Source: Government of India
Posted On: 08 MAY 2025 6:27PM by PIB Delhi
Good afternoon,
Shri Ram Madhav, Director, India Foundation. His public life has been dotted with contributions all throughout for larger public welfare but he can legitimately be counted as authentic part of Indian intelligentsia.
Distinguished guests from abroad, and Distinguished members of this group.
Greetings to our foreign guests to Bharat, home to one-sixth of humanity, Global epicenter of culture. We legitimately take pride in being a civilization of thousands of years old and we are unique in several ways, you would have already got some inkling of it. My very distinguished predecessor Venkaiah Naidu ji, a tall figure in Indian politics set very high benchmark as Chairman, Rajya Sabha. He started a bond as he has the good fortune to host two cohorts. Anything done by him carries sublimity and worth. I am delighted to continue this bond which will be enduring, and it is the fifth one. I am particularly fascinated by the name Kautilya fellowship program and more fascinated by the demographic upper sealing it has for 35 years. 35 years would mean all of you can qualify in the right age to be member of Lok Sabha, 25 years is the age.
At 30 you can be a member of the upper house. Unfortunately, you can’t contest the election to be the President. There you have to be more than 35 years of age. You are in a land which basically believes in universal brotherhood–Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam. When India hosted and set very high benchmark for G20, the G20 motto was One Earth, One family, One future. This has been exemplified by us over thousands of years, and also in contemporaneous times. At the moment we have global turbulence, Global disturbance. There are global conflagrations, nations are getting ambitious, they are getting in expansion mode and therefore Kautilya’s words of wisdom have great relevance.
Wisdom of Kautilya stands out not as ancient relic but as living guidance. I am sure you must have all studied on Kautilya and his thought process. His philosophy, his Arthashastra remains unmatched in its precision on governance, revealing a mind that understood powers essential in nature and while never forgetting its purpose. Power is defined by limitations. Democracy is nurtured ever mindful of the limitations of power. If you will go deep into Kautilya’s philosophy you will find all this converges only to one essence- nectar of governance, welfare of the people. Kautilya declared, “The happiness of the King lies in the happiness of his people”
If you look at Constitutions of any country that are democratic, you will find this philosophy is the underlying spirit and essence of Democratic governance and democratic values. This people centric foundation reminds us that legitimacy flows not on account of being elected to governance, not on account of being in seat of power but it flows when you get involved passionately in mission mode with deep commitment to execution and public welfare activities.
Democracy is nurtured best when expression and dialogue complement each other, this distinguishes democracy from any other form of governance and in India democracy did not start with our constitution coming into force or we getting Independence from foreign rule. We have been a democratic nation in spirit for thousands of years and this expression and dialogue, complementary mechanism, अभिव्यक्ति, वाद-विवाद has been known in Vedic culture as Anantvad. I am therefore extremely optimistic, brimming with confidence that a world that I described is so torn. If young minds can get together from several countries, get to know each other and that too in Land of Civilization, cradle of Civilization, crucible of innovation where the only thought process resonating over the years is welfare of all.
You would have felt by now, Atithi Devo Bhava. Guest for us is God. You would have felt it on any part of the country. The format will be different, mechanism will be different but the spirit will be the same. I therefore beseech you to look at Bharat, what it was, lost way somewhere in between. There was a time when India contributed to the extent of one third of the global economy, there was a time when India was global destination for knowledge & wisdom. Our educational institutions – Nalanda, Takshashila to name only two, were glorified but about 1300 years ago Nalanda was put in flames. Precious library was lost, Marauders came, they made an effort to revenge our culture, tyrannical, barbaric in their approach but the land survived.
