Prime Minister Modi Delivers Powerful Speech On India’s Independence Day


Friday, August 15, 2014 marks 67 years since India won its much-deserved independence from the United Kingdom. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who according to the Times of India was sworn in on May 26 as “India’s first prime minister born after the country’s independence,” celebrated the monumental day by delivering a powerful independence day speech from the 17th Century Red Fort in Delhi.

The independence day speech covered a slew of different topics, including female feticide, which is the widely practiced act of aborting a fetus simply because it is female. According to the Los Angeles Times, Prime Minister Modi appealed to doctors “not to kill the girl-child in the mother’s womb” and appealed to parents “not to kill the girl-child because they want a son.”

Modi also urged Indians to stop dividing and segregating themselves by religion and caste, and instead urged them to “focus on nonviolence and growth.”

The biggest shocker during his independence day speech came when the Indian prime minister channeled Mahatma Gandhi to promote enhanced sanitation efforts:

“Brothers and Sisters, Mahatma Gandhi had cleanliness and sanitation closest to his heart. Whether we resolve not to leave a speck of dirt in our village, city, street, area, school, temple, hospital, and what have you, by 2019 when we celebrate 150th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi? This happens not just with the Government, but with public participation. That’s why we have to do it together.”

The Financial Times reveals that in India it’s commonplace for men, women, and children alike to literally defecate out in the open. This is due to the fact that “fewer than half of [India’s] inhabitants use toilets” — something that Modi wants to see change.

The primary premise Modi was trying to get at throughout the entire speech is that everybody in the country is responsible for helping to resolve some of the major societal ills that plague the nation of India: female feticide, lack of cleanliness, religious violence, caste violence, rape, etc.

Prime Minister Modi also talked about a tentative plan to empower every Indian family with a bank account, as well as a tentative plan to “teach people technical and entrepreneurial skills so they [can] find jobs and help build the economy.”

Last but not least, Modi invited successful foreign nations to look to India to be their manufacturing hub:

“Come make in India. Be it plastics or cars or satellites or agricultural products, come make in India.”

A full transcript of his Independence day speech was posted by India Today and can be read here.

[Image via Google Images]

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