New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi Thursday launched a broadside against the Opposition from the ramparts of the Red Fort, advising people to guard against “those wallowing in despair” as their “twisted mindset” could drive the country towards “anarchy and destruction”.
In his first Independence Day speech after resuming charge for a third term, Modi did not hold back, particularly in the aftermath of the Congress’s charge over American short-seller Hindenburg’s latest report that alleges the SEBI chief had stakes in offshore funds linked with the Adani Group.
“The country will have to be wary of such people who are wallowing in despair. Those handful of people nurture perversion and a twisted mindset which becomes the reason for destruction… because it turns into anarchy and the country will then have to pay a heavy price. They are harbouring dreams of destruction,” Modi said in his speech.
While the Prime Minister has targeted the Opposition in some of his previous Independence Day speeches, his remarks this time were very acerbic, and appeared directed at the principal opposition party Congress. Congress’s Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi was in the audience Thursday.
Modi said “some people” were unable to digest India’s progress and that they “cannot wish well” for the country. “They cannot appreciate the good until they are gratified themselves. There is no shortage of people with such twisted attitudes. The country will have to understand this. But I also want to assure my countrymen that with our good intent, we will win over such people too,” Modi said in his address, which lasted 98 minutes.
Although Modi didn’t take names, the target of his offensive was crystal clear. In the recently-concluded Budget session too, he had accused the Congress of trying to spread anarchy in the country by “questioning” the democratic process. The Congress hit back saying Modi had “suppressed” the voice of the people over the last decade.
In his Budget session speech last month, Modi said: “During the (Lok Sabha) election, they openly declared they would set the country on fire on 4 June if they didn’t get the desired result. Official calls were made to gather people and spread anarchy. Anarchy is their goal. They have tried to create chaos by questioning the democratic process of Bharat.”
Incidentally, the opposition’s INDIA block has had a much better showing in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, while the BJP failed to get a parliamentary majority for the first time in Modi’s three terms.
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Modi escalates attack from previous years
In his Independence Day speech last year, Modi had levelled charges of nepotism and appeasement against the Congress, which later became the mainstay of the BJP’s Lok Sabha campaign theme. He dubbed the Congress the “party of the family, by the family and for the family”.
“How can this happen in democracy that a political party, and I am putting special emphasis on ‘political party’, has brought such distortion in the democracy of my country? It can never strengthen India’s democracy. What is that disease: familial politics,” Modi said.
In his speech on Thursday, Modi said attempts were also being made to “openly glorify corruption”, in what appeared to be a thinly-veiled jibe at Opposition parties such as AAP and JMM, which recently celebrated the release of their leaders from judicial custody.
The PM had made a similar accusation in his Independence Day speech in 2022 as well. “Many people have gone so shameless that despite being convicted in court, having been proved corrupt, having been sentenced to imprisonment, while still serving in jail, they continue to glorify, take pride and continue to elevate their status,” he said.
Modi avoided political attacks in his speeches in 2021 and 2020. In 2019, he largely questioned the Opposition over its “inability” in abrogating Article 370 that his government did shortly after getting elected for the second consecutive term.
The year before, he launched the ‘Amrit Mahotsav’ initiative, marking the 75th year of India’s Independence. In 2017, Modi first made a pointed attack on the Opposition from Red Fort, saying those who had looted the nation and the poor were not able to sleep peacefully today.
Boundless capacity to malign, says Oppn
The PM’s remarks drew fresh criticism from opposition leaders, who said Modi fails to recognise that he not only represents those who vote for him, but also those who don’t. The Congress, in a statement, slammed his “capacity for malice, mischief, and maligning of history”, which the party said, “knows no bounds”.
RJD Rajya Sabha MP Manoj Jha said, “Whenever we expect him to display a large heart, he lets us down. Such remarks do not behove a PM. To say that some people want destruction amounts to delivering an election speech. You are talking of a secular civil code today when you have made Islamophobic remarks. Secularism is a process. Unfortunately, whenever we hope he will discard his narrow mindset and take decisions with a large heart, he disappoints us.”
Jha was referring to Modi’s remarks Thursday that the need of the hour was to have a “secular civil code” in the country. “We have lived 75 years with a communal civil code. Now, we have to move towards a secular civil code. Only then would religion-based discrimination end,” the Prime Minister said in his 11th I-Day speech.
Congress general secretary (communications) Jairam Ramesh said Modi’s comments were an affront to Dr B.R. Ambedkar, who headed the committee that drafted India’s Constitution. “To say we have had a ‘communal civil code’ till now is a gross insult to Dr Ambedkar, who was the greatest champion of reforms in Hindu personal laws that became a reality by the mid-1950s. These reforms had been bitterly opposed by the RSS and the Jan Sangh,” Ramesh posted on X.
Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera also took on Modi, saying no matter how long he was PM, “his stature just cannot rise”. Khera also reposted a tweet that criticised the fact that Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi was made to sit in the second last row.
(Edited by Tikli Basu)
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As I suggested on your Manipur article, Mr. Roy Barman, please start doing some serious, honest and authentic journalism.
Your brand of yellow journalism which pushes under the rug the ugly xenophobic attitude of north-eastern tribes towards non-tribals, the gross abuse of the Sixth Schedule to harrass, intimidate and hound non-tribals in these states is absolutely sickening.
It’s never too late to course correct. Hope you start afresh and do some solid journalism vis-a-vis northeast India.