With great power comes great responsibility, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said on June 2 quoting a famous dialogue from Hollywood blockbuster Spiderman to emphasise that India's responsibility will increase in sync with its rising global stature.
In an address at an event, Mr. Singh also noted that when India emerges as a superpower, it will have to ensure that universal values like democracy, religious freedom, dignity of human beings and global peace are established all over the world.
The Defence Minister said the government is working to build a developed India by 2047, focusing on almost all sectors of the country.
Talking about the political landscape in the country, Mr. Singh said that political parties are integral to democracy and it cannot survive without them. At the same time, he rued that many political parties in India do not operate based on any ideology and their politics revolve around a person or a family or a caste.
"I think such politics should have no place in a developed India. Politics should be based on ideology and values and not on the basis of family, religion and caste," he said, speaking at the Times Network's India Economic Conclave.
"If I talk about the political future of India, I wish that as we move ahead, our democracy should be strengthened in the same way. Criminalisation of politics should end, and our country should move forward on the path of credible politics. Politics should be understood as a medium of public service," he said.
The Defence Minister also spoke about social development and that he imagines an India where there is no discrimination of any kind in the society.
"If we talk about the social development of India, then I imagine an India where there is no discrimination of any kind in the society. Even today, the Constitution makes this arrangement that there should be no discrimination in the country on the basis of religion, caste and gender etc. But our developed India should be one step ahead of this theory," he said.
Mr. Singh also highlighted India's overall progress under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, including in the economic sphere, and how efforts are underway to take India's cultural identity to a new height.
"We are constantly trying to take India's cultural identity to a new height and I want to see the same India in future also where it has a cultural sovereignty," he said.
"There are some universal values, which are not for any one country but for the entire humanity. As a developed India, our responsibility will be much more than this. You must have heard a dialogue from the Spiderman movie that 'with great power comes great responsibility'," Mr. Singh said.
"When we will emerge as a super power, we will have to ensure that universal values like democracy, religious freedom, dignity of human beings and world peace are established all over the world. Yes, we also have to keep in mind that we should not impose our views on anyone," he said.
Mr. Singh also highlighted the government's efforts to boost indigenous defence production so that state-of-the-art weapon systems developed within the country are used by the Indian armed forces.
He said the value of India's annual domestic defence production has crossed ₹1 lakh crore mark.
"If I talk about exports, then seven-eight years ago the export of defence equipment was not even ₹1,000 crore. Today, it has become about ₹16,000 crore," he said.
