India celebrated six decades as an independent nation on Wednesday, but the prime minister warned against over-confidence from the booming economy and laid out tough challenges ahead.
In a speech from the ramparts of the capital’s 17th-century Red Fort, Singh lauded India’s democracy as its greatest achievement.
”The success of a secular democracy in a nation of a billion people with such diversity is viewed with admiration,” he said from behind a bullet-proof shield and a tight security cordon.
”The best is yet to come,” Singh predicted, riding a wave of optimism that India is on the threshold of becoming a superpower.
”However, we must not be over-confident,” he said. ”We have a long a march ahead.”
Despite the economy growing at 9%, the prime minister pointed to poverty, the ”national shame” of malnutrition, unemployment, agrarian strife, civil unrest and sectarian divide.
”We need at least a decade of hard work and of sustained growth to realise our dreams. We have to bridge the many divides in our society and work with a unity of purpose,” Singh said.
To bolster the ailing agriculture sector, he confirmed $6-billion would be invested in agriculture.
India’s rain-dependent agriculture sector is growing at less than a quarter the pace of the overall economy. It contributes a fifth of economic output and provides a livelihood for two-thirds of the population.
Singh also called for a revolution in education and pledged to set up a pension scheme and improve health care. About 6 000 new schools would be set up, he said.
”Poverty eradication is now a feasible goal,” Singh said, adding that rapid industrialisation was the most effective means to create new jobs.
Some of his views were echoed by young urban Indians in an opinion poll for the Hindustