Prime Minister Narendra Modi hit out at the colonial mindset of developed nations which is attempting to restrict developing nations like India from using those resources and paths which they themselves took to become developed and regretted that some in India are using Western benchmarks and environment to impede the country's progress.
Speaking at the Constitution Day celebration at Vigyan Bhavan, the PM said, "Today there are no colonies of any country in the world, but the colonial mindset has not ceased to exist. This mindset is giving birth to many skewed ideas. A glaring example of this is the impediments put in (the way of) the progress of developing countries. The resources and the path which led to the Western countries reaching the status of 'developed', today there is an attempt to restrict the same resources and the same path for the developing nations."
"In the last few decades, these attempts have been variously nomenclatured. But the internecine agenda of all these attempts is the same - stop the progress of developing nations.”
Modi said, “Environment as an issue is also being attempted to be hijacked to achieve this end. We saw its live example at COP26 a few weeks ago.” Modi also said “separation of power” (between legislature, executive and judiciary) is often talked about and forcefully reiterated. But in taking the country to new heights by the time it celebrates the centenary of Independence, for which the government has set extraordinary goals, all institutions must come together in achieving those targets.
Without referring to numerous PILs by activists on environmental issues in the Supreme Court, the PM said though India is among the leading nations focusing on clean fuel and various green measures, and the only country which is going to achieve the goals set in Paris Agreement, various kinds of pressure is brought to bear to distract it from its goal of spreading the benefits of development to each and every citizen in every nook and corner of the country.
