Striking a note of accommodation towards all political parties and acknowledging the contribution of all previous governments in nation building, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday made an appeal for a 10-year moratorium on “poison of casteism, communalism, regionalism, discrimination on social and economic basis.”
“We should have peace, unity and harmony. Please believe my word, if we give up the path of violence and adopt the path of brotherhood, we will make progress,” he said.
In an obvious reference to the unanimous approval of the National Judicial Appointments Commission Bill, 2014 in the just-concluded Budget Session of Parliament, the Prime Minister said his government was not interested in moving forward by virtue of its majority but on the basis of consensus.
He asserted that he was speaking not as the Pradhan Mantri (Prime Minister) but as a “Pradhan Sevak” (prime servant) and made a special mention of the services rendered by his predecessors and former governments for the country’s development.
Signalling his intent towards massive restructuring of the way the government functions, the Prime Minister said he was astonished to see “dozens of separate governments running at the same time in one main government.”
“I was an outsider to Delhi. When I took an insider view, I was shocked at what I saw. There were dozens of governments within a government,” he said.
“People used to consider departments as their personal fiefdom. I saw there was disintegration and fights between departments. These fights landed up in the Supreme Court. How can you go forward in this situation?” he asked adding that he had begun the process of making the government, an organic unity, a harmonious entity with one aim, one mind, one direction, one energy.
The Prime Minister coined “zero defect, zero effect” slogan as he spoke of participation of youth in boosting the sector critical to India’s economic success.
“…you [youth] decide that you will make at least one thing so that the country does not have to import it. Your policy should be ‘zero defect, zero effect’. It means there would be no defect in the products you manufacture and it causes zero or no ill effect to the environment,” he said.
