Time to end the Independence Day speech farce

It’s time to end the Independence Day Speech tradition It serves no purpose. Over the years, it’s been reduced to a self-laudatory report card by the prime minister in power – irrespective of who the prime minister is. The speech drones on and on about the supposed achievements of the years since the party of the prime minister came to power and then drones on and on about the great things that the government plans to achieve. Lest you think this is unfair, read a speech by Atal Behari Vajpayee, the last non-Congress Prime Minister here. For those who are in a hurry, here is a chunk of Vajpayee’s speech in 2001. [caption id=“attachment_419680” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  AFP.[/caption] “The North-Eastern States have a special place in the nation’s life and in India’s development. The implementation of developmental projects and programmes has been suffering many hurdles. Now, a special cell has been created in the Prime Minister’s Office to remove these hurdles and speed up the developmental process. This cell will closely monitor the developmental works in the region. There has been an improvement in the situation, thanks to the cooperation of the people and State Governments of this region.It is sad that the biggest impediment to faster development in the North-East has been the extremist organisations that are fomenting violence and trouble in the region. I appeal to the leaders and followers of these organisations to give up this dangerous and futile path… “We shall intensify our campaign against corruption in high places. Our country cannot make the desired progress without probity in administration and in public life.” These words could so easily have been spouted by Manmohan Singh. ‘Vajpayee’s’ style seems startlingly similar to ‘Manmohan Singh’s’. How could that be, when Vajpayee has been known and celebrated as a great orator? Take this speech by Vajpayee, for example. The speech engages, provokes, stuns, appeals, entertains, all at once. How could the same man have delivered this speech in the Lok Sabha and the Independence Day drivel referred to earlier? One was a speech delivered with passion, with conviction, with knowledge and insights – the one at the Lok Sabha. The other was politically correct, shorn of passion and heart, and turned into a clinical collection of word written by bureaucratic speech-writers. Perhaps the same bureaucratic speech-writers who have written Manmohan Singh’s Independence Day speeches over the past 8 years. Is this what the Independence Day speech has been reduced to – an opportuinity for bureaucrats to bore the country? If that’s what it is, perhaps it’s time to do away with the tradition altogether. Let’s end this farce, till such time as a prime minister has the courage to share with the country, from the heart, what he truly feels, his true, unedited understanding of the state of the nation and his unexpurgated vision for the country.