You see recent decades, we were a fragile economy counted or stigmatized as being part of fragile five. Now we are the fourth largest global economy on way to becoming the third. You have to understand Bharat at the moment. No nation in the world has grown so exponentially in last decade as Bharat. Among the larger economies, our pace of growth, our economic upsurge has been at the front. This has converted Bharat into the most aspirational nation in the world at the moment. And primarily because of the segment you represent. Bharat’s demographic dividend is envy of the world. You all are stakeholders in governance in future of the world more than us. You have to drive the growth engine for larger prosperity of the world. Today you see a Bharat at the moment where developmental impact is being felt in the villages.
Imagine all village households having access to minimum 4G internet technology. Imagine a nation which contributes more than 50% of global technological transactions. Imagine a country of 1.4 billion which just a decade ago did not have all households connected to electricity, to pipe water, had no toilet facility, no gas connection. Now they have.
This transformation has brought about equality. This transformation has cut into inequities. Bharat is a growth story accoladed by the world. To be emulated by many nations and they have expressed desire. Global institutions, the World Bank, the IMF, they have recognised this spinal strength of human genius of Bharat. Strength and resilience of its economy. And that is why IMF declared India that is the Bharat as a global shining centre of investment and opportunity.
Boys and girls you are in this land. Our Prime Minister, a great visionary believes in big scale. He believes in massive transformation. He believes in the transformation of the world and after a decade of governance the results are writing on the wall. It is after a long gap of several decades, that we have a Prime Minister continually in the third term and that is making all the difference. And this is what Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, “Democracy is in our DNA”
Why in our DNA? Because from ancient Vedic Sabhas and Samitis to our contemporary electoral system. Boys and girls examine. This is the only country in the world that has constitutionally prescribed democratic system at the village level, at the district level, at the state level, at the national level.
This was brought in effect in our country about three and a half decades ago. We started initially with electoral system, democratic process for Parliament and state legislatures but now it has permeated and all this is Constitutionally prescribed. A stable, robust constitutional mechanism has to ensure governance at the village level, at taluk level, at district level. Let me indicate some statistics that will buttress my point. Our electoral process stands as a marvel of scale and inclusion.
The number of registered voters is 990 million. We will be touching a billion. And in the last election in 2024, 642 million people cast votes. This is twice the size of the population of United States. Globally in democratic process there is a declining trend of participation but Bharat defeats this trend. Participatory democracy is blossoming in Bharat and the turnout is rising. It is currently close to 65 percent. Our commitment to gender equity is now constitutionally codified. Women reservation in legislature and Parliament is to the extent of one third now. This is a facet of empowerment of women.
Humanity cannot grow equitably without a fair share of participation by women. But what you need to learn more particularly is reservation to the extent of one third in Lok Sabha and State legislatures is not the upper limit. In the other two third category women can participate. So their number will be more than two third, more than one third, but a striking feature of this reservation is it is horizontal and vertical. Marginalised sections, scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, they will have reservation in themselves but there will be reservation for women in that category also.
So boys and girls, this is epochal development. This will be game changing and this will impact this country in a manner that we will regain our past glory as Vishwaguru. Bharat is not a nation with potential. It is a nation on the rise. The rise is unstoppable. The rise is incremental. Making India a developed nation at 2047 when we complete centenary of our independence is not a dream.
It is our destination. Everyone in the country is confident we will achieve it in 2047 if not earlier. In doing all this, our Prime Minister has exemplified in action Kautilyan philosophy. Kautilya’s thought process is a treatise in governance virtually encyclopedic for every facet of governance, state craft, security, role of the king, now those elected. In our multipolar world, we are shifting alliances; you know more than I do. We had a concept, fly by night concept. Same can be seen with alliances. But Kautilya imagined then that this will be our shifting.
Let me quote Kautilya, “Neighbouring state is an enemy and the enemy’s enemy is a friend”, which country knows better than Bharat. We always believe in global peace, global fraternity, global welfare and that is why I said our motto for G20 reflected that 100%. We must go by results. How many people have been hand held to lead a life of dignity, to come out of poverty and that is decided by certain indicators. The number is 248 million. This has been done by a multi pronged strategy. They have been hand held and they have come out. The number will keep on growing. I do not wish to take more time but indicate to you that perhaps what is your median age? 28, around. I say so because this is median age of our demographic dividend. This will take us to our destination.
