31 December, 2011 (English) - Bharatiya Janata Party

Friends, let me come straightto presenting a few broadthoughts which, I think ought toguide India’s Yatra into theFuture.India must not imitate thedevelopment models of the WestFirst, I would like to ask:Why are we blindly imitating theWest’s model of development,knowing fully well that thismodel is not only unsustainablebut has also landed westerneconomies into a deep crisis?Shouldn’t India seek its ownSince 1997, Good Governancehas been a constant idea inall my political activities andcampaigns. It was aprominent point of focus inmy latest Yatra also. However,the Jan Chetana Yatra soughtto highlight another relatedimperative — namely, CleanPolitics.solutions to its problems, whilelearning from others’ positiveexperiences and avoiding theirmistakes? Can America’s andEurope’s model of developmentbe a template for India’sdevelopment?Take FDI in retail forexample. How many people inour society can it benefit? Why isthe government so slavishlylooking at foreign investment ina sector like retail for answers toproblems created by its ownmismanagement of the economysuch as inflation, price rise andunemployment? The UPAgovernment is fooling people byclaiming that FDI in retail willcreate millions of jobs and bringdown inflation. All this is eyewash.The government has notDecember 16-31, 2011 21been able to allay the fears ofmillions of shop-keepers andSMEs in the country. Even theCongress party’s own tradeunion, INTUC, has opposed thegovernment’s move. In recentdecades there never has beensuch a total ‘Bharat Bandh’ (AllIndia Strike) as there was lastThursday in protest againstGovernment’s decision to permitForeign Direct Investment inRetail Trade.Similar tall claims weremade three years ago at the timeof the Indo-US nuclear deal. Itwill solve the problem ofIndia’s acute power shortage,government leaders said inParliament. I want to ask thePrime Minister: “On howmany new nuclear plants haswork begun in the past threeyears? How much nuclearpower will be generated on areasonable basis in the nextten years? Will thegovernment come out with awhite paper on the issue?”Congress has created aGlittering India for therich, and gloomy India forthe poorSecond, the future that Indiashould march towards has to bea future that makes our societymore egalitarian, with broadlyequitable opportunities for allthe 1.2 billion Indians. Sadly,today’s India is more iniquitousthan ever before. A small sectionof our society has becomeimmensely prosperous in recentyears, leaving the majority farbehind in terms of access toeducation, healthcare, housingand even something as basic asclean drinking water.When I took out the BharatUday Yatra in 2004, many of thosewho are in government criticizedme for making claims about‘Shining India’. I made no claimsabout Shining India. My claimwas about Rising India, whichis the correct translation of‘Bharat Uday’. My mistake wasthat I allowed it to be translatedas ‘Shining India’. But I wouldlike to ask my detractors: “Yourwrong policies in the past sevenyears have created a glitteringand glitzy India for a smallsection of the super-rich, whereasthe majority of those living invillages, urban slums andmiddle classes are condemnedto live in varying degrees ofdarkness.”Therefore, if we want India’sYatra into the future to proceedin the right direction, if crores ofIndia’s young people are to havehope in a bright future forthemselves, we need an urgentcourse correction in policies andprogrammes. We need athorough reform of the reformprocess.Three, my long experience inpolitics and government hasconvinced me that rightgovernance is far more importantthan right-sounding policies.After independence, andespecially in the past 30-40 years,there has been a steady declinein the ethos and values ofgovernance. Misuse of theinstitutions of governance for thepartisan ends of the ruling party,which began at the top, hasspread to all levels.The cancerous spread ofcorruption is the most visible signof the lack of good governance.There can be no compromisewith this disease, because it iseating into the vitals of our polityand society. But the cleaning upmust begin from the top. Thosewhose names have figured in