Following is the text of Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh's speech titled "Can India Lead the Way in
the Next Century" at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit here
Friday:
"In the past four years your annual summit has repeatedly focused
public attention on the challenges of development India is facing
and the opportunities before us in the new century. Four years ago I
said to you that one of the great experiments of the past century
was the struggle of the Indian people to seek their social and
economic salvation within the framework of a plural and liberal
democracy. This will remain the great human experiment of the
present 21st century as well.
I said then that the 'idea of unity in diversity' and the
philosophical tradition that inspired it remain our great
inheritance that we would like the entire world to embrace. The
notion of cooperative pluralism and respect for diversity that is
the basis of our democracy must also be the basis of global
governance in the 21st century.
People seek well-being and sustainable livelihoods, but they also
seek fundamental freedoms. People want jobs, people want education,
people want housing and health care. But people also want open
societies and open economies. People seek freedom from tyranny in
all its manifestations. They wish to be governed by the rule of law.
This has been the human endeavour and will remain so.
India's success in transforming the lives of its people as a liberal
and plural democracy, a free society and a free economy, will
provide hope for millions around the world. We may have paid a price
in terms of economic growth and efficiency, but we have gained as a
free people. Let us never belittle our achievements nor our
ambitions in this regard, and certainly not our struggle.
The world also has a stake in the success of the Indian experiment.
The world will watch India's efforts to rid its people of chronic
poverty, ignorance and disease within the framework of a democratic
polity. The success of this Indian experiment will remain not just
our ambition for the new century. It will be the global ambition.
Ladies and gentlemen, at your summit in 2006 I reminded you of what
Winston Churchill said, at the height of the Second World War. That
the "empires of the future will be the empires of the mind." In
saying so, he recognized the importance of knowledge in determining
the destinies of nations. The intellectual, cultural, social,
economic and political empowerment of individuals is the basis on
which the modern world will be constructed. This defines our second
ambition for the coming century. India will not only be the land of
a free people, but of a knowledge-empowered people.
My greatest ambition for the coming century is to see a fully
educated India. The light of knowledge must touch every child and
empower every citizen. I have this dream for my people because that
was my dream as a young boy in a distant village. I stand before you
today because the light of knowledge has empowered me. I cannot
think of any other reason. Like millions of Indians I come from a
family of modest means. I lived in a dusty village with no doctor,
no school, no electricity, no drinking water.
It was the burning desire to learn, to be educated, that has brought
me here to these glittering halls from that village without hope. It
was scholarship and fair selection that educated me. It was a free
society and a land of opportunity that employed me. My dreams for
myself have been realized in my lifetime because my country made me.
At your Summit in 2007 I said to you that it is up to us to build
the foundations that can help us realize our potential.
Our challenges and tasks present themselves to us everyday. It is up
to us to exert pressure on our system to deliver. We must improve
the quality of our educational system. We must improve the public
delivery system, especially in health care, sanitation, drinking
water and public transport. We must build a more efficient and
competitive economy. We must provide an even better environment for
individual enterprise to flower and flourish. These have been the
focus of our Government's policies these past four years and more.
Ladies and gentlemen, the global economy is going through choppy
waters. However, we can and will survive this crisis and emerge
stronger if we have the imagination and will to work together.
Competitive politics must not be allowed to divide our people on the
basis of religion, caste or region. At home and globally we seek an
inclusive growth process.
Our century will be shaped by how we respond to the global economic
crisis today. If nations look only inwards and imagine they can
solve their problems on their own, they will fail. The world has
become more integrated and inter-dependent. In both good and bad, in
prosperity and peril, in opportunity and crisis we must recognize
the new inter-dependencies. No nation is an island unto itself.
That is why at the G20 Summit last week I urged world leaders to
recognize these inter-dependencies and our stake in it. We need a
global safety net so that the poor of the world do not pay a price
for the profligacy of the rich, and the delinquency of a few. Global
problems require global solutions. This is the most important lesson
of the past century for the next. But global institutions of
governance must be made more inclusive and representative. The voice
of the developing world must be heard in the high councils of global
decision-making.
The message of the economic and social crisis gripping the world is
that extremist ideologies, political or economic, have harmful
consequences. The idea of India, based on the rejection of extremes,
respect for diversity and pluralism and the acceptance of the Middle
Path, offers new pathways to progress for humanity in distress.
When nations have tilted to extremes they have either hurt
themselves or harmed the world. To regain balance they have always
had to return to the Middle Path of social and economic progress. I
do believe that such a pragmatic approach to policy can help us deal
with the challenges the world faces today.
Ladies and gentlemen, my call for moderation is not a rejection of
boundless ambition. In some areas of human conduct such ambition is
a necessary part of progress. Last week the Indian tricolor landed
on the Moon. I salute with pride our space scientists and engineers.
A few weeks earlier the global community agreed to recognize India's
status as a nuclear power. I salute with pride our nuclear
scientists and engineers. I also salute with pride the political
leaders and policy makers who invested in these ambitious
programmes.
Both achievements, on the nuclear and space fronts, come more than
half a century after we as a nation set ourselves ambitious goals in
the most advanced fields of scientific endeavour. When Pandit Nehru,
Homi Bhabha and Vikram Sarabhai set for themselves the goals of
tapping nuclear energy and exploring space, ours was a poorer
nation. A less developed nation. Many mocked them for their
ambition. Our achievement today mocks the cynicism of the
non-believers. Such ambition must be commended. It is the kind of
ambition that spurs progress and widens human imagination.
I would like to see similar ambition in ridding our country of
poverty, ignorance and disease. I would like to see similar ambition
in liberating the minds of our people from the deadweight of
prejudice and bigotry. I would like to see similar ambition in our
effort to educate and feed every child. I would like to see similar
ambition in providing safe drinking water and electricity to every
home across this vast land. I would like women to be equal partners
in sharing the fruits of social and economic progress. I would like
to see similar ambition in our endeavour to secure a neighborhood of
peace and prosperity.
No goal is impossible, no hurdle is insurmountable. But if we set
our sights low, no achievement is laudable. While celebrating our
achievement in space, let us reflect on its lessons for us on Earth.
The moon landing was the fulfillment of a vaulting ambition. It was
the result of years of hard work. Above all, it was the fruit of
cooperative enterprise. Hundreds of Indians - not divided by their
religion, region, language or caste, but united by their commitment
to hard work and passion for a scientific adventure made this
possible.
Who looks at our nuclear scientists or space engineers in terms of
their narrow social identities or their religious beliefs? Who asks
them what their caste is or religion is? Who asks what their
language is or region is? We only ask what their achievement is. It
is their work that defines them. Why cannot we look at each of our
citizens in terms of their contribution to nation building, to good
neighborliness, to promotion of communal harmony, to concern for the
well-being of marginalized sections of society, to peace and
progress around us? Is this an ambitious goal?
Am I asking for too much when I ask each one of you to stop
identifying yourself in terms of how the past has shaped you, but do
so in terms of how you can and are shaping the future? For the
hundreds of women and men who put the Indian tricolor on the Moon
the past was no guide to the future they made possible in our
present.
Let no prejudice from the past shape, nor a hurdle in the present
thwart our ambitions for the future. We should be firm in our
resolve to make the future happen. That should be the message of
your Summit this year.
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