Modi@8: Surgical strikes, airstrikes on terror camps replaced soft-pedaling by Congress government, says Amit Shah

On the eighth anniversary of the Modi government, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said surgical strikes and airstrikes on terror camps have replaced soft-pedaling lip service of the previous Congress government due to their appeasement politics.

“Modi government has completely delinked politics from national security,” Shah wrote in an OpEd piece in News18.

Shah said India’s self-reliance on defence production has jumped manifold, bearing fruits of the visionary policies of the Modi government. “India exported defence goods worth more than ten thousand crores in 2015 and aims to achieve the target of thirty-five thousand crores by 2025,” he said.

Home Minister said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not only led the country into a new era marked by inclusivity and greater well-being but his statesmanship and vision have enhanced India’s prestige and honor in the global comity of nations.

“From climate change initiatives to Covid-pandemic management, India under Modi has stood out as an exemplar for the rest of the world to emulate. Moreover, whenever Prime Minister Modi addresses global trade and economic issues, his speeches are prefaced with India’s glorious civilizational heritage and the wonderful prospects that lie ahead. His statesman-like observations at world stages have forced the world to look at India from a fresh perspective,” he said.

Shah noted that India is now boldly able to make its point, forcefully and independently, without bowing down to any global superpower.

“Prime Minister Modi’s speech at the United Nations and other international forums is among the most-watched and sought after, reflecting India’s growing global stature. Modi’s tenure has been marked by resounding echoes of the country’s history, culture, and civilizational attributes, not just in India, but across the world, paving the emergence of the Indian era in modern world history,” he said.

India’s development experience since Narendra Modi took over as the country’s Prime Minister flows from the path-breaking policy measures that have prompted the reinterpretation of conventional growth models, he said.

“One way of recognizing that a wide range of economic and policy reforms must be made is to realize at the outset that the development process encompasses much more than the readily visible economic metrics. Over the last eight years, the Modi government has taken a variety of high-impact decisions and formulated policies that have had a remarkable effect on triggering equitable, broad-based, and sustained development in India. I see this rule of India as a journey to build a ‘New India’ — a strong, capable and self-reliant India,” he said.

Shah said this period will stand out for the Prime Minister’s unwavering focus to remain steadfast on the journey to build a New India, despite unforeseen obstacles such as the Covid-19 pandemic.

“When the Covid-19 pandemic pummelled the world in 2020, dark clouds engulfed economies across the world. The sight was menacing and the prospects were uncertain. This prompted one uniform question from everyone: when shall the sun return and the gloom disappear? This was brought upon by an unimaginable medical emergency that consumed the world, inflicting debilitating consequences that affected liv

and livelihoods. Different sectors and industries needed different solutions. Different industries needed different support systems. It was similar to putting to start a complex engineering apparatus,” he said.

Shah said India, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, chose a calibrated approach, with a visionary #Aatmanirbhar Bharat plan.

“Another defining feature of the last eight years has been India’s emergence as a global manufacturing hotspot. Until 2014, India was growing in large part on the strength of investment in technology service industries, not manufacturing. This gave birth to a cottage industry of some economists trying to prove, in optimistic hindsight, that India had missed the manufacturing bus and would have to take a `service escalator’ to grow. It was also argued that the evolving challenge for countries such as India is that it is tougher and tougher to get into the manufacturing game or to stay in it. Recent evidence from India’s manufacturing sector — defence, pharmacy, and electronics — seem to be turning this hypothesis on its head,” he said.

He said another example of India’s gallop to the top manufacturing league can be gauged from the endorsement of policies from institutions such as the World Bank. “India has jumped 79 notches in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Rankings, from 142 in 2014 to 63 in 2020, in commendation of a string of reforms — from the signature ‘Make in India’ initiative to insolvency resolutions — that the Narendra Modi government has launched over the last eight years. These efforts have culminated in India rising to the sixth-largest economy in the world,” he said.

Eight years later, the scheme has achieved far more than what was envisioned. As of May 29, 2022, there were 45.47 crore beneficiaries banked so far with a combined deposit balance of Rs 167,406.58 crore. 

“The scale and design of the Modi government’s schemes and policies are primarily aimed to keep the poorest of the poor in mind. Programs such as Ujjwala, Swachh Bharat, Shubhagya, Awas Yojana, Kisan Samman Nidhi, and Ayushman Bharat, etc mirror the implementation of the government’s ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’ vision that has set in a whole new template of welfare economics. Now, for the first time since Independence, the poor of India are considered stakeholders in India’s growth story,” Shah said.

Today, he said, when the Narendra Modi government completes eight years in office, the country is celebrating 75 years of attaining independence. “It is a landmark that is an occasion to look back on what could have been. It is also a time to look ahead to see what can be. Prime Minister Modi has appropriately envisioned looking ahead into 2047, urging people to usher in the era of ‘Amrit Kaal’ when India marches ahead into a glorious period of peace and prosperity,” he said.