Fulfilling the constitutional mandate, the President Pranab Mukherjee addressed the first Parliamentary session after the Lok Sabha elections of April-May 2014. Parliamentarians, members of treasury as well as opposition, one and all listened to his 50-minute address with rapt attention. In a sense, this was a historic address keeping in mind the election background, the nature of contest and the result thereof.
Technically speaking, the address of the President is the official policy of the Government in power. But the unique thing of this address is that the President, before assuming his office, was a very important member of the political party that had to surrender power to the winning opposition party after the results of election were out. But discharging his constitutional duty with greatest sense of responsibility and propriety, the President delivered a speech that could be written down in history as a landmark address going deep into its theme and insights. The President has seen the tumultuous days when the previous Government was face to face with some of the most eventful and exasperating issues of their times. But as was expected, the President chose highly diplomatic and subtle phraseology to remind, caution and inspire the Parliamentarians who had gone through a fierce election campaign very little known in the Parliamentary history of our country in post independence period. There are many hints in the address that could conveniently be called aspersions cast on the previous Government if we mean to read between the lines. His expectation of a “resurgent India in which corruption will have no place” is candid expression of his personal anguish for what had befallen this great nation. The real meaning of the word “change” that had become the watchword of the winning political party in its election campaigns through the length and breadth of the country has been epitomized by the President as “resurgence”. It means that some of the aspects that go in the making of historical Indian civilization had been suppressed and made light of. An ideology far removed from pristine and traditional Indian civilization had been promoted on unrealistic basis that ultimately proved a mirage to the people of this great and historic land. This has found expression in President’s cliché of “ek Bharat, shreshta Bharat” meaning One India and Pure India.
The second most important point in President’s address is his expression of satisfaction with Indian voters, 66.4 per cent of whom exercised their precious vote and gave a clear verdict for a single political party to assume power after a gap of 30 years. This means a lot for the Indian nation and for the democracy as the best known form of Government. During past three decades, coalition Governments had become hostages in the hands of the components and could not exercise their free will in taking hard decisions in the interests of the nation. What the President actually meant to convey in his subtle way to the Parliamentarians, to the Government and to the people of this country was that now is the time the Government should take hard and far reaching decisions that will undo the inertia and indolence of which previous Governments had become a victim. Obviously this should infuse new blood in the administrative veins of the country and that would mean resurgence.
By voting a single party with majority to form the Government, the electorate of our country has sent a clear and unambiguous message that corruption will not be tolerated. This Government is destined to uproot the disease once for all. What does that mean? It means that the law of the land will be enforced in strictest possible way to call the corrupt to book. It is a message to the Indian Judiciary also that there will be zero tolerance with corruption as far as the new Government is concerned. A nation that has sent a single party with majority to the Parliament will be the last to accept or compromise with corruption. We want that the money stolen from the Nation and deposited in foreign banks be returned to the Nation and utilized in mega developmental projects. We want India to be a nation that will have a say in the comity of nations.
Maintaining the tempo of resurgent India, the President said that his Government will work towards building peaceful, stable and economically inter-linked neighbourhood. But he qualified his remark by saying that his Government will not shy away from raising issues of concern about stability, sensitivity and security and export of terrorism to neighbours. This is a major foreign policy statement and definitely different from what was emanating from New Delhi previously. Yes we had been shying away from issues of great concern when our unpredictable neighbours either violated our borders or hatched conspiracies of instigating local saboteurs to work against our national interests. This is a clear message that the new Government will handle terrorism as it should be. Trade and commerce have priority with the new Government as it is a dependable means of developing cooperation and understanding. In regard to new Government’s policy towards the minorities, the President made the profoundest remark ever made by saying that the new Government was committed to making all minority communities equal partners in India’s progress. In other words, a message has gone to the minorities that their all-sided progress and development is inseparably linked to the progress and development of the country as a single unit. Reservations, special provisions, quotas, and other categorizations for developmental purposes are discarded as unscientific and against the national interests. Every Indian in the country should raise his head high and say with pride that he is an Indian enjoying all rights provided to him by the constitution. Hopefully, the ushering in of the new Government will also usher in a new era which directs all Indians to transcend cast, colour, creed, region and religion while we are on march to progress. The President did note that the recent Parliamentary election had transcended religion, region, cast and other consideration that bedeviled Indian democratic arrangement in the past.
Lastly, the President made it clear that the new Government has to tackle some very urgent issues like those of strengthening and rebuilding economy, controlling inflations, ensuring supply of agro-productions, and more importantly “Minimum Government and Maximum governance”. An important ingredient of good governance for a country like India was to carry the States along and not make any discrimination, something summarized in the phrase “sabka sath sabka vikas”.
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