Soon after Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivered his fourth Independence Day address from the ramparts of the Red Fort today, I asked the driver of the taxi I was travelling in in Delhi what he thought about it. His reply was succinct: “Modi was balanced. He was not aggressive as he has sometimes been in the past, and showed a paripakvta (maturity), by not referring to China and Pakistan by name, which would not have helped at this stage, and sensitivity by referring to the children who had died. But ultimately, he will be judged by how much he can actually deliver on the ground.”

As the taxi driver was quick to pick up — and he said he had listened to every I-Day speech of Modi’s since he took over as PM — the Prime Minister was much more conciliatory in the language he used than in the past. He could have retaliated after the Pak PM’s criticism on the Pakistan Independence Day yesterday — that India was not interested in talking — or rhetorically given as good as he got from China, but he resisted, because obviously delicate negotiations are underway to defuse the Doklam situation.

Even on Kashmir, where the Valley has seen huge turbulence for a year and more, intensifying the sense of alienation of people there and the Wahhabi influence has been on the rise and the issue of Article 35A on who is a permanent resident of Jammu and Kashmir is now before the courts, uniting the mainline parties in the state, PM Modi made the first attempt in a year to reach out to ordinary Kashmiris. While reiterating his government’s resolve to deal with terrorists and separatists, he talked about solving the Kashmir problem not through “gaali” or “goli” but by embracing the Kashmiris (“Kashmiriyon ko gale lagakar”). Will it end up being one more “jumla” from the PM, or will it be translated into concrete initiatives, finally, and once more, to engage with the Kashmiris remains to be seen.

His words on “astha”(faith) not being a justification for violence, was a clear signal to the cow vigilantes, though he did not contextualise the statement, and therefore it could be decoded in any way. He has on a couple of occasions earlier criticised the cow violence, which has created fear and unease amongst the minorities and Dalits, and come in for criticism not just in parts of India but also in world capitals. On a couple of earlier occasions also, Modi has tried to defuse the tension building up on this front, but obviously the message has not filtered down to the foot soldiers and it goes without saying that expeditious action against the guilty could send a more reassuring message to the country.

The PM covered a whole gamut of issues today, with his inimitable oratory, using one line slogans at which he is so good — Bharat Chorho of 1942 must now become Bharat Jorho, “Suraaj”(good governance) is every Indian’s birth right, taking Lokmanya Tilak’s words that Swarajya was every India’s birthright a step further, Team India creating a New India, the “Chalta Hai” attitude of Indians to give way to “Badlega”.

Into his fourth year in power, and there are problems the government confronts — Kashmir, Darjeeling, Doklam, a neighbourhood policy which may need revisiting, farmers’ unrest in many states, jobless growth, and jobs are going to be a major challenge for the Modi government and the PM today and Amit Shah on an earlier occasion shifted focus by urging youth to go for self-employment and create jobs and not rely on government — he side stepped the contentious issues. Unlike his last three speeches delivered from the Red Fort, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Independence Day speech on Tuesday was a stock-taking exercise about the government’s promises and programmes of the last three years.

He did not announce new programmes today, but his effort through what he said was to try and maintain a momentum, to sell the dream of a “New India” by “Team India”, so as to keep hopes and aspirations alive, keeping in mind 2019. For this, he has flagged off Project 2020, of which he also spoke in Parliament last week on the 75th anniversary of the Quit India movement, making the point that just as India could achieve independence five years after the Quit India call was given, so also the country could move towards a New India by 2022, if people made such a resolve.

Clearly, corruption will remain a major theme that the BJP will continue to flog in 2019, and today PM Modi gave new figures on the black money that has been unearthed, the shell companies closed down, benami property confiscated.

Significantly, the Prime Minister spoke of all those who will  become 18 years of age on January 1, 2018, referring to them as the potential harbingers of India’s transformation in this century — and these new voters are obviously going to be a target group the BJP will  woo,  an important catchment area for the PM and the BJP in 2019.

At the outset of his speech, the PM referred to the child deaths in Gorakhpur, which has put Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on the backfoot. But Modi spoke of them in the context of natural calamities. Given the escalating controversy around them — of which, the above-mentioned taxi driver also spoke, and it is an issue which has touched ordinary people — one wishes that the PM, with his image as a strong leader,  had ensured that the oxygen supply was restored to the hospital in a couple of hours, thereby preventing more deaths from taking place. And equally important, to use the controversy to move towards the badly-needed systemic changes in the health set-up, which should really go beyond partisan politics, and which can give every child, the right to live with health and dignity.

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