PM Narendra Modi says respect wealth creators, don’t malign them

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Of all the reforms that one can attempt, reforming the thought process is perhaps the more difficult and challenging.

In his second term in office Prime Minister Narendra Modi has tried his big ticket reforms both in the economy and the body politic – banning triple talaq, abolition of article 370, the farm bills, citizenship legislation are some of the examples – but now he seems to be up against a mindset that has defined the country since the time the tricolor first flew above the Red Fort in 1947.

Railing against the tendency to criticise the entrepreneurs and corporate sector, Modi said the private sector has a big role to play in the position that India is taking in the league of nations. “We need to repose our confidence in the ability of the youth of our nation,” he said, lashing out at our tendency to malign the private sector at every opportunity.

Modi also said that at some point of time it might have been the practice but it is high time we get rid of such mindset.

“The world has changed and society has acquired a lot of inherent strength. Abusing the private sector, describing them as traitors might have been a culture that got votes in the past, but now it won’t be effective,” he said.

Wealth creators are necessary for a nation. “How else can one distribute wealth for the poor? How will one give them livelihood?” said the prime minister before he proceeded to reveal his distaste for the overarching reach of bureaucracy in the commanding heights of the economy as well all corners of society.

“Will babus do everything? Once someone has become an IAS he can run a fertilizer plant, or a chemical plant or can even manage an airline. What sort of a giant force have we built? What are going to achieve by handing over the country to the babus? Our babus belong to this country as do our youth. I think the more opportunity we can give to the youth of our country, the better,” he said.

Bureaucracy is perhaps an essential part of any government machinery in any country but the prime minister was perhaps referring to the over reliance on bureaucracy in nation building.

If the Congress under PV Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh undertook structural reforms by allowing room for market forces in the country’s economy, Modi is trying to unleash a second wave of reforms, that in the attitude.

Over the past few years, he has been frequently highlighting the need for giving the private sector wealth creators respect in society that he says the entrepreneur never got.

In 2019, speaking from the Red Fort on August 15, the grandest of all annual addresses of the prime minister, Modi had said that wealth creators are extremely important for the country. “They must not be viewed with suspicion,” he emphasised in that address.

“We should not look at wealth creators with apprehension and doubt their intentions; we should not look down upon them,” he had said from the ramparts of Red Fort, adding they deserve respect and credit.

To spread his word, Modi also took to Twitter.

“Wealth creation is a great national service. Let us never see wealth creators with suspicion. Only when wealth is created, wealth will be distributed. Wealth creation is absolutely essential. Those who create wealth are India’s wealth and we respect them,” he tweeted.

But his words on February 10 while replying to the Motion of Thanks on the President’s address in the Lok Sabha were a more forceful endorsement of the role of the private sector.

“Take any sector – telecom, pharma – and we see the role of the private sector. If India is able to serve humanity, it is also due to the role of the private sector,” he said.

Modi’s Wednesday’s rhetoric in the lower house of the Parliament complete with his articulate body language constituted the most emphatic and unequivocal championing of the private sector in a land where almost all governments have shied away from openly courting the entrepreneur perhaps from the fear of being described as anti-poor.

But Modi has reversed that apprehension on its head arguing it’s only by creating wealth in society that the government can distribute wealth for the benefit of the poor.

The prime minister has also intertwined his vision for self-reliant India with the role of wealth creators in society that he is seeking to uphold. His idea of giving the driver’s seat to private sector also dovetails with the slogan of “minimum government, maximum governance.”

In fact, Modi has articulated the need to accord respect to the wealth creators whenever he found an opportunity. In December 2020 while speaking at the ASSOCHAM foundation week, the prime minister gave a full-throated call to India Inc to marshal the strength for a self-reliant India. The country is fully with enterprise and wealth creators, Modi assured his audience.

Last September the Centre launched a digital mission titled iGOT-Karmayogi that aims at transforming the power hungry civil servant – a sattabhogi – into a creative, imaginative, innovative, proactive, progressive, energetic, transparent and technology-enabled karmayogi.

As the country struggles to emerge out of the pandemic-crippled economy, Modi is clearly trying to ignite the animal spirits of the entrepreneurs and offer them a seat of honour in society. That change in outlook can be the icing on the cake of stable and pro-investor policies that his regime is ensuring for the investor.

The message went out loud and clear – money and profits are no longer dirty words. They have to be given the respect that is long overdue.