'Lazy Indians': Nehru's Speech From Red Fort on 15 Aug 1959 that PM Modi Quoted in LS Address

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday evoked Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru's speech from the Independence Day (15th August 1959) to point towards the lethargic work done by the Congress in all the years the party was in power in the country. “Nehru ji's view towards Indians was that Indians were lazy”, the PM said, while making a strong retort, saying that it's like “[nau din chale magar dhaayi kos] someone walking for nine days, but (covering) only two-and-a-half miles”. The Prime Minister was responding to the debate in Lok Sabha on the Motion of Thanks on President's Address.

Stressing that “the adage [truly] and completely defines the Congress party”, PM Modi asserted that “There is no match to the slow pace of the Congress”. 

“Nehru ji had said from the Red Fort – India generally does not have the habit of working hard. We don't work as much as the Europeans, the Japanese, the Chinese, Russians and the Americans”, PM Modi recalled a part of Nehru's 1959 speech – to draw a contrast by underlining the amount of time and energy spent by his government in its first term in order to fill the gaps left by the Congress-led UPA government in its ruling era.

“During our first term, we spent a lot of time and energy filling the holes left during the UPA era”, the PM said in his address to the Lok Sabha. “We laid the foundation of a ‘New India’ in our second-term, and in our third-term –  we will give a new impetus to building a developed India”, he added, in a bid to highlight the laidback attitude of the Congress leaders that has been on display for years at a stretch.

PM Modi further highlighted that “the Congress party cannot even imagine the speed at which the work is being done in the country today”, and stated that, his government has ”built around four crore houses for the poor, out of which 80 lakh pucca houses were built for the urban poor".

“If work had been done at the speed at which the Congress operates, it would have taken us 100 years to complete this much work, and 100 generations would have passed”, PM Modi said in a sharp remark aimed at the Opposition.

Stressing that 'Indira Gandhi's thinking wasn't very different from Pandit Nehru, PM Modi said, "He [Nehru] had said from the Red Fort – Unfortunately, our (Indians') habit is that whenever any auspicious work is about to be completed, we tend to get an immediate feeling of self-satisfaction, while we become hopeless each time even a slight difficulty arises".

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Stating that his government has provided gas connections to over 17 crore citizens, PM Modi threw satire in the face of the Congress, saying, "if we had followed the pace of Congress, it would have taken another 60 years to complete this work, and at least three generations of Indians would have passed cooking food while covered in smoke".