I will conclude by giving you one illustration, How Prime Minister Modi followed Chanakya Kautilya. When the world faced a non-discriminatory challenge in the shape of COVID, the challenge was much bigger for a nation of 1.4 billion people, and this is what Narendra Modi did. His first step was people’s curfew. People were amazed. Why India’s Prime Minister is thinking of people’s curfew? It was not state sponsored, not administration enforced. He appealed to the people.
Not a soul was on the street. There was near 100% compliance. This motivated the people. This gave strength to a leadership that had vision. Determined to fight COVID at a time when there was no vaccine. No immediate solution in sight.
I know it because then I was boys and girls, Governor of the State of West Bengal. I was looking at the problem that was staring us. I had the good fortune to see in city of joy, Kolkata, curfew being 100% by the people but the underlying spirit of the Prime Minister was it is for the people. It is for the benefit of the people. Can there be greater awareness of the problem than this? This one step by visionary Prime Minister enlightened everyone about the gigantic scale of the problem. Secondly, lighting of candles. I as governor did it. And that was symbolising hope that there may be darkness of COVID, but there will be light. We have Indian tradition when there is some happiness lie when a child is born, how do you light a candle? How would the villagers know? So the house that is honoured by arrival of a newborn, they will take a thali, a metal plate and do it, we did that. At that time, some people did not see the underlying rationale of the Prime Minister. In retrospect they know the man was present Kautilya. He was present, Chanakya. Same about economy. Economy of this country has risen like a plateau. He realised, as Kautilya instructed in Arthashastra, if the last mile people do not rise, economy cannot get quantum jump.
Just imagine, and I will urge all of you to study, the impact of Mudra Loan. How it has converted 50% beneficiaries who are women into entrepreneurs. How it has led women and others to self-economic independence. I am extremely delighted to be amongst you because you constitute the intellectual capital of the world. This convergence is motivated by not welfare of one nation, one race, one caste, one creed, one religion. It is meant in the true spirit of ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’, the world is one family. We aspire for welfare of the entire world.
Kautilya had one great emphasis. Democracy has to be participatory. Development equally has to be participatory. He laid great emphasis on individuals contributing for national welfare. A nation is defined by decorum, discipline that is individualistic in nature. Similarly, I quote Kautilya, “Just as one wheel alone does not move a cart,” those were the days only of cart, not of automobiles.
Administration cannot be accomplished single-handedly. This nation has an administration which is innovative. In the country we had some districts that were lagging behind. Bureaucrats did not venture into those areas. Prime Minister Modi created a nomenclature for those districts. ‘Aspirational Districts’ and now those ‘Aspirational Districts’ have turned out to be leader districts in development.
Prime Minister Modi certainly thought that people are going to metros. Tier 2, Tier 3 cities must also be hub of economic activity. He devised a mechanism of smart cities. Smart cities were not in the context of infrastructure or beauty. It was in the context of facilities being available for entrepreneurs, for students, so that they do not have to go to metros.
There was a time when in this country for security purposes we used to call our villages on the border as the last village. He changed it. He changed it into first village, a vibrant village. So boys and girls, make most of your time while you are here and I am sure you will carry fond memories. Nurture the bonds you create here. These bonds will help you all your lives, trust me. Do you have an alumni culture of your cohorts? Develop that. I am extremely privileged to be part of this discourse. I will say three things and conclude. One — it is for the first time in G20, India took the initiative to make African Union a member of G20. It is for the first time that Prime Minister Modi took the initiative to put the consensus of the Global South on international radar. And last, while you were battling COVID, this country helped 100 other countries with COVID vaccine.
Thank you so much
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JKRC/SM
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