July 1, 2024
Jawhar Sircar’s speech during the Motion of Thanks to the President’s Address in Rajya Sabha
Thank you, Sir. I am sure, Sir, you will give me some extra time because others have had. My only request is that I be allowed to speak without interruption because I am going to speak on very factual basis. It is a speech made by the President of India based on inputs given by the Government and there are certain comments on it. I will start with paragraph 3 where the President talks about good governance. I look at my friends on both sides and ask them this. When you visit a sarkari office, do you see this good governance? Or have the rates gone up? This is just an open question. Do you see good governance in sarkari offices? Or do you see certain other obstructions? Instead of going by a statement made in the President’s Address, I will take up an international comparison given by the World Bank. The World Bank’s Government Efficiency Index puts India at number 66. It is the lowest when it comes to developed countries. We are behind Botswana, Fiji, Mauritius, Lithuania, Latvia, etc. We are behind these countries. If we would have spent more time on actual governance rather than on advertising slogans and taglines made by ad agencies for boosting the image, things could have taken place in the last ten years. The second part relates to the continuous drumming of GDP and that we are the fifth largest GDP country in the world. I admit that. लेिकन जब जीडीपी का पानी िपएंगे, तो याद करना, िकसने वे कु एं खोदे थे? Who built the foundation for this GDP? We talk of five trillion dollar economy by 2024. It was a promise made by the Prime Minister. We are in 2024. And we are nowhere near four trillion dollars. पांच ि�िलयन की बात तो छोिड़ए, चार ि�िलयन तक नहीं पहुंचा, कोई बात नहीं, कोई बात नहीं। We all will make it. But the way we compute GDP, it is the gross wealth of the nation as a whole which includes the obscene degrees of wealth accumulated during the ten years by the oligarchs and big houses. This is a Government, as everyone knows, for the rich and by the rich. We talk of GDP in terms of you and me, which is per capita GDP. In terms of per capita GDP, India’s rank is 120 in the world with only 2,400 dollars. That’s all. We must understand … I am quoting it. I can give it any time. We are one of the lowest in terms of GDP in the world. It is an established fact. You can look up whatever you want. But this GDP is the GDP of Ambani, Adani, Jindal and Vedanta’s Agarwal (AAJA). This is what I call AAJA GDP. हम लोग तो हैं ‘जा–जा जीडीपी‘। We belong to the ja ja group of GDP. जाओ तुम लोग। याद रिखए, inequality has reached insane proportions under this Government. International reports say that inequality is far worse than in colonial times. आप लोग बात–बात पर colonial बोलते हैं! The second point that I want to raise is on paragraph 4 of the hon. President’s Address which is, ‘My Government’s Budget’. Sir, let me humbly submit this. As I stand before you, there is an economic blockade of West Bengal. I am using the term, economic blockade of Bengal. There are many opposition States that are suffering from pinches and cuts. But as far as Bengal is concerned, we have been stopped from Rs.1.23 lakh crores for MGNREGA, PM-JAY, PM Gram Sadak Yojana, NHM Central subsidy, etc. If we add the figure of 40,000 in the last two years, this makes it a total of Rs.1,71,000 crores of deprivation. We are specially targeted. The people whose houses had been devasted by cyclone Amphan, Yaas, Bulbul, etc., they have not received any compensation. An amount of Rs.870 crore of health sector funds are illegally stopped to us by linking it. I am using the word ‘illegally’. I was an officer and I know which part is legal and which part is not legal. Fifteenth Finance Commission fund has been illegally tied up with Ayushman Bharat and colour coding. हमेंकहा जाता हैिक make it saffron. Why? We have to understand why there is special hatred for Bengal. There are attacks on other States. It is because twice you have raised this bogie that बंगाल हमारे हाथ मेंहै, and you are thrown out. Whatever pressures you put, we shall not accept the 3 neetis. We shall not accept your communal agenda; we shall not accept your caste agenda. We throw out caste. And we shall not accept repression of women..Bengal is the only State… इनको िबठाइए।.. He is transgressing into my time. … Sir, let me put it. Bengal is the only State, my friend, that has 38 per cent women MPs in Rajya Sabha. … And 38 per cent women MPs in Lok Sabha. The excuse given by the Finance Department is आप UC नहीं देते। UC means Utilisation Certificate. Now, you please see CAG Report of 2021-22 and what it says in para 4.16. It says that 32 Central Ministries have not submitted UCs, 4,42,800 UCs. आप क्यों फालतूयू.