novelty is that he switched to addressing citizens using the term "pariwar jan" (family members) instead of the usual term "bhaiyo aur behano" (brothers and sisters).
The flag hoisting at Red Fort comes at a time when followers of Hindutva are stirring violence in Nun, Haryana right after the ethnic violence in Manipur crossed 100 days. Yet, PM Modi did not touch upon these matters. For the sake of it, he spoke a few words about Manipur. Once again, he limited the mention of the troubled state to promises o "the country is with Manipur'' which was nothing but empty words of solidarity. However, as usual, he did not forget to give a clean chit to the state government that ruined law and order in Manipur. One of the biggest issues India is facing right now is inflation. The ruling government has not even bothered to react to the crisis in the parliament. On August 15th too, he blamed external factors for the high cost of living in India. He said this inflation is imported due to the Ukraine war and factors related to it. One cannot think of a more irresponsible way of addressing such grave issues. Economic experts have already analysed the situation and scientifically proven that the factors pushing the country to poverty are unemployment and inflation triggered by PM Modi's government in the name of economic reforms. This is the biggest period of unemployment the country has seen in 40 years. Multiple international agencies have released statistics to back this fact. Not even the government sector is doing any hiring as usual. According to the parliament documents, in the first eight years of the Modi government, only 7.5 lakhs were given jobs from among the 22 crore applicants in the government sector. In the public sector, only three out of 1000 applicants are getting jobs. When three employees retire, only one person is hired to replace them. A large percentage of Indians are also experiencing a food crisis.
The central government has miserably failed in finding appropriate solutions for these issues by looking at them from a realistic point of view. They are now trying to overcome this failure with the help of caste politics and spontaneous promises. PM Modi is claiming that India will become the third biggest economy in the world in his third term. He also said that he will be the one to inaugurate the schemes that were just launched. These statements are also a response to the brewing arguments within Sangh Parivar over the retirement age of 75. There were reports in 2012 that by 2028, India will naturally become the third biggest economy. This was a time when India held on to balance due to Manmohan Singh's economics while the rest of the world was struggling with recession. The truth is, Modi's many financial reforms including demonetisation threw India's financial off balance from the era before. The Centre conceals all these realities and is saying that India is a powerful entity in the global South and the country has successfully survived the pandemic. These claims will only lead to ridicule from the international community. The speech delivered at Red Fort was the rhetoric of a leader who is a complete failure. Every word of that speech reflected not hopes for the country's future, but the crisis India is in.
