Edited excerpts from Nirmala Sitharaman’s address at the BusinessLine Changemaker Awards:
We are at a time when big changes are happening around the world. I am not here to say we have become fifth largest but I will say it anyway because nearly a decade ago, we were at the 11th position. We kept seeing countries above us… the U.K. was fifth then. Today, within a period of ten years, India has moved from 11th position to fifth, which is not a mean achievement. It is an achievement for all of us, it is the people of India who should take credit for it. Yes, the government is there, it frames policy, removes hurdles, facilitates, but you are the doers. And in this period, don’t forget, we had a pandemic when everything had to be brought to an unprecedented grinding halt. But after that, the speed with which we have recovered and continue to recover, is in a way that the entire world is in awe of.
India is a very vibrant political environment and there are always questions if this recovery is K, U, V or L [shaped]. I am not here to criticise that. But the fact is the recovery still makes us the fastest growing economy of the world. This is not something you should deride as it underplays the achievements of Indians. You like the government in power today or you don’t, it doesn’t matter. Saying: ‘Oh! This is nothing. Oh! Inflation is high and not below 6%’. Yes, who is denying that? But I think [we are] at a time when we must stay positive and forward-looking and encouraging each other, to ensure that we don’t lose the momentum… How many times in free India’s history have we not had opportunities to push ourselves forward at a much faster pace? For whatever reason, we couldn’t catch the bus. We cannot afford to do that this time and especially when everything is falling in place, our self-deriding attitude should not be so strong as to make the young Indian mind suspect about what is happening in the country.
