The speech, India waited for

I have witnessed almost all of India's Independence day celebrations so far, leaving aside first few ones, when I was too young to understand even meaning of freedom and independence. Every year on independence day, India's prime minister traditionally address the nation, from the ramparts of the red fort, situated in the heart of its capital New Delhi- a sort of “state of the Union” address. Historically speaking, the significance of this speech, where prime ministers make major policy announcements, was always lost to most of Indians till 1980's for the simple reason that there was no way in which people from far flung regions of India could participate in this event of national pride being held at Delhi. The event remained more or less a localized occasion in New Delhi alone.

During 1950's, we did not even have a radio transmitting station in my home town Pune. The only radio station nearby was in Mumbai, which usually carried the prime minister's speech live. But there used to be one problem. Obviously, in those years, there were no satellite or optical fiber microwave links between Delhi and other places, so Mumbai radio station, transmitting on medium wave band , would relay the prime minister's speech picked up by its radio receivers on short wave bands. Any of the readers, who have listened to a short wave band radio station, would remember the waxing and waning that is inherent with any short wave band broadcast. My father used to have an ultra sensitive radio receiver, which he had bought from second world war surplus junk market. The reception on this set, pecked up directly from Delhi transmitter, used to be slightly better, than the one relayed by Mumbai, but still very poor. We could only catch, what the prime minister said, when the signal waxed or was on ascendance. Then there was a problem of understanding the Hindi language, as I was not very proficient in it. In spite of the difficulties, I still remember the wonderful rhetoric of Prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru coming on short wave band radion on independence days.

After the speech was over, that used to be the end to it. There were no discussions, no analysis, no looking through the lens, because India' tightly controlled Radio, based on soviet era ideas, never allowed any political discussions and prime minister's words were always sacrosanct. The actual report on the independence day speech by the prime minister therefore, would be available to us only on the third day or 17^th August for the simple reason that no news paper would be published on 16^th. By this time the significance of the speech would have been lost and its impact would have faded. Nehru died in 1964 and with him was gone the interest of people like me, to listen to any independent day speeches.

In 1975, the then prime minister announced a national emergency and suspended fundamental rights of citizens. Most of the opposition leaders were put in jail. Though this was revoked in 1977, I never ever felt again like listening to the prime minister's speech even up to last year (2013). It became just a happening for me, like majority of us, where we were neither interested or concerned and when we simply turned off our radio or TV sets.

On the radio and TV linking scenario, the things changed only in 1980's, when microwave links and television stations were established around the country. We could actually see the prime minister making a speech from red fort. However the charisma of Prime minister Nehru no longer was there and independence day speeches remained out of my bounds.

In 1999, I did feel like listening to the prime minister, when Prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpai was at helm. Though an excellent orator, he did not change the set boing pattern of the independent day speeches of listing and ranting achievements of the Government and making tall claims of launching grandiose schemes. Because of this, even his speeches became dull and not something to look forward to.

This year, India elected a new prime minister; Narendra Modi, who is a fantastic orator. In the first place, he has a mastery and command over the language, which he uses; Hindi. His diction (the choice and use of words and phrases) is almost perfect. He uses almost every trick of the trade in the delivery of words like volume, emphasis and inflation. Most of the time, he appears to be communicating with the audience instead of giving sermons. Yet, all this trickery only does not make his speech brilliant. It is the content of the speech that is the king. I have yet to hear a speech from him, which does not give a message of relevance to the audience. He is full of new ideas and innovations.

Like millions of other Indians, I was therefore very keen this year to listen to our new prime minister's independence day speech, as for last two and half months, since he got elected, he has been keeping quiet, perhaps busy with his assignments. I, perhaps due to my apathy of decades to independence day speeches, did not even know the time, when he would be speaking. I therefore switched on TV, first thing in the morning just to find out the timing of the speech and promptly switched it on again at the stipulated timing.

To say the least, Prime minister did not disappoint me at all. In fact he was brilliant. The setting, the weather, the crowd, everything was perfect and so was his speech. Most of the common people like me must have also thought so. I am saying this after reading hundreds of tweets pn the subject. Here are some of the tweets that I have picked up from a torrent appearing on twitter.

The Red Fort Speech by Shri @narendramodi was the most inspiring in recent times. Energy, patriotism and Josh. Happy Independence Day.

