An old video of Prime Minister Narendra Modi resurfaced recently and went viral in no time.
Understandably.
In an interview with a Hindi television channel, Prime Minister Modi, who was then on the state BJP’s selection committee for the 1998 Assembly Elections in Gujarat and was around three years away from even becoming the chief minister of the state, had said that his party would do away with Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir if it were elected to power at the Centre with a two-thirds majority.
His statement must have seemed laughably improbable to most political pundits back in those times.
However, 22 years later, when the BJP-led NDA retained power with 353 seats out of the contested 542 in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, with the saffron party bagging 303 on its own, the Modi-led BJP government at the Centre did not waste much time in making good on its promise.
The abrogation of Article 370 certainly reaffirmed the rock-solid leadership of Prime Minister Modi. But more importantly, it showed how the BJP distinguished itself from other parties not just as an election-winning machine but as an organisation with a long-term vision for the nation.
Yet there is no denying the unparalleled role of Prime Minister Modi in turning his party’s vision into reality.
Srinagar is buzzing with economic activity and infrastructure development, with little to no sign of Pakistan-sponsored terrorism, while Jammu and Kashmir is seeing record numbers of tourists.
Equally heartening is to see the number of tigers slowly but steadily rising in the country, when the rest of the world has been struggling to even maintain the numbers of big cats and many other highly endangered species. Not long ago, it was fairly usual to see global environmental and wildlife protection organisations either doomsaying about the fate of big cats and other wild animals in India or lecturing our government about protecting them.
Now, after having doubled its tiger population in less than 10 years, India has launched the International Big Cat Alliance project and is firmly at the forefront of global efforts to protect the planet’s endangered wild felines.
Thanks to the initiatives of the Modi government, India has been able to take a leadership position globally on the climate change front. It is because of the Prime Minister’s proven credentials as a strong and visionary leader, India has been able to tell developed nations – most recently at the G7 Ministers Meeting on Climate Energy and Environment in Japan’s Sapporo on April 15 – to scale up their emission reduction efforts so that developing nations can meet the basic needs of their people and then build resilience against the negative impact of climate change.
Whether it be in the Army’s befitting response to Chinese belligerence along the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh and other areas along the disputed border with its northern neighbour, or it be in New Delhi’s stern rebuttal of Beijing’s claims over Arunachal Pradesh, not to mention the fierce neutrality the nation has maintained during the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, Prime Minister Modi’s vision for a new and stronger India – one that will command respect as a leader of an ever-evolving world order – is unmistakably evident.
Just as the incredibly majestic and powerful tiger has pride of place as India’s national animal, Prime Minister Modi has earned his stripes – through the courage of his convictions – as a world leader par excellence.
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