Constitution helped take India forward, but a lot still needs to be done, says PM

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the Constitution helped in taking the country forward, but a lot still needs to be done. Speaking at Vigyan Bhavan on the occasion of Constitution Day, Modi said hundreds of years of dependence had pushed India into several problems.

“The India that was once called a golden bird was suffering from poverty, starvation and diseases. In that background, the Constitution always helped us in taking forward the nation,” he added.

“Our Constitution drafters gave us the Constitution in the light of the dreams seen by the people who lived and died for the independence and by cherishing the thousands of years long great traditions of India,” he said.

He said when compared to other countries that became independent around the same time as India, they are way ahead of us today. “It means that a lot of things still need to be done. We have to reach the goal together,” he added.

The reality is that even after decades post-Independence, a large section of people in the country had to suffer exclusion. “Crores of such people did not even have a toilet at their house. They were living in the dark in the absence of electricity, without water,” he said.

“Investing oneself in understanding their problems, their pain to make their lives easier – I consider this the real honour of the Constitution. I’m satisfied that in line with this sentiment of the Constitution, a vigorous drive is going on to convert exclusion into inclusion,” the PM added.

He said that while no nation directly exists as a colony of another country, but it does not mean the colonial mindset has come to an end. “This mindset is giving rise to many distortions. We can see a clear example of this in the hurdles cropping up in the journey of developing nations,” the PM added.

Modi further said attempts are made to shut the path and resources for developing nations through which developed nations reached where they are today. “In the past decades, a web of different terminologies was spun for this. But the aim has always been one to stop the progress of developing nations,” he said.

The issue of environment is also being attempted to be hijacked for this purpose. “We saw an example of this in the recent COP-26 Summit. If we talk of absolute cumulative emissions, developed nations have caused 15 per cent more emissions than India since 1850 to date.”

“Still, India is lectured on environmental conservation – that India that has living with nature embedded in its tradition, where God is seen even in plants, where the land is worshipped as the mother. For us, these values are not just confined to books,” the PM added.’

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