A speech I would like NaMo to make at his inauguration

Gurujan, bahujan, brothers and sisters,

With your votes and blessings I am here, working my way up from very small beginnings, with no legacy behind me for support. Patriotism, my Party, passion, & hard work helped me gain your esteem to reach this position that gives me more capacity to serve you better.

This is no time&place to say anything controversial. But then there was a concerted, planned effort lasting a dozen years to smear and demonise me, death threats to me to this day to end my political career, banish me from Gujarat, not to speak of stopping my ascend to this august office, I have a few things to tell the whole nation: I have been sinned against. I did not deserve the unprecedented, unwarranted, ugly and divisive adversity that transgressed the boundaries of the “political correctness” in vogue. While my political rivals blamed me for the Gujarat carnage of 2002, they chose to ignore innumerable similar or fiercer riots that flared up  with obvious regularity during earlier regimes. They ignored that Ahmedabad incident followed another unforgivable carnage in Godhra. The whole thing was programmed carefully to bring down NDA which ruled the country under the leadership of Atalji. Ahmedabad riot of 2002 was no one-way street, and from the death of rioters belonging to both communities, you can see the State government took fast and proper action. Never afterwards the communal situation worsened in Gujarat though we have a porous border with Pakistan and any time thousands of Bangladeshi’s whose intentions are not clear are swarming Gujarat too like the rest of the country. We have the determination to establish peace.

The Supreme Court of India was directly supervising investigations against Gujarat government, Modi the CM, and his colleagues in Govt and party with respect to a range of allegations from inaction to collusion with respect to the 2002 riots; and a reputed former CBI Director of unquestionable integrity headed the SIT that eventually found me innocent; my government prompt in action. Nobody claims riots were not unfortunate. But to blame it all on me, BJP and RSS is unfair in the light of all evidence to the contrary. But our political rivals need a handle to whip us, the professionally outraged minority activists and the NGOs do not want to see anything other than what would help them get funds from abroad and from inside the country on “humanitarian” grounds. The media either do not want facts get in the way of a hot controversy, or do not travel where truth lies in the open.

Instead of giving Indian voters something to believe in, the “secular” politicians and their friends in the media give them someone to hate: Narendra Modi vesting him with a bogus and negative political identity. The Grand old Party or the family that owns that party runs on “progressive”, communal and caste paranoia, and recently gender paranoia was added to it (“empowering women!”) They have been obsessed with portraying BJP as a Nazi cult; and Modi worse than Hitler. Some propaganda consultant told them: don’t be stingy, lay it on with a trowel and pile up thick, so that some of the muck will remain on them; don’t be vague, give numbers: so they said if I become PM 22000 Muslims will be killed! But this time around they went wrong in assuming that a majority of Indians are gullible people.

So, Narendra Modi has traversed toughest terrains to stand before you, you helped me, and your blessings give me more strength, determination and passion to serve Bharat Mata. I promise you good governance on behalf of my party, allies and my team of ministers and civil servants. I will not fail you. I have deeply held ideals about governance, my country’s development & its stature in the international community of nations, about Indian peoples’ destiny, justice, social consensus and OUR future. Some of you would have read our manifesto: it is not a policy document but a declaration of guiding principles, describing broad outlines of a vision. Good governance I promise means corruption-free administration, food security, health facilities, affordable housing to the economically weak, jobs for the unemployed and under-employed through agricultural, industrial and trade development; better roads, universal access to electric power, greater availability of water, burgeoning direct investment, and rapid economic growth in general. I will not talk about 100 days or 200 days of to do a certain amount of work, but my team will be on these activities from day one, till we accomplish what has to be done.

All sorts of fears and anxieties are created about the NDA. Congress Party had always been creating and exploiting Anxieties in the minds of minorities and Dalits.I repeat what I have been saying earlier, and throughout the Lok Sabha election campaign: my rulebook for governance will be the Constitution of India. We are not in the business of ruthless cultivation of vote banks in the Grand old Party’s style. The Nationalist government led by Narendra Modi is not going to be acting on centuries’ worth of grudges against Muslims and Hindu ambitions. My Hindutva defines all those who are Indian and say “Bharat Mata ki Jay”are Hindus. Our party, alliance and its government led by me is committed to ensure that caste, community, regional, linguistic solidarities will not overwhelm our Indian Nationhood. My government will have the political spine to back up words with deeds, I can tell you.

Our political rivals have done a lot of damage to India’s reputation as a secular democracy by propagating the view that Hindu nationalist agenda includes excluding the minorities, particularly Muslims and Christians from India’s mainstream. The propaganda through outgoing and incoming delegations, political exchanges, public outbursts abroad by Cabinet ministers, religious organizations, the publicity apparatus Central Government assiduously created for such activities, and more importantly, a hostile media. India’s old society and ancient values are subjected to relentless indictment thanks to their combined work. On Gandhi assassination we are well into the seventh decade of fake knowledge and spurious narrative of RSS involvement dominating media discourse. Proponents of Hindutva are cast as bigots and efforts increased to rule their perspective altogether out of the realm of acceptable public discourse. The oldest party in the country that ruled India for most of the post-Independence 6 decades has so much propaganda on “secularism” that the expression has unpleasant connotations now. In their enthusiasm to keep minority communities in India as their exclusive vote banks; to the extent they don’t want Hindus living in peace side-by-side with Muslims n Christians. Recently a famous British magazine openly advised Indians who to vote or rather who not vote. The overall tenor of the magazine article was as if India has been a nation of close-minded bigots requiring the intervention of a Congress government to force them into tolerance and diversity! I promise everybody that no one in my party, our alliance and my team is parochial, and prone to put self (and re-election) before country, or incompetent at fulfilling her or his basic constitutional responsibilities.

Remember, when Atalji’s government went ahead with Pokhran-2, the then opposition, erstwhile rulers of India for several decades were gloating about the possibility of Western economic sanctions destroying Indian economy. All those who disliked our nuclear independence came around to see reason and Indian economy was un- affected. I have read somewhere that history isn’t made by nations defending international law, but acting on their own imperatives. My government’s foreign policy will support that view to some extent. We cannot afford to have permanent friends or permanent enemies, but we must, and have indeed, permanent national interests. Come what may, India will not pursue fruitless negotiations that hostile neighbours are likely to exploit. We want friends in our neighbourhood. Like parents, you cannot choose your neighbours. But unlike hostility, friendship cannot be unilateral; it has to be bilateral.

We have been in the opposition, in States and at the Centre and also in power in the states and at the Centre; and hence we understand the complexities of Centre-State relations. To the States ruled by BJP, allies or others, all I have to say as India’s Prime Minister is just what Sardar Patel told the Sates “We are all knit together in bonds of blood and feeling no less than of self-interest. None can segregate us into segments; no impassable barriers can be set up between us”. Our concept and my personal conviction too is that Bharat Mata is an indivisible entity. The whole of India is one and divided for the purpose of administrative convenience. If a CM asks for financial assistance beyond the Central Plan allocation to it, I shall not ever deny it saying “money doesn’t grow on trees” even if that State is ruled by our political rivals.

We have a lot to do to keep our promises. Where can the money be found? We'll have a tax regime that encourages compliance perhaps would more Indians under the net and earn much higher tax revenues. Apart from expanding the base, collection can improve enormously with corruption-free and more efficient collection systems. As an interesting aside, I would mention an income tax official who quit his job to enter politics and eradicate corruption, in good company, realising that corruption after all, was less important than communalism, the whipping boy who always came to the rescue of the corrupt politicians!Congress party and families of some top leaders seem to have become a self-perpetuating aristocracy of wealth whose dimensions now appear to have exceeded all previous accumulations of financial power. The UPA governments have been sitting on some vital information of illegal money accumulated abroad by Indians from Pranabda’s time in the Finance Ministry. Believe me, a Congress leader appears 21^st in a list of 24 people in the world living in luxury! Recently hearing a petition by former NDA law minister Ram Jethmalani to retrieve Indian black money hidden away in foreign banks the Supreme Court sought immediate action. Global Financial Integrity reports speak of amounts worth Indian Rupees 60lakh crores! According to an 8yr-old report of Swiss Bankers Association Indians are hiding $1.2trillion in Swiss banks are No.1 in whitewashing black money. Professor Vaidyanathan of IIM-Bangalore says the amount abroad is equivalent to Rupees 70lakh crores. My government will investigate all these, carefully collecting evidence and do our best to bring as much of this money as is humanly possible back to India, with the help of foreign governments and overseas Indians.  

I don’t have to remind you how mother India is described in the revolutionary song ‘Vade Maataram’. We promise you that our endeavour will be to make Mother India “Sujalaam, suphalaam, malayaja sheetalaam.. rich with hurrying streams, bright with orchard gleams, cool with thy winds of delight, Green fields waving Mother of might, Mother free of all woes, her children living together as a huge extended family, happily hereafter...I can see your hope and mine smiling from the threshold of the years to come, Whispering 'it will be happier'!

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