सी., यू.सी. कहतेहैं? Sir, the happiest news is what the President has said in para 4 — it is a happy news for me for a very historical reason — that we shall be celebrating 75 years of the Constitution. But I go back to history, to the organizer, a paper of RSS, of 30th November, 1949. I go back to Golwalkarji’s Bunch of Thoughts, Part-III, Page 19. I am quoting from there. The worst thing about the Constitution of Bharat is that there is nothing Bharatiya about it; there is no trace of ancient Bharatiya laws; Manu’s Laws were written long before and Manu Smriti is our Constitution. These are his words which I am quoting. I am glad that after 75 years, his descendants have decided to eat these words with tomato sauce and join the constitution club. Sardar Patel, as you know, had banned the organisation for 18 months and at the end of 18 months, he got an assurance that they will abide by the Constitution. Incidentally, when we talk of Emergency — there is no one who supports Emergency — we don’t talk of Sardar Patel banning the organisation for 18 months, and you build statutes of the man who banned you. I come to para 22 because there is a reason. …. Today is the black day. …… Today is 1st of July and will be remembered like the 13th of April, 1919, Jallianwala Bagh day, because our laws, our criminal laws, which have worked well, have been trampled and discarded without discussion when 146 MPs were suspended. What does it talk of? Why? It is that it talks of being colonial. That was colonial and this is anti-colonial. मुझे एक बात बताइए, who participated in the anti-colonial movement? It was this side. We participated in the anti-colonial movement. You ran away from it. आप क्यों बात–बात पर anti-colonial बात करते हैं? Section 111 of BNS makes writing and speech also to be an act of terrorism. I do not know how many of us would be arrested under it because it does not require a warrant for a police officer to arrest. Under Section 150 of the BNS, it criminalizes subversive activities without defining what subversive activities are. What I am saying about the Government, I am bounden as a Member of the Opposition to say. Is it subversive? I do not know. Because I may be arrested, I keep some stock of medicines for Tihar jail. Now, having said that, there is Section 150 which brings in a very interesting provision. One who excites people or stokes feeling of hatred can be banned and arrested. Do we remember somebody who was stoking feelings and exciting people with mangalsutras, with one community taking all your jehadis, with Sikhs as khalistanis, which is that community? Will it come under this Act? I want a clarification from the Home Minister whether such person, who makes that comment, amenable to action under Section 150 of the BNS or it is just a showpiece. As I said, under Section 172, police can arrest anyone including Dr. Sivadasan without warrant. Remember that. You are stopping fasting as a political weapon. Fasting was a political and sacred weapon. Shaheed Jatin Das died in Lahore jail in 1929 so that political prisoners are not treated like criminals. Gandhiji went on fast in Pune. Remember! How will you remember? You did not participate in the freedom struggle. How will you remember what fasting is? Fasting as a political weapon has been taken out. Section 149 authorizes the police to go on and break up any form of political agitation. Please reconsider this law in a full House and then come to the point. About banks, you have mentioned in para 17, छाती फु लाकर, ‘bank, bank, bank’. What have you done in your banks? In the last ten years, you have wiped off Rs.15.5 lakh crores in the name of cleaning..