Source: Government of India (2)

Posted On: 24 MAR 2025 4:06PM by PIB Delhi

Boys and girls, I welcome you to the sixth batch. We have had so far five batches and we have been benefited by youth of the country participating in these internships to the extent of 142 so you, a group of 34, will join the group of 142.

I strongly urge you to be in connect with the group all your life. There is a platform that will help you connect with them and members of the group are diversified as is your group. In terms of educational qualifications, in terms of gender, in terms of regional commitments, in terms of mother tongue but one thing is very common, spirit of nationalism is throbbing in the hearts of all.

This is a unique opportunity, you are not going to be taught anything here, you will be inspired and motivated to self-learn. Your stay here in this internship is with a very laudable purpose. India is mother of democracy, largest democracy, most functional democracy, the only constitutional democracy that is at the village level, at the municipal level, at the district level, at the state level, and at the central level. Other countries have democracies but if you examine our election to Panchayat, our election to Municipality, our election to Zila Parishad or Panchayat Samiti is held under Election Commission, which is under the Constitution.

They have the same structure, and Constitution was amended for it, part IX and part IXA of the Constitution. If you will read, you will find two Schedules 11 and 12, which give the areas of operation of Panchayati Raj institutions and Municipal institutions. As you are aware, there is a commission, Finance Commission. The job of the Finance Commission is to divide funds between the Union and the States. Similarly, there is a fund at the Panchayat and Municipal level, where funds are divisible between the State government funds, Panchayat institutions and Municipalities so Panchayat and Municipalities are institutions of self-governance.

Now, your primary purpose is to handhold the public representative. You will have to equip yourself with parliamentary procedure, about working of Parliament, role of Members of Parliament and once you are given a lead, you have to learn on your own.

Our country is governed first by constitutional provisions. You will have the occasion to see the Constitution signed by the Members of the Constitutional Assembly so go to the root of the matter. Try to get to micro level, try to find out that what changes have taken place in the Constitution and changes in the Constitution is the sole prerogative of Parliament but there are some changes where Parliament alone is not sufficient to endorse constitutional amendment. It has to be endorsed by 50% of State Legislatures but when it comes to amendment of the Constitution, Parliament is the repository of it, in some cases alongside State Legislatures and the final arbiter, the final authority, no intervention from any agency whatsoever is permissible with respect to constitutional amendment, but with respect to the laws made by Parliament or state legislatures, the courts have a role. The role is of judicial review and judicial review is to see if the law is in accord with constitutional provisions.

You would have seen recently that in one state there is an indication that they will make reservation for contracts that is in the domain of business to a particular community, a religious denomination. Now look at the constitutional provisions. Does our Constitution allow any reservation on religious considerations? Find out what Dr. B.R. Ambedkar had said, and you will be enlightened that there can be no reservation on religious considerations. That is something you have to go into it, deep into it.

Remember, the Constitution provides for hand-holding mechanism, affirmative mechanism and that is for scheduled caste, scheduled tribe, and socially and educationally backward classes, so when I was a Member of Parliament in 1989, the government of the day of which I was a part, as a Minister, promulgated what came to be known as Mandal Commission Report applicability. This was challenged in the Supreme Court after the government of which I was part had collapsed, a government collapses means it did not complete its term.

The next government came and the next government granted further reservation to economic weaker sections. Both were challenged in the Indra Sawhney case, and nine judges of the Supreme Court, boys and girls, dealt with that judgement. The Mandal reservation, the affirmative hand-holding policy which is sanctified under Articles 14, 15 and 16, was upheld by the majority but reservation on account of economic backwardness, economy being a criteria, was struck down as unconstitutional.

Now the question immediately arises, how come we have reservation now based on economic criteria? Because then the route was not taken through the Constitution. This time the route was taken by the government through Constitution. First the provision in the Constitution was amended, and economic criteria was made a basis, and that is why the courts upheld it. So you have to be very discerning about what you face. You can’t guide yourself immediately by perception. You have to move with a thought process.

It is after a long gap, long gap of centuries, that we are in a state of hope and possibility. There was a time when India’s contribution to global trade was nearly one-third. There was a time when India was reckoned as Vishwaguru. There was a time when you had Nalanda but 1300 years ago, Nalanda was set on fire. The fire was there for several days. Lakhs of books were destroyed, and then followed foreign regime, reckless, brutal, destroying our culture, destroying our religious places. So was the blatant retributive approach that they destroyed our religious places and had their own. Then we were ruled by the British.

