PM Modi's I-Day speech takeaways: Is it an olive branch to RSS?

For the past 11 years, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has deftly used his Independence Day addresses for big-ticket announcements and outlining the future roadmap – political, economic, and social – of his government. Shrewdly woven into these speeches have been Modi’s attacks on political rivals and embellishments for his own personality cult.

On each of these fronts, Modi’s speech, on Friday, August 15, followed the same script. Yet, as he addressed the nation for the 12th consecutive time from the ramparts of the Red Fort, there was also a discernible sense that the challenges Modi faces from his political opposition within the country and the changing geopolitical situation around the globe were now getting the better of him.

Also read: Explained: How 'Sudarshan Chakra' will strengthen India's defence capabilities

For much of what Modi said from the Red Fort this Independence Day, with his characteristic oratorical flourish, seemed not to outline his own vision but to assure those now sceptical of his leadership that he was still in command. This was no longer the Modi who dictated the terms of combat to his foes but one whose response was being dictated by his adversaries. To put it succinctly, yet mildly, the Prime Minister’s I-Day address was all about self-preservation.

As Modi addressed the nation for the 12th consecutive time from the ramparts of the Red Fort, there was also a discernible sense that the challenges he faces from his political opposition within the country and the changing geopolitical situation around the globe was now getting the better of him.

The thinly veiled swipes at the Congress party and failures of all past prime ministers aside, Modi’s 103-minute-long address, the longest of all his I-Day speeches, was crafted around four broad strands. These were his stress on self-reliance in defence, the push for ‘next generation’ economic reforms (particularly in the GST), his decision to set up a demography mission, and unprecedented plaudits from the Red Fort for the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) ideological parent – the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

Digs at the Congress, even in I-Day speeches, have been a permanent fixture in Modi’s rhetoric as is his perpetual campaign to paint all prime ministers between 1947 and 2014 – some more than others – as leaders who wasted India’s potential.

Also read: Congress slams PM Modi's RSS tribute on I-day, calls it bid to 'block' his retirement

As such, his jibes about the Indira Gandhi-era slogan of ‘Gareebi Hatao’ and her imposition of the Emergency or how India “lost 50-60 years” in the global race for developing semiconductor technology till he came along, has nothing much to write home about. What needs dispassionate scrutiny, thus, is Modi’s emphasis on issues of defence and economic reforms, his clearly polarising push for a demography mission, and the high praise that the RSS came in for.

First I-Day speech after Pahalgam, Op Sindoor

It is easy to understand why Modi dedicated a large part of his speech to issues linked with defence. This was, after all, his first I-Day address since the Pahalgam terror attack and India’s military response to Pakistan through Operation Sindoor. Despite the dominance the Indian Armed Forces established over Pakistan during the mission, Modi hasn’t been able to fully capitalise on the military success for his political ends as he had done in the past with the surgical strikes.

This is largely because US President Donald Trump repeatedly takes credit for “negotiating” the ceasefire between India and Pakistan, leaving a seething Modi speechless each time the Opposition questions him on the claims of his “friend”.

Also read: PM Modi’s I-Day announcements: Stronger national security, GST reforms, Rs 1-L Cr job scheme

The prime minister may have felt that debating Operation Sindoor in Parliament would help deflate the Opposition’s tirade with the high-decibel bombast of the Treasury Benches, but the Opposition’s belligerent and well-framed counterarguments over the Centre’s security and intelligence failures in Pahalgam and inability to stand up to Trump got the better of Modi.

Sudarshan Chakra plan lacked sting

The prime minister’s push for self-reliance in defence and even the announcement of an ambitious Sudarshan Chakra Mission to be rolled out over the next decade lacked the political sting his announcements in the past had.

Instead, it sounded more like a regurgitation of what the Prime Minister had been saying on loop since the India-Pakistan ceasefire to gloss over the embarrassment hurled by Trump and the growing curiosity among many Indians over whether the country indeed lost five fighter jets, Rafale or others, to Pakistan during the four-day long armed conflict.

On his push for next-generation economic reforms and the promise of a Diwali bonanza for Indians by way of simplifying the GST regime, the PM seemed to only confirm what his political rivals, particularly Lok Sabha’s Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi, have been saying for years now.

Though Modi and his cheerleaders will, undoubtedly, try to ‘sell’ the announcement to Indians as yet another masterstroke, it is unlikely that Rahul and his peers in the Opposition, who are presently on an overdrive of collective aggression, would let this slide meekly.

The biggest give-away in his address of his desperation for self-preservation was Modi’s rich tributes to the RSS, which is now marking its centenary year.

That the GST regime, rolled out by the Modi government was full of anti-business flaws has been persistently red-flagged by Rahul. The Opposition has also repeatedly scorched the Centre over pursuing an economic agenda that ensures ease of doing business for a handful of billionaires while running micro, small, and medium businesses into the ground. Modi’s big push for the need for economic reforms in his I-Day address, thus, runs the risk of seeming like an admission of the failures of his economic policy and vindication of the Opposition’s charges.

Among the most significant and also the most problematic announcements by the prime minister was the setting up of a high-powered Demography Mission and his renewed attack at “ghuspaithiye” or infiltrators. It is not difficult to grasp that the motivation for this move comes from Modi’s desperation to counter the Opposition’s united and pugnacious campaign against the impending special intensive revision of electoral rolls across the country once the ongoing exercise in Bihar is concluded.

Inherent in Modi’s scorn and rage for infiltrators and the way they, in his Hindutva-tinted view, are part of a “conspiracy” to change India’s demography is the prime minister’s mission for electoral polarisation, be it in poll-bound Bihar or elsewhere, just when the Opposition seem to be coalescing against him once more.

PM's unprecedented tributes to RSS

The biggest giveaway in his address of his desperation for self-preservation was Modi’s rich tributes to the RSS, which is now marking its centenary year. The brazenly communal progenitor of the BJP had never found a mention in any of Modi’s past I-Day speeches.

More importantly, for a considerable time now there have been speculations of a growing rift between the Sangh and Modi; something that has seemingly delayed for nearly eight months the appointment of a new BJP national president because the two sides have failed to reach a consensus on who should take over the baton from JP Nadda.

Nadda had, in fact, widened this gulf during the Lok Sabha polls by suggesting in an interview that his party no longer needed the Sangh’s support for winning elections. Over the past year, the leadership of both RSS and the BJP have made efforts at a rapprochement but never accomplished it fully.

Furthermore, Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat’s recent remark on the need for public figures to quietly walk into the sunset when they turn 75 has added to the speculations over Modi’s own longevity in the prime minister’s office since he (and Bhagwat himself) turns 75 next month.

By heaping high praise on the Sangh from the Red Fort, Modi wasn’t merely paying tributes to the organisation that supposedly propelled his political career back in 2001; he was extending an olive branch, or worse, surrendering to the dominance of the Sangh.