… Out of these Rs.15.5 lakh crores, who are the beneficiaries? On 12th December, 2023, the Finance Minister has said that frauds have eaten away Rs.2.05 lakh crores. इसमेंतो पूरेबंगाल के, entire pent-up funds would have been done twice over. Rs.2.05 lakh crores have been eaten up by frauds and who are they? It is Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi, Jatin Shah etc. They have destroyed Rs.2.05 lakh crores. Then, large industries have destroyed Rs.7.4 lakh crores. All India Bank Association (AIBA) says that two-thirds of the entire bad loans are accounted for by 13 favoured houses. That is all. Videocon’s debts were Rs.46,000 crores. They were sold to Vedanta for six per cent. What amount of herapheri is going on? The next dreadful thing is that three days ago, you operationalized the Telecommunications Act. This Telecommunications Act is another black Act that was passed in December when we were thrown out of the House. Now, what does this Telecommunications Act say? Every sign, signal, writing, text, image, sound, video stream, data stream information is amenable under the Act for interception and for punishment. You send a signal to somebody else, the Government has now empowered it. Remember, nobody stays in power for eternity. So, you will also suffer the consequences, the mischief of this Act. This is entirely aimed at criminalizing and terrorizing those who have stood up to this Government in the recent past like Ravish Kumar, Punya Prasun Vajpayee, the Deshbhakt, Kunal Kamra and Dhruv Rathee. This is all aimed at them. I come towards the last part of this thing. I will continue for a couple of minutes more with your kind permission. जी, दो–चार िमनट दे ही देंगे। In the labour force, the highest degree of unemployment in the last thirty years is going on now. Eight per cent is the rate of unemployment which is the worst among the top ten economies. We have one country to match us and that is Italy. इटली सेअभी थोड़ा ज्यादा दोस्ती हो रही है, तो इटली की भी आठ परसेंट हैऔर हमारी भी आठ परसेंट है, बाकी सब below eight परसेंट है। What about jobs? Your Minister, Shri H.D. Kumaraswamy, has revealed four to five days ago that under the PLI Scheme, U.S. Enterprise, Micron Tech, is charging the Government Rs. 3.2 crores per job created. For one job creation, Rs. 3.2 crores! मुझेदेदीिजए, मैंसैकड़ों जॉब्स तैयार कर दूंगा with three crores of rupees. For the poor, you said that we have almost crossed the poverty line and eliminated it. But, you have to feed 81 crore people and yet talk of a mythical poverty line. Either they are not poor and you are force-feeding them or they are within the range of poverty. You talk of Jan Aushdhalaya and all. You have 25,000 of them. It takes 60,000 people to line-up before one of those stores. You talk of women. The Labour Force Participation Ratio among women is the lowest, I repeat, the lowest among all the top countries in the world. We are now below the Sub-African countries, below the Central Asian countries, below East-European countries and Kyrgyzstan, Chad, and Mauritius, etc. There is a complete distress going on and you are not realizing it. The hon. President has spoken about the ‘green era’. The Environment Minister mentioned that he has stopped two lakh trees from getting cut. As far as the green era is concerned, every law that pertains to the environment:- water, air and the ground, all of them have been amended with brute majority. Our pollution is one of the worst. I don’t need to tell people in Delhi about our pollution. But, there is a stunning fact that has come out and this fact has come out in international domain that India has used more coal, more thermal power than all of Europe put together and all of North America and we keep promising िक हम जा रहेहैंtowards non-fossil forces. Sir, I will end here by requesting the Railway Minister to kindly devote some time to आम जनता �ेन्स, to train safety, to Kavach and for filling up 1.5 lakh posts that are vacant in the Safety Department only so that we don’t get repeated accidents. We do not want bullet trains, but we want our normal trains to be safe. Sir, the last word that I will say is that you are giving highest priority by giving ten lakh crores to eleven lakh crores of rupees to infrastructure but what is happening is that previously when the rain fell, the roofs leaked. But, now, the roofs fall and the papers leaked. With these words, I, thank you, Sir
