NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday addressed people as “my family members”, urging them to declare war on corruption, dynastic politics and appeasement in order to achieve the goal of transforming India into a developed nation by 2047.
Addressing the country from the ramparts of the Red Fort on the 77th Independence Day, the prime minister listed past achievements of the government and laid the roadmap for the future promising to return on August 15 next year to report further progress.
Noting that India was not going to stop in its onward march now, the PM listed “corruption, family-based parties and vote-bank politics as the three evils sapping national capacity and potential.”
“I seek your help to eradicate some evils that have crept into our society in the past 75 years,” said the prime minister listing the need for propriety, transparency and impartiality to make India developed by 2047.
Noting that there was never any dearth of capacity in India, PM said the country could “no longer shut its eyes to these evils”.
“Some aberrations have become such a part of the social system that sometimes we close our eyes to them. This is not the time to close eyes. If we have to counter these evils, we have to look them in the eye and fight the evils,” the PM said.
He said corruption had sapped vitals of all systems and a “war against corruption in all sectors is a must”.
He also spoke of the country being shackled by dynastic politics which “has snatched rights of the people”.
“The third evil is appeasement which has blemished our national character. These three challenges are suppressing our capacity. We have to create an atmosphere of hate for corruption. Just like we can’t tolerate dirt around us we should understand that corruption is the biggest social dirt,” said the PM as he exuded confidence of a win in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections while noting that he had converted the promise of change made in 2014 into trust and had been re-elected in 2019 on that trust.
Promising to keep fighting corruption, the PM slammed family-based parties as a “disease”.
“These are parties of the family, by the family and for the family. This is their political slogan. Dynasties and nepotism are enemies of talent. Ridding nation of dynasties is important for national progress,” said the PM.
He added that appeasement politics had “murdered and destroyed social justice”.
“If the nation wants development we have to develop a mood of non-tolerance for corruption. We can’t allow future generations to live the way we lived. We must leave them a better country,” urged the prime minister repeatedly calling the people “mere priya parivarjano (my dear family members) instead of “bhaiyo aur behno (brothers and sisters).”
Describing himself as a member of the country’s families, the PM said, “I live for you. If I dream I even dream for you…”
Earlier in his address, the PM called for unity asking people to be mindful of upholding and nurturing national unity with their actions.
He termed national character as a catalytic agent in national progress anywhere and called to strengthen it, even as the PM listed his government’s nine-year achievements on varied fronts.
He said the country would soon be among top three global economies on the strength of the trinity of “democracy, demography and diversity”.
The prime minister expressed distress on the Manipur violence saying what happened there should not have happened. He assured people of early restoration of peace there.