6

Feb

PM Quotes Out Of Context To Run Down Nehru And Indira Gandhi  

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Today’s Edition

New Delhi, 6 February 2024

Satish Misra

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Pundits and experts are puzzled hearing at the claim of Prime Minister Narendra Modi former Prime Ministers Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi believed that Indians were lazy, lacking in intelligence, and too given to complacency or hopelessness and are wondering over source of his allegations.

Replying to the discussion on the Motion of Thanks on the President’s address in Lok Sabha on 5 February, Modi trained his electoral guns at his most favourite target of Nehru-Gandhi family boasting that his third term as the Prime Minister is not far away.

Though the two speeches he referred to were delivered by Nehru and Indira from the Red Fort on Independence Day but in fact those speeches have been twisted to serve the political objective as the two Independence Day addresses by the two prime ministers have been taken out of context to serve his purpose.   

Modi said that let him read out what Nehru said from the Red Fort on Independence Day and then quoted: ‘Indians are not used to working hard. We don’t work as hard as people in Europe or Japan or China or Russia do. These communities have become prosperous through their hard work and intelligence.’ So, Nehru was giving certificates to other countries, while looking down on Indians. He thought Indians were lazy and lacking in intelligence. Indira’s beliefs were no different,” Prime Minister Modi said in Hindi.

The Prime Minister quoted Indira as having said: ‘Unfortunately, when a good task is about to be completed, we get complacent, and when a difficulty arises, we lose hope. Sometimes, the entire country seems to have accepted a defeatist attitude.’

He then added: “Today, looking at the Congress, I feel Indira was wrong about Indians, but her estimation was accurate about the Congress party.”

The PM also said, “This is what people from the royal family of Congress thought of my countrymen, and their belief remains the same today.”

Though Modi did not specify a year, but he appears to have been quoting from Nehru’s 1959 Independence Day speech. In this speech, delivered 12 years after India gained independence, Nehru had exhorted his countrymen to become more self-reliant. “The government and officials are here to help, but a community does not move ahead with the help rendered by officials, it moves ahead on its own feet,” Nehru said in Hindi, according to the official record of the speech.

Nehru went on to add: “I want that the government’s interference should be minimal, people should have the reins in their own hands… How does a community progress? Through its own hard work.”

After this, he moved on to give examples of other developed countries, and said, “In India, the habit to work very hard is not very common. It is not our fault, habits form due to incidents (Aadeten aisi pad jati hain). But the fact is we don’t work as hard as people in Europe or Japan or China or Russia do… These communities became prosperous not through some magic, but through their hard work and intelligence. We too can progress through hard work and intelligence, there is no other option.”

The Prime Minister seems to have referred to Indira’s speech in 1974, when the rumblings of the JP movement had begun, and she was facing large-scale opposition across the country.

She said in her speech, also delivered in Hindi: “Today, we need to figure out how to rid the society of its ills. Will this happen through violence and protests? Through fighting each other? Of course the government has its responsibility, but can’t every person play his part too?”

She then gave examples of people not buying from black markets, keeping cities clean, and growing vegetables in pots.

“Unfortunately”, she said, “when a good task is about to be completed, we get complacent, and when a difficulty arises, we lose hope. Sometimes, the entire country seems to have accepted a defeatist attitude.”

She then said: “I want to tell you all that don’t lose courage and keep faith in the future of the country and countrymen.”

Question is whether the Prime Minister has been misled by his speech writers or he has done it deliberately in conviction that he is infallible?  

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