PM Speaks in President’s Voice

(Note: Compare this editorial with that of Hindu, in CCV, both are agreed in susbstance What do you readers think? jk, editor)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has taken the cue from President Pranab Mukherjee while deploring the recent ugly developments. True, the President did not mention the context in which he made the extempore comment: “We cannot allow the core values of our civilisation to be wasted. These values have celebrated diversity, promoted and advocated tolerance, endurance and plurality”. It was obvious to one and all that his comments were in the context of the Dadri incident in which a person was lynched and his son brutally assaulted based on rumours that they were eating beef. The Prime Minister was also referring to Dadri and other incidents on which politicians suffering from foot-in-the-mouth syndrome were talking nonsense.
More than anyone else, Modi knows that such incidents cause enormous damage to the image of the country. During his visits abroad, he has been projecting India as a country full of educated people, who can take up any challenge that the most technologically advanced companies can offer. He has also been claiming that the latter part of this century would belong to India which would have, by then, emerged as the world’s engine of growth. He also knows that the only way in which a large number of people can be lifted from abject poverty is by achieving double-digit growth in the shortest possible time. In other words, the country does not have time to waste in meaningless debates and endless controversies in the name of religion or culture. Poverty can be defeated only if people are united.
It was to such a need that Modi alluded when he quoted Mukherjee and emphasised the need for unity. Religious tolerance has been the hallmark of this country for centuries. History shows that when Jews faced persecution in the land of their birth and Zoroastrians found that they had to flee from their own land, it was in India that they found sanctuary. It is also true that Christianity in India is as old as the religion itself and that Muslims have the second oldest mosque in the world in Kerala. Whether it was during the freedom struggle or the wars India fought, the people fought unitedly. Modi made sense when he appealed to one and all to ignore those who talk nonsense, for these civilisational values alone would guide India’s destiny

New Indian Express, Editorial, Oct.10/15