Vandita Mishra writes: PM Modi's speech on the occasion of 1st Day, Between the Lines

In 2014, the newly elected prime minister, who had arrived amidst clamour for change after a Congress regime surrounded by allegations of corruption and a long-simmering Hindu assertion that had surfaced, had announced that he was not going to play by the old formalities and rules, so far his inauguration day speech seemed to carry that message.

The new prime minister said two things that stood out in his first speech on August 15. He spoke on the issue of swachhta, or sanitation, urging MPs to use their constituency development funds to build toilets in homes and schools, and separate toilets for girls in schools: “In a year's time, we should be able to build toilets so that by Independence Day next year, we can proudly say that every school in the country will have toilets.”

Less than two years after the rape and assault of a young woman on a bus in Delhi caused a stir across the country, he spoke of the need for families to hold their sons accountable rather than impose more restrictions on their daughters. Every parent asks their daughter where she is going, when she will be back home. But do these parents ask their sons where they are going? he asked. Because those who rape are someone's son, he said.

At that time, the Prime Minister took advantage of the grandeur of the event and the imposing venue to go inside people's homes and talk to people about the need for cleanliness and the education of their children. It seemed to be a distinctive sign of the new Prime Minister to speak several languages, to make small moments into big things and to have the ambition to speak directly to people, without going through mediators and mediation institutions.

Prime Minister Modi’s speech at the Red Fort on the 11th I-Day was not as significant. It could be that ten years later, after an electoral verdict that robbed his party of a majority and made it dependent on its allies, he has lost some of the confidence in his own ability to cut through abstraction and strike a chord. That confidence had prompted him, even in the last I-Day speech in 2023, to address the nation as mere parivarjano (my family members) instead of the more conventional mere deshvasiyon (my countrymen) or the stereotypical bhaiyon aur behenon (brothers and sisters).

Or perhaps ten years later, despite his self-congratulations, he knows that on the ground, whether it is sanitation or crimes against women, for example, the two issues he once framed in language different from the Red Fort, there is no clean slate or vast zones of immobility.

Vinesh Phogat has just returned from Paris. Her pictures in today’s newspapers show a pale face, the trauma still fresh. It was not just her extra 100 grams that ultimately prevented her from making it to the podium, but also the challenges she faced in her own country in the run-up to the Olympics. Her ordeal began after she faced Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, a six-term, five-time BJP MP who has been accused of sexual harassment by some of the country’s most decorated women wrestlers.

While Phogat fought the ruling establishment in the Wrestling Federation, the Modi-led government remained mostly a mute and impassive spectator. It took the intervention and direction of the courts to even file an FIR, the task of breaking the deadlock was entrusted by an abdicated government to the court.

To see how far sanitation still has to go, one only has to visit any small town in Uttar Pradesh or Bihar and see how garbage and poor drainage continue to discolour and pollute public spaces. The hoardings and slogans of the Swachhta Abhiyan campaign are an unwitting reproach. They highlight the unfinished task, its stubbornness and pitiful difficulties, not any achievement.

On that day, Prime Minister Modi had neither the intoxicating mandate nor the benefit of the doubt that he had enjoyed in 2014 and his speech reflected that. It had no standout moments and stuck to Modi’s familiar territory of articulating broad aspirations for a Viksit Bharat by 2047 and painting an enemy among those with a perverse mindset (vikrit mansikta) who are opponents or nirashavadi.

Even when he spoke about an important and controversial measure, the Uniform Civil Code, which is to be implemented, he said he did so in an unusually constrained style.

The UCC is a key issue for the BJP, and the only one of the three, the Ram temple and Article 370, that has not yet been respected. It has rightly raised apprehensions, especially among minorities, about the BJP's desire to impose uniformity and flatten India's diversities.

A UCC must be introduced, the Prime Minister said, which is secular and not communal, after a discussion in which the people must join, and because the Constitution mentions it and the Court has declared that it is a desirable objective.

The fact that he has so far called it secular, for the BJP, secular has been an insulting term and that he has called for a wider debate and sought the shield of the Court and the Constitution, makes this big strike different from his other movements which have relished surprise, secrecy and the attempt to take by surprise.

See you next week,

I'm hungry