Speech by

Shri L.K. Advani

Leader of the Opposition (Lok Sabha)

BUSINESS STANDARD AWARDS

Mumbai – June 21, 2008

Shri T.N. Ninan, Editor and Publisher of Business Standard, distinguished award winners, ladies and gentlemen,

I am indeed pleased to be with you here this evening. I thank Shri Ninan for inviting me to attend this glittering function. It gives me an opportunity to interact with members of the business community and business media in India’s commercial capital.

I can see many familiar faces in the audience, people who have excelled in their respective businesses and professions. But today I also got introduced to a new crop of high achievers — and some of them are winners of this year’s Business Standard Awards. Obviously, new success stories in innovation and enterprise are being added each year in India. This shows the growing vibrancy of Indian business.

My hearty congratulations to all the winners of this year’s Business Standard Awards.

A word about Shri Ninan himself. His is a remarkable success story in himself. Here is a working journalist — and he has not ceased to be a working journalist even after becoming a publisher — who has quietly and consistently recorded one achievement after another in his career, to now become a doyen of business journalism in India.

There is something to be said about Business Standard, the paper that Shri Ninan edits. It has remained true to its name, maintaining its standard as a top-class business newspaper, highly credible — and that is its greatest strength — and highly readable both in its news and views pages. It is perhaps not as adventurous as its competitor in the pink press, but being conservative but wedded to professional values has its own luster.

I wish Business Standard, Shri Ninan and all his colleagues greater success in the years to come.

A government in ICU

Friends, I am rather at a loss as to how to proceed with my remarks without sounding political. Today’s headlines in all the newspapers, including in Business Standard, describe a political situation in the country from which only one conclusion can be drawn: The UPA government is now in ICU. How it will rescue itself is something that I do not know, for I am not a doctor.

But here is the case of a doctor who has brought his own government to this critical pass.

Inflation has shot up to 11 %, which is a 13-year record. And 13, as many will agree, is not a very propitious number. We in the BJP know, having first had a 13-day government in 1996 and then a 13-month government in 1998.

Certainly, people expected better management of the nation’s economy from Dr. Manmohan Singh, who is known to be a distinguished economist.

The other news of the day is how the government has pushed itself into a corner on the Indo-US nuclear deal.

My party’s views on the deal are well known and I do not wish to reiterate them here.

UPA’s crisis: A predictable outcome of Congress-Communist contradictions

However, I am constrained to say that in my six decades in national politics, I have never across a government that has remained in a state of paralysis for so long a time due to its own internal contradictions.

It was known right from the beginning that the Congress and the CPI(M)-led Left parties do not share any common ground on economic and foreign policies. And, yet, they came together on the bogus claim of unity of “secular forces”. Frankly, the real aim of the two parties was to keep the BJP out.

And now the contradictions between the Congress and the Communists have inevitably come home to roost.

If the government goes ahead with operationalisation of the nuclear deal, the Communists will withdraw their support and the government will fall.

If the government once again chooses to retreat, the Prime Minister’s credibility and authority, which were never very high, will have all but evaporated.

My simple question to Congressmen is this: IS THIS THE WAY TO RUN A GOVERNMENT?

There are, no doubt, some highly experienced ministers in this government. Nevertheless, collectively, I have never seen a more inept and incompetent leadership at the helm of a government in the last sixty years.

The UPA government has sealed its fate. It has written its own epitaph even before its formal exit.

Post-UPA India needs a strong government

with strong leadership

The people of India are now looking beyond the UPA government. And I am sure the people in this audience, representing the business community of India, are also looking beyond the UPA government.

Friends, some of you might think that, as the Leader of the Opposition, I would be happy at this turn of events. Frankly, I am not.

I feel concerned that India’s tremendous potential for progress in various fields is being hampered by opportunist politics, the worst manifestation of which is what we are witnessing in New Delhi these days.

India cannot afford a weak and wobbly government at a time when our country faces many formidable challenges.

• There is the challenge of fighting inflation and controlling prices of essential commodities and services needed for the common man.
  

• There is the challenge of further accelerating the rate of growth, and the far greater challenge of broadbasing economic growth in order to ensure that its fruits reach, first and foremost, the poorest and the most deprived. The principal aim of economic growth in India has to be three-fold: (a) eradication of poverty at the earliest; (b) generation of productive employment opportunities for every pair of working hands; and (c) bridging the rich-poor divide, which is assuming alarming proportions.
  

• There is the challenge of effectively meeting the threats to our internal security.
  

• There is also now the challenge arising out of disturbing developments on our northern border.
  

• Our security concerns also manifest in other ways. For example, the problem of energy security that our country is currently facing calls for urgent and effective solutions.
  

