Our Prime Minister is a voracious public speaker. Statistically speaking, the PM gave a speech every 45.6 hours in the first two years of his tenure. However, on many occasions he has shown that he is not a discerning speaker. He has often failed to differentiate an 'election-rally speech' from a 'solemn occasion' speech. This year's Independence Day speech is a case in point. The PM was speaking to voters, not citizens.
Over the past two years, we've heard the PM speak at numerous ceremonies, national & international events and rallies. More often than not, he has spoken as if elections were imminent somewhere. A large portion of his speeches have been a eulogy of his government or an uncouth critique of previous governments. So, when he took the dais this Independence Day, the nation expected a speech which was at least somewhat, if not drastically, different from those he had delivered in the past. But, unfortunately it was the same 'electoral campaigner-in-chief' who spoke from the rampart of The Red Fort, not the Prime Minister. Every PM has used the Independence Day speech to highlight the achievements of his/her government. But, no PM has dedicated almost two-thirds of the speech to it.
In May 2016, a special event was held to celebrate the two years of the central government ('Ek Nayi Subah'). Less than a fortnight ago, the PM spoke at length about his government's achievements on the completion of two years of the 'mygov' app. Despite these and several other platforms through which he could have/had praised the functioning of his government, the PM decided to make it the central theme of his I-Day address. What is baffling is that if one were to exclude the short introduction and conclusion of the speech, there was nothing that was new or made it seem like an I-Day speech.
The PM could have talked about the tensions in Kashmir-whether the government had planned any confidence building measures or what had gone wrong or what would be his government's future policy on the issue, et al. Instead he spoke about the prices of LED bulbs. The PM could have assured the Dalits in his home-state of their safety and equal protection under law. Instead he spent time talking about online booking of railway tickets. The PM could have spoken about his stand on caste-based reservation stirs in Haryana & Gujarat and whether the government was formulating any policy about them. But, he chose to speak about the two-year old Jan Dhan Yojana instead.
The PM seems to view each public speaking event-irrespective of the occasion- as an opportunity to narrate his government's achievements. The PM fails to realise that in today's information age, the citizens donot want the PM to burden them with statistics, but rather take a stand on issues that matter and talk to the nation-not merely to the electorate. The citizens donot want the PM to be merely the 'chief public relations officer' of the government, but rather to be involved in the affairs of the nation at every step without trying to skip the inconvenient ones. Lal Bahadur Shastri talked about the Pak invasion in his 1965 I-Day speech; PV Narasimha Rao talked about the critical state of the econony in his I-Day speech; AB Vajpayee talked at length about Kashmir in his 2003 I-Day speech; US President B. Obama talked about gun-violence in this year's State of the Union address. Our PM should remember that leaders are those who navigate tough issues, not those who merely run media blitzkreigs.
The nation expected an I-Day speech that would be soothing for some, reassuring for some, a stern message for some, enthusiasm for others. Unfortunately, this year's Independence Day speech was a narration of information, not a conversation.
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good one..
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