WE NEED TO WALK THE TALK, NOT MODI

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech on 28th September at Madison Square, New York was another ‘uplifting the masses’ speech. Many journalists reported that while the speech was impressive, the Prime Minister of India spoke of the same issues of governance, cleanliness and making India the next superpower. Economist Swaminathan Aiyar writes in the Economic Times that it is time for Modi to Walk The Talk. Translating potential into performance is tough, says Aiyar. Surely who does not know that it is indeed tough in a diverse and vast country like India. And it is tougher today than before. Reason being – A major erosion of our culture. The culture to think service to country and humanity is absent in a major way. A corruption ridden environment has seeped deep into the minds of every Indian and money has become the colour of speech, aggravated by rising inflation. Modi is trying bit by bit to bring back the culture Indians are known to exhibit when they had great leaders heading them. That is - To serve the country and to think of any job as a service and sacrifice to the country. Hence he says whether it is a teacher or a doctor or a sweeper, we must think we are sacrificing our lives for the service of the nation. If mindsets of people do not change, whether at work or in the subject of cleanliness, no matter how hard any government works, we are going to take one step forward and two steps backward. So we are missing the point of his speeches. Walk the Talk, who should Walk The Talk, not him but us citizens. That’s what he is simply saying.

Narendra Modi is merely opening up all the choked up channels, whether it is in mindset or ground realities. He has well thought out all his strategies. Imagine if nothing else he has made noise about India to 3 major countries that matter – China, Japan and U.S.A. He is inviting these three countries to come to India for their manufacturing needs. He says he will remove all bureaucratic hurdles and make it easy for them. He is slowly and gradually making the right moves to see manufacturing gets a leg up and that will automatically see many economic indicators improving.

Many scoff his Ganga project cleansing and do not consider it a priority amongst the many pressing projects that require funding. Ganga cleansing will require hell of a lot of resources. But Modi is confident that once you set out to do something good, money will flow. Don’t we see so many crowd funding projects for a good cause rake in a lot of funds? Again his keenness to cleanse the Ganga is deeper and hence for him a priority. He says it flows through so many cities of India. While he harped on the benefits of economic prosperity in cleansing the Ganga, he also knows that it does not bode well for India to keep a Holy river dirty. Cleanliness and positive energy starts from there. Modi is making all the moves but putting the ball in our court. Instead of expecting miracles from him, we should expect first a miraculous change in ourselves.