Amending Constitution for explicitly Hindu India ‘meaningless’: PM Modi – Hindustan Times

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi has rejected allegations of discrimination towards minorities in India, cracking down on critics and any talk of amending the Constitution to make the country an explicitly Hindu republic, and said he aspires to create conditions where everyone sees value in investing and expanding operations here.
Read here: No feeling of discrimination towards any religious minority in India: Modi
In an interview with the British daily Financial Times (FT), Modi called speculation about altering the Constitution meaningless. He said his government’s “most transformative steps”—from a “Clean India” nationwide toilet-building campaign to bringing nearly 1bn people online through a path-breaking digital public infrastructure push—have been realised without doing so and through public participation.
Modi said he is “very confident of victory” in the 2024 national polls as people realise that the nation is on “the cusp of a take-off”. “They want this flight to be expedited, and they know the best party to ensure this is the one which brought them this far,” he told FT in what the paper described as a rare interview and additional written responses.
Modi cited his government’s record “of solid change in the common man’s life” and said the people have different aspirations from the ones they had 10 years back.
The comments came days after the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) returned to power in the heartland states of Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh and retained it in Madhya Pradesh in a major boost for its prospects ahead of the national polls due to be held in the summer of next year.
The Congress managed to win in the southern state of Telangana. The four states send 82 of the 543 representatives to the Lok Sabha.
FT noted a third-term victory would be a vindication for Modi’s legions of supporters, who say he has built India’s economy and global esteem, improved hundreds of millions of people’s lives, and put the majority Hindu religion at the centre of public life. It added the Congress-led Opposition has joined forces and promised to “safeguard democracy and the Constitution” in the face of what they say is an attack on the secular principles of the country’s founders.
FT said critics have accused Modi’s government of cracking down on rivals, curtailing civil society, and discriminating against the country’s large Muslim minority.
The BJP has rejected the claims of democratic backsliding even as FT said they have alarmed some observers in India and overseas when leaders around the world are betting heavily on the country as a geopolitical and economic partner.
FT said Modi’s opponents worry that he would use a third-term victory, especially if the BJP wins a large majority, to shred secular values irrevocably, possibly by amending the Constitution to make India an explicitly Hindu republic.
Modi said the BJP’s critics were entitled to their opinions and the freedom to express them but there is a fundamental issue with such allegations, which often appear as criticisms. “These claims [concerns over the health of Indian democracy] not only insult the intelligence of the Indian people but also underestimate their deep commitment to values like diversity and democracy,” he said. He added an ecosystem is using the freedom available in the country to hurl allegations at them daily, through editorials, TV channels, social media, videos, and tweets.
Modi insisted that Indian society has no feeling of discrimination towards any religious minority. FT said Modi made no direct reference to the country’s Muslims when asked what future the 200 million-strong minority has in India. Modi instead pointed to the economic success of India’s Parsees, who he described as a “religious micro-minority residing in India”. “Despite facing persecution elsewhere in the world, they have found a safe haven in India, living happily and prospering,” Modi said. “That shows that the Indian society itself has no feeling of discrimination towards any religious minority.”
FT noted that anti-Muslim hate speech has proliferated under the rule of the BJP, which has no Muslim ministers. It said a question about the Modi government’s alleged crackdown on his critics elicited a long and hearty laugh. Modi said his critics have the right to level allegations but others have an equal right to respond with facts.
He cited the long history of outsiders who underestimated India. “In 1947, when India became independent, the British who left made a lot of very dire predictions about India’s future. But we have seen that those predictions and preconceptions have all been proven false.” He added those who similarly doubt his government will also be proven wrong.
Modi cited India’s progress from being identified in 2013 as one of the “Fragile Five”, or economies overly reliant on foreign investment to finance current account deficits, to the world’s fifth-largest economy and said they envision a system where anyone from around the world feels at home in India. “…where our processes and standards are familiar and welcoming,” he said. “That is the kind of inclusive, global-standard system we aspire to build.”