Hv bn hearing PMs at Red Fort frm Indira's. time This is 1st time am hearing what had always wish to hear.

After a long time Red Fort must have felt good today.:)

After 10 years,ppl were eager 2hear #modispeech from red fort on d eve of independence day of india.inspiring speech will definately do best

Modi's has broken all the barriers between common citizen and himself. After ages have heard apolitical speech from Red Fort.

Never heard a PM speech from Red Fort like this, in last 2-3 decades. Acchhe din aayenge ! 100%

I was awestruck/floored by the Ex tempore speech of our PM Modi during I Day from the Ramparts of Red Fort.We will progress soon.

We witnessed a statesmanly, spell-binding and inspirational address to the nation, by the Hon’ble PM Modi ji, from the historic Red Fort.

I think that should suffice. One thing is certainly clear. As long as this man is at helm, I am not going to miss an independence day speech for sure.

16^th August 2014

A political statement

Many international as well as Indian observers have considered the grand swearing-in or oath taking ceremony of India's new federal Government, led by prime minister Narendrabahi Modi, as a major diplomatic initiative that has began well. The prime minister had invited 8 heads of the states, who form the South Asia regional cooperation asociation SAARC and one other country from the Indian ocean area, Mauritius to grace the function with their presence. It is therefore no wonder that during this function, which was relayed live all over south Asia, TV cameras and all eyes were actually riveted, besides the new prime minister of India and his cabinet, mainly on the Prime Minister of Pakistan and President of Sri Lanka because of strained relations between India and Pakistan in the case of the former and a resistance by Tamil politicians from south India in case of latter.

Yet there were other invitees too who never received any media attention. Yet the message has gone loud and clear to where it was supposed to go with these invitations. The first of these invitees was the Taiwan trade representative, who attended the ceremony and sat with the other ambassadors. As part of its foreign policy, India doesn't have diplomatic relations with Taiwan, but both exchange trade representatives. The presence of the Taiwanese representative at the swearing-in ceremony therefore become significant because it indicates clearly the thinking of the new Government giving highest priority to trade as a prime mover in its foreign relations.

Perhaps, the most significant invitee at the swearing-in ceremony was a person in a Tibetan robe, who was none other than Lobsang Sangay; the political head of the Tibetan government in exile, who operates from Himalayan town of Dharamshala. Surprisingly even hawk eyed Chinese media  missed him sitting there. However, Sangay, realising the real significance of this invitation to him, promptly posted following on his facebook page:

“ Hon. Sikyong attended the swearing in ceremony of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi as an honored guest of the Bharatiya Janata Party.”

The Chinese did not miss this time and Chinese Government sent a demarche to India protesting against the invitation to Lobsang Sangay. Hong Lei a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman slammed Sangay in these words;

"The relevant person is 100% a splittist. He is the ringleader of the so-called Tibetan government-in-exile. He has never done anything good on the Tibet issue,.  

It is easy to see that with this invite, the new Government of India has indicated to the Chinese that it has its own independent foreign policy. This weekend, Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi will make his first trip to India to meet the new government. He will be coming in his capacity as special envoy of the Chinese president. He will have meetings with foreign minister and may call on the prime minister. A statement from the foreign ministry said on this subject,

"The objective of the visit is to establish contact with the new government of India. The visit is an important element of the Year of India-China Friendly Exchanges and will provide further momentum to the India-China strategic and cooperative partnership."

It can be seen from the statement of the Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei about Sangay, mentioned above, that the Chinese, perhaps are trying to set the agenda for the coming India-China talks as it comes ahead of Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi's visit to Delhi. It should be of great interest to see how new Government of India begins its relationship with the Chinese.

7^th June 2014

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The power of the rhetoric

Many decades ago, when I was just a school boy, I had found on a Sunday afternoon that one of my uncles was getting ready to go out somewhere. I was rather curious as he normally spent his Sunday afternoons at home, relaxing and reading newspapers, as it was a weekly holiday. When I had asked him about where he was headed to, he had told me that he was going for attending a meeting. I did not understand much and kept quiet. Later, late in the evening, he had returned, looking happy and quite excited and thrilled. I had then asked him, where he had been. He had then told me that he had cycled all way to attend a huge rally that was held at the race course, situated a distance of 8 to 10 Km away from our house and that was to be addressed by Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru; independent India's first prime minister. Being quite young, I never understood at that time, why he had taken so much trouble and gone just to listen to someone speak and why was he so thrilled?

