PM I-Day speech: A positive game but played on backfoot?

NEW DELHI: It was one of the longest speeches ever delivered by a Prime Minister on Independence Day. Dressed in a colourful and celebratory attire, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was expansive as ever — sweating profusely but refusing to let the heat and humidity get the better of him.
But social commentator and columnist Santosh Desai felt the speech lacked ambition.“In his August 15 speech last year, Modi had laid out certain broad principles of governance by emphasizing on sanitation and gender. This speech lacked ambition and vision. It could be the heat and humidity but even the energy of the audience appeared to be pretty low,” he said.
Desai credited Modi for bringing the focus back on the Independence Day speech, saying, “In the last two decades, may be even further, nobody really cared what the PM spoke from the ramparts of Red Fort. In that sense, it is to Modi’s credit that he has made us listen to what he is saying.”
“But having said that one must equally admit that the speech lacked focus. Modi deflected certain issues, addressed some and ignored others. For instance, he avoided saying anything on the issues which ensured that the Monsoon session was a wash-out. He seems to be telling the common people: Parliament is about entanglement and muck, whereas I am a man of action. But it has been a year since he came to power and now people will be looking for more action on the ground,” Desai added.
During his speech, Modi said that all 1.25 lakh branches of every bank should encourage at least one Dalit or Adivasi entrepreneur and at least one woman entrepreneur.
Dalit intellectual Chandrabhan Prasad, a strong votary of ‘Dalit capitalism’, praised Modi for this aspect. “This is a positive step in the right direction. We have been advocating a move on similar lines for several years. This will encourage Dalit and Adivasi entrepreneurs. Ultimately Dalits and Adivasis should become job-givers rather than job-seekers,” said Prasad.
Journalist and Modi biographer Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay said the PM’s speech lacked energy, his hallmark. “Modi’s speeches are like a good raga. They have an alaap, a mid-portion and a finale. In this speech, he went back and forth. There was no unifying thread in his entire oration.
To use a cricket analogy, in last year’s Independence Day speech, he played on the front foot. On Saturday, he was defensive and on the back foot,” said Mukhopadhyay.