I appeal to our scientists, technologists and entrepreneurs to evolve solutions that reduce India’s dependence on imported oil, whose price is inexorably shooting up. Energy Conservation and Energy Efficiency must become a national mission.

To face all these challenges, India needs a strong government and a strong leadership.

India needs a government with a vision, and a government for which the nation’s interests override everything else.

India needs a government that is wedded to the principle of Good Governance, which is critical for both Development and Security.

I can say in all humility that my party, along with our allies in the NDA, tried to provide such a rule during the six-year period between 1998 and 2004. Under the leadership of Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee, our government took many bold initiatives. The far-sighted policy changes that we effected strengthened the economy.

Indeed, many businessmen tell me that the buoyancy that we now witness in several sectors of the Indian economy is, to a significant extent, due to the decisions taken by the Vajpayee government.

I am not saying that all good things were done by our government alone. My party has never hesitated to support — or acknowledge — good initiatives taken by other governments.

As I said, the country is now looking beyond the UPA government.

My party and our alliance are ready to provide the kind of strong, cohesive and dynamic alternative that the people are looking for, the kind of alternative which is the need of the hour.

We shall unveil agenda for a Resurgent India

In the days and months to come, we shall unveil a powerful agenda for a Resurgent India.

• An agenda for a strong and vibrant economy, which can withstand the downturn and volatility in the global economy and also seize the new opportunities therein.
  

• An agenda to revitalize agriculture and make the rural economy the engine for inclusive growth.
  

• An agenda for fixing the ills of small and medium enterprises, and, especially, of the informal sector, which even today creates the largest number of employment opportunities.
  

In this context, I must say that I am highly impressed by C.K. Prahlad’s theory about “The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid”. I agree with his approach to poverty alleviation, which states that “if we stop seeing the poor as victims or as a burden and start recognizing them as resilient and creative entrepreneurs and value-conscious consumers, a whole new world of opportunities will open up.”

Let us empower the Small Man, because the Small Man will in turn empower the Nation.

• Our agenda will lay strong emphasis on India’s urban renewal. Our country is getting urbanized at a rapid pace. Our cities and towns have become the main propellers of economic growth. Sadly, the quality of life remains unsatisfactory for all sections of India’s urban population. In some cities, such as in Mumbai, it has actually worsened due to persistent neglect of infrastructure and civic amenities. While I admire the resilience of Mumbaiites, I indeed feel sorry for their daily plight.
  

Let me mention here that Good Governance is critical for solving the ills of unplanned urban growth. The best example of this is Gujarat. Here, under the leadership of Shri Narendra Modi, not only are all the cities witnessing an unprecedented boom, but the government has also embarked upon the most ambitious programme for slum rehabilitation anywhere in the country.

The political importance of urban issues was something I understood more clearly when I went to Karnataka recently to campaign for my party in the recently concluded assembly elections. A principal contributor to our success in Karnataka was the support we received in Bangalore city, where the people were simply fed up with the neglect of orderly urban development by the previous governments. We included a detailed and well-researched section on making Bangalore a world-class city in our party’s election manifesto. And I am confident that the new government, headed by Shri B.S. Yeddyurappa, will fulfill this promise.

• Our agenda will also establish a strong bond with the Youth of India. For this, we shall give top priority to enriching the vast pool of human resources that India is blessed with.
  

As a politician, I am struck by the fact that there will be as many as ten crore first-time voters in the next parliamentary elections.

I know that each of those 18-year-plus young Indians has a dream of his or her own. They want to live a better life, a secure life.

They have a dream not only for themselves; they have a dream for India, too. They want to see India emerge as a strong, prosperous and self-confident nation. A nation respected by the world community and one playing a leading role in world affairs.

It is our duty to ensure that their dreams are fulfilled.

For this, I would like to see a revolutionary expansion in the opportunities for high-quality education at all levels, especially in higher and professional education.

We should especially improve India’s strengths in innovation through research and development.

I am told that the total number of PhDs India produces in technology areas each year is only around 500. We should have at least 5,000. Otherwise, how will we even have qualified teachers in engineering colleges and technology research institutes?

All this is not possible without massive participation of the private and philanthropic sector.

We should create an education infrastructure in which every young boy and girl gets an opportunity to blossom.

Friends, India’s problems cannot be solved by imitating the development model of any other country. This is my firm belief.

Therefore, speaking at the annual function of ASSOCHAM recently, I said that we would like to evolve a blueprint for an INDIAN MODEL OF DEVELOPMENT, which is suited to our people’s needs and aspirations, employs our own indigenous resources most efficiently, respects the environment, and is rooted in our civilisational ethos.

I seek your ideas and suggestions — and even your active participation — in the evolution of this blueprint.

With these words, I once again thank Shri Ninan for inviting me to this gala function.

And I thank you for listening to my views with patience and interest.

Thank you.