Modi calls for action against rape in Independence Day speech

Prime minister says country hangs it head in shame over sexual assaults in a wide-ranging address that also touched on economy and communal violence.

Indian prime minister Narendra Modi delivers his first Independence Day speech from the Red Fort in New Delhi on August 15, 2014. Harish Tyagi / EPA

NEW DELHI // India’s prime minister Narendra Modi on Friday singled out rape and violence against women as he exhorted Indians to tackle the country’s numerous problems in his first Independence Day speech.

Mr Modi spoke almost extempore, unlike his predecessor, in a wide-ranging speech in Hindi that lasted just over an hour – the longest Independence Day speech delivered by any Indian prime minister.

As well frequent rapes, Mr Modi also addressed the problem of religious violence and ways to revive economic growth, which has been dropping for several years.

“Our heads hang in shame when we hear news about rape,” he said. “We keep tabs on our daughters. But do we ever keep tabs on our sons? Every rapist is someone’s son.”

Anger over sexual violence against women has been growing in India since December 2012 when a 23-year-old university student was gang raped in Delhi on a bus. She later died of injuries sustained during the attack.

An analysis of crime data by the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative this year showed that two rapes are reported every hour in India. Between 2001 and 2013, the number of reported rapes increased by 52 per cent.

The prime minister’s criticism of violence against women was a welcome message, said Soumya Pillai, 23, a graduate student in Bangalore, who watched Mr Modi’s speech on television.

“It’s a strong signal because he embedded it within this important speech that everybody’s watching,” Ms Pillai said, “and I hope law enforcement agencies and the courts take note of it”.

Mr Modi also pointed to other forms of violence in society – inter-caste and inter-religious violence, for instance, or terrorist and Maoist attacks – and proposed a “10-year moratorium” on such strife.

“We have fought enough, killed enough. If you look back, you will find that nobody has gained anything,” he said. “Promise yourself 10 years of peace and then see what heights we can touch.”

Mr Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party has been accused of stoking religious tensions for political gain. And he himself has been dogged for years by allegations that, while chief minister of Gujarat, he did too little to prevent riots in the state in 2002 in which more than 1,000 people, mainly Muslims died. He denies wrongdoing and was exonerated by a probe ordered by the Supreme Court.

Large sections of Mr Modi’s address were devoted to the economy and his ideas to revive it. Such ideas were a dominant theme of his election campaign, although his policies since he became prime minister in May have not reflected the boldness and vision he had earlier outlined.

Mr Modi promised to disband the Planning Commission, a remnant of India’s socialist decades, when the government tried to micromanage its economy. “Sometimes it becomes necessary to repair a house,” he said. “It costs a lot of money. But it does not give us satisfaction. Then we feel it is better to make a new house.”

To take over some of the Planning Commission’s duties, he proposed a think tank-like institution to engage “creative thinking” about the government’s role in an increasingly deregulated economy.

John Samuel Raja, founder of How India Lives, which analyses public economic data, welcomed the end of the Planning Commission.

“The Indian economy has moved far beyond the centrally planned stage.”

Mr Modi perhaps signalled this move in the budget presented in July, when his finance minister funnelled more money directly to the states instead of through the Planning Commission, Mr Raja said.

“The Planning Commission slowed down decision-making, but it did have its uses, including a number of experts who helped formulate policy,” Mr Raja said.

“Now the Planning Commission will no longer be around, each individual ministry will have to find subject experts to advise it.”

The proposed think tank might provide this expertise, he said.

Mr Raja said the abolishment of the commission would take decision-making powers closer still to Mr Modi, who likes to oversee policy processes closely.

Inviting the world to set up manufacturing units in his country, Mr Modi stressed on the importance of the “Made in India” label. “Come make in India. Be it plastics or cars or satellites or agricultural products, come make in India.”

Repeating a theme of his election campaign speeches, Mr Modi pledged himself to the nation, saying he was not the “pradhan mantri” – the prime minister – but the “pradhan sevak”, the “prime servant”.

“I promise my colleagues in the government: if you work 12 hours, I will work 13 hours. If you work 13 hours, I will work 15 hours,” he said.

Mr Modi’s speech on India’s 68th Independence Day, delivered as per tradition from the ramparts of the Red Fort in Delhi, followed a visit to Raj Ghat, the memorial to Mahatma Gandhi, to pay his respects.