But now there is an atmosphere of hope and possibility. Now, an ecosystem where every young boy and girl can aspire to exploit talent, potential, realise dreams and aspirations. I would urge all of you as interns, please find out the basket of opportunities that for the youth is growing up, enlarging day by day. Find out India’s development in deep sea, India’s development on the surface of sea, deep ground, on the ground, in the sky and space. We are making a huge mark. There are avenues in all these areas, Blue Economy, Space Economy, we have to have a share of it and therefore, you all will have to be messengers of the change for youth that come out of your silos.

Youth in the country at the moment is in a silo, limited view, Government job, Private job but now things have changed. You can experiment if India is home to unicorns, startups. It is by boys and girls from tier two cities, from villages, from tier three cities. Affirmative governance, innovative schemes, financial assistance enable you. Just think one thing, if global institutions, International Monetary Fund says that India is a hot spot, a destination which is favourite for investment and opportunity, surely, it is not for Government jobs.

The change that has taken place is, there was a time with global institutions, Indian mind was not there. Now, there is no global institution without Indian mind dominating. Girls are far ahead of it at a global level. You have to today realise that you are lucky to be living in times where India is focal centre of the world on account of economy that is performing around 8% annually.

India is no longer a Nation with a potential, India is on a nation on progress. The development is unstoppable, incremental. A developed nation objective is no longer a dream, it’s our destination but it will be wishful thinking if as youth, you do not contribute because you are the serious stakeholders in governance in future, and therefore, you have to change the mindset of people. You have to define citizen’s attitude, you have to persuade everyone around that fundamental rights are fine, but we must first carry out fundamental duties. You’ll be surprised to know that most people are neither aware of fundamental duties nor they are aware of our rich culture, Vedas, Upanishads, Puranas. I don’t want to pose a question to you, but my experience is most people have not even seen physically Vedas. I’m sure steps will be taken to give you a book that will enlighten you about Vedas, the one which was circulated at my directive to all the Members of Parliament by Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.

You have to be positive in your approach. Just imagine a country like ours, where to change the lives of people, to pick them up. 800 million people and more are getting free ration from April 1, 2020 and look at some perverted mind, they say, oh, over 800 million people are poor. They can’t feed on their own, therefore, are feeding them. I lament their negativity. I lament their perversion. They’re hand-holding them. When you go to an airport, most people walk, but there is a skeletal force and there is horizontal movement mechanism also. That is not that you are disabled, it helps you improve your proficiency.

We have to believe in certain things which you must learn and that is countries in the world are developed. We will be developed. Our target is 2047 when India celebrates centenary of independence, and it can be earlier also, but which country in the world, number is only two, three that of civilisational depth of thousands of years. The countries that are developed, their history is 300 years, 400 years. We are that rich so we have to nurture our civilisational values while promoting indigenous development and the challenges are emanating every day because of social media also. People allow us to be calibrated by others, why? We as a Nation, we are what we are.

Now, we have ongoing debates, when I told you about reservation in contracts to a religious denomination. Violating equality, violating level-playing field and outraging constitutional prescriptions. Therefore, we must always work that we iconize our heroes. Can we iconize our invaders, destroyers, those who engaged in reckless brutalisation of our civilisational values? Every young boy and girl has power individually, also collectively to thwart these menacing, sinister trends.

I am sometimes amazed. How can we have public disorder? How can we have disruption of normal working? How can we have reprehensible spectacles of public property being set to fire? And if these people are visited with consequences in exemplary manner, after all, a building has to be raised to the ground only by mechanised method. Call it bulldozer then this is different hour. A bulldozer if it carries out a lawful command, is an accessory of law, not against the rule of law. We have to create national climate, national fervour that we will always keep Nation first. Partisan, economic, personal interest can never be a premise, a justifiable ground to compromise your nationalism. You must in this society move ahead by persuasion, positivity, and propriety.

We have become so impatient, so intolerant, we don’t want to listen to the other person. We believe in ourselves being always right. We are judgemental that we alone are right and others are wrong. Democracy is all about expression and dialogue, you have a right of expression, your right of expression cannot be thwarted. If it is thwarted, or you are in fear before you speak the truth, or your point of view. Governance is not democracy but what use is expression when you don’t allow the other person to say anything contrary? And therefore dialogue is essential. Dialogue is nectar of democracy, dialogue is human interactive session. It has been reflected in our culture Vedas, as Anantavada, anyone who believes in one way traffic of expression leads to authoritarianism. It is dialogue that rationalises expression.