FT noted infrastructure building has taken off during Modi’s premiership. It added Modi’s office rattles off the numbers: a doubling of airports to 149 from 74 less than a decade ago; 905km of metro lines, from 248km a decade ago; 706 medical colleges, from 387 before he took office.
FT said despite a major infrastructure push and its status as the world’s fastest-growing big economy, India is not creating enough jobs, presenting a vulnerable point for the BJP as it enters a national campaign.
Modi cited unemployment data gathered by the Periodic Labour Force Survey, which he said points to “a consistent decline in unemployment rates”. “When evaluating different performance parameters like productivity and infrastructure expansion, it becomes evident that employment generation in India, a vast and youthful nation, has indeed accelerated,” Modi said.
FT said corruption, administrative hurdles, and the skills gap among youth are other obstacles to business about which companies, Indian and foreign, complain—and which some believe could prevent the country from replicating China’s manufacturing-led economic take-off.
Modi said it might be more apt to compare India with other democracies. “It’s important to recognise that India wouldn’t have achieved the status of the world’s fastest-growing economy if the issues you’ve highlighted were as pervasive as suggested,” he said. “Often, these concerns stem from perceptions, and altering perceptions sometimes takes time.”
FT said the idea of an economically emerging India is not a new one for the world’s largest developing nation but the narrative has taken hold powerfully lately also because tensions between Washington and Beijing have prompted a search by Western democracies for alternative trading and diplomatic partners.
Modi pointed to the presence of Indian-origin CEOs at top companies such as Google and Microsoft as counter-evidence of a skills gap.
FT said some analysts have pointed to the fact that so many skilled Indians go abroad as evidence that there are too few opportunities back home. “It’s not a matter of needing to bring them back,” Modi said when asked whether India should not be trying to lure them to return to the country of their birth. “Rather, our goal is to create such an environment in India that it naturally gets people to have a stake in India.”
On foreign policy, Modi said the national interest as the foremost guiding principle allows India to engage with nations in a manner that respects mutual interests and acknowledges the complexities of contemporary geopolitics. “The world is interconnected as well as interdependent.”
FT said Modi outlined India’s mix-and-match foreign policy. It noted Modi maintained close ties with Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, in keeping with India’s decades-old non-alignment policy. It added he also cemented a closer-than-ever relationship with President Joe Biden during a June state visit to the US when the two countries signed a raft of agreements in areas ranging from jet engines to quantum computing.
Modi said India has supported the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza while reiterating its support for a two-state solution. FT noted India has long been a staunch supporter of the Palestinian cause but has grown closer to Israel under Modi, the first Indian prime minister to visit the country. It added the Modi government has mostly refrained from criticising Benjamin Netanyahu’s government on the Israel-Hamas conflict.
FT said Israel is the Modi government’s key partner with which it shares technology and a right-wing nationalist worldview.
Modi said he remains in touch with the leaders in West Asia and if there is anything India can do to take forward efforts towards peace, it will certainly do so.
Modi said the India-US relationship is broader in engagement, deeper in understanding, and warmer in friendship than ever before. The comments came a month after the US Department of Justice unsealed an indictment implicating Indian official Nikhil Gupta for orchestrating a plot in June to assassinate Sikh separatist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun in New York.
Read here: ‘Watershed moment in history’: PM Modi on 3 criminal law bills passed in Rajya Sabha
Gupta allegedly hired a hitman, who turned out to be an undercover agent for US law enforcement. India acknowledged inputs on the plot from the US and announced the constitution of a committee to examine the issue while promising necessary follow-up action.
All five Indian-American members of the US Congress this month warned of “significant damage” to the “very consequential” India-US partnership unless New Delhi probes and holds those responsible for plotting to kill Pannun, an American-Canadian citizen whom India has designated as a terrorist.
Gupta’s indictment came to light in November, five months after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada was investigating whether Indian “agents” were behind the killing of Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in British Columbia in June. India rejected Trudeau’s claim as “absurd” and asked 41 Canadian diplomats to leave the country.

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