In 1975, India's then prime minister, Mrs. Indira Gandhi had declared an emergency. The order bestowed upon the prime minister the authority to rule by decree, allowing elections to be suspended and civil liberties to be curbed. For much of the Emergency, most of Gandhi's political opponents were imprisoned and the press was censored. In 1977, when general elections could no longer be postponed, they were allowed to be conducted. It was one of the most tumultuous period in the history of independent India. In the pres-election days, opposition parties and intellectuals were allowed to speak to the people. I went to attend one such rally, held in my home town. It was addressed by many eminent political leaders and other people too. One of the speakers was a humble Marathi writer, whose writings and plays are even today considered as something par excellence. His name was P.L.Deshpande and he was lovingly called as “PuLa.” When he rose to speak, I was watching him as he had never before spoken at a political rally. In fact he was as apolitical as anyone could be. I do not remember now, what words he used or what he said exactly. Yet, after next 40 minutes, when he had finished his speech, I realised that I was crying. Never before, I had heard anyone, that had touched my heart so heavily. On that day, I understood, why my uncle was so much thrilled and excited by the speech of Pt. Nehru and why was he so happy.

Rhetoric or speaking to people is an art. Wikipedia defines it as the art of discourse, an art that aims to improve the capability of writers or speakers to inform, persuade, or motivate particular audiences in specific situations. Before India became independent, we had a great many leaders, who were such superb 'rhetors' that they would catch the pulse of audience within few words and then would sway them along with whatever they wanted to say. Besides Pt. Nehru, whom I have mentioned above, we had other leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Acharya Kriplani. In the later years Indira Gandhi and Atal bihari Vajpayee were in no way lesser eloquent orators.

With advent of TV and recent mushrooming of news channels devoted to breaking news, the art of rhetoric appears to have been lost in the din. We are hammered now 24 hours with news, interviews and panel discussions to such an extent that I have developed a certain amount of aversion to it. Added to this is my general reluctance to listen to others as I am a very bad listener. Yet around 3 months back, while browsing the TV channels, I hit upon a programme by chance that showed a person addressing a huge rally. Being curious, I paused at that channel. I never realised, when I kept the TV remote away and was all ears listening to what this man was saying. I do not remember what words he was saying, yet whatever was saying was going directly to my heart and made my eyes wet. The speaker on TV on that day, was one Narendrabhai Modi, a man who has now catapulted himself into the chair of Prime Minister of India, in an election held in April-May 2014. Ever since that day, I have made it a point to listen to him at least on TV.

Last year, I had an occasion to visit Gujarat state of India. This has been the state, where this Prime Minister-elect has been a chief minister since last 15 years. I do not consider myself a very knowledgeable person and just a layman. Even then, I was terribly impressed, the roads, availability of 24 hour electrical power, wind mills, industrial developments and agriculture fields farms even on periphery of desert areas, were something unbelievable.

Coming back to oratory, Narendrabahi Modi is a fantastic orator. In the first place, he has a mastery and command over the language, which he uses; Hindi. His diction (the choice and use of words and phrases) is almost perfect. He uses almost every trick of the trade in the delivery of words like volume, emphasis and inflation. Most of the time, he appears to be communicating with the audience instead of giving sermons.

Yet, all this trickery only does not make his speech brilliant. It is the content of the speech that is the king. I have yet to hear a speech from him, which does not give a message of relevance to the audience. He is full of new ideas and innovations. I would like to mention here just one example from the speech, which he gave as his victory speech at Varanasi city in Uttar Pradesh State. While speaking about the river Ganga, he mentioned how polluted and filthy it has become and urgent need for cleaning it. This was nothing new and so many people have emphasized on it before. Then finally as a special Narendrabhai Modi touch, he came out with the carrot or the incentive for the people of Varanasi to do it and said that many people around the world want to visit Varanasi, but they do not do it, because it is so filthy. Varanasi can become a biggest tourism center in India, a real money spinner, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs for the local people and can bring prosperity to the city. But this can happen only and only if the city and its people would clean up the river and city itself.

Narendrabhai Modi has brought back to the art of rhetoric, it's former glory and when compared to the former prime minister, who hardly spoke to his people, the importance of this art in public life becomes more and more relevant to us without least doubt. I feel that his rhetoric is one of the principal reasons for his astounding victory at the polls.

19^th May 2014