Second, if you believe only you alone being right, you become victim of aham and ahankar. Human genius is aplenty. It is not in the captivity of any position, of anyone, a parliamentarian, a bureaucrat, or a judge. Every individual is gifted, and India abounds in this.

Most of us are always in some kind of a mental tussle. We want autonomy of thought process. How do we dress? How do we eat? How do we practise? But this autonomy is not incompatible to accountability. These two are complementary, if I have a religion, and I wish to profess my religion, the religion professing has to be there as a private affair. It can’t be on a public street, or a public space like a railway station or airport, or even a flight because when you are at these places, you are bound by rules, rules of the game as they say. There has to be rule-based regime in every working and therefore, to converge, to demonstrate, it is a right to create an unsettled situation. Young minds have to change the mindset of others and work in that direction.

Time has come when we must nurture our culture, One Nation, One Culture. No civilisation in the world is as inclusive as Bharat, no civilisation. We have never believed in confrontation, never in adversarial stance but what we find is, even political temperature is very high in the country. We quickly take irretrievable, confrontational, positioning on issues. We are the only way out in dialogue. You will have the occasion to go through what happened in the Constituent Assembly. It happened in 18 sessions, a little less than three years- two years, 11 months and few days.

You will be surprised, they dealt with very divisive issues of language, of reservation. Very divisive, contentious issues, but there was no disruption. There was no disturbance, there were no placards, there was no shouting. All in a spirit of cooperation, coordination, convergence and that is why consensual approach is fundamental to evolution of democratic values.

India is recognised in the world as a great power because of you boys and girls. Our demographic dividend, it is envy of the world and you have to perform. You have to neutralise racism, negativity. There is effort in the nation and outside to run us down but you must always realise India’s rise is for global stability. India’s rise is for global peace and youth alone can bring big change. I’m sure you all will work in that direction.

You will have the occasion to get a real intellectual feast of experienced minds; but most of it will have to be self-learning. Use every moment with inquisitiveness, self-learning, what you can add more every day. Write a diary daily. Pose good questions to one another also. I will have the occasion to interact with you at completion and that I will organise at Vice-President’s House.

I have indicated and you will have the occasion to ask searching questions. Let me give you two, three poses, you’ll be surprised. There are 12 nominated members in Rajya Sabha. They vote for the Vice-President, they don’t vote for the President. Surprised! 12 nominated Members of Rajya Sabha vote for the Vice-President.

Now the reasoning given is that the President appoints him, that situation arose earlier but there has been a constitutional change, which was not earlier. That the President is bound 100% by the advice of Council of Ministers s       o the fact is the President doesn’t appoint as such. He goes by the advice of the Council of Ministers then why the distinction? Second, if an MLA has to vote for the President, which he does, there is secrecy of ballot but if the same MLA has to vote for a Member of Rajya Sabha, like two of them here on my right, he has to show his vote to his party boss. Why? Just think about it. These things must be in your mind.

You must find out how many members were there in the Constituent Assembly to begin with. With the partition, how many went? Who are those six who did not sign, or could not sign? You have to think deeply why the country started celebration of Constitution Day. It was not earlier. It was started 10 years back. Why did a decision was taken to have Samvidhan Hatya Diwas? Why? Because you boys and girls are not aware that the nation was plunged in darkness in 1975. Lakhs of people were put in jail. The glorious rights of democracy, one of which being the right to approach the court, access to judiciary was availed. Nine high courts decided citizens have that right. Supreme Court declined and said two things. One, during emergency, you have no fundamental rights so people languished in jail and who languished in jail, they later on became Prime Ministers. So Chaudhary Charan Singh became a Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee became Prime Minister, Chandra Shekharji became Prime Minister, to just name a few but it happened.

Then how long will Emergency last? It was decided by the court as long as the executive wants. So we were plunged in darkness. You are not aware and therefore to remind you, that why do we have Constitution at the House. If you will find out other things also, get to the deep of it. Parakram Diwas, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, we had forgotten him. Birsa Munda, Janjatiya Diwas, we had forgotten him. Many like him.

Therefore we have rediscovered our real heroes, who should have been well sung but either they were not well sung, or unsung, or forgotten because culture is something, history is something that has to inspire and motivate us. Do we have a box where we can put suggestions? We have a portal. 

I am initiating a new mechanism, a box will be put, where during the day without revealing your identity, you can make any suggestion and I will look into that on a daily basis.

Best of luck. Enjoy your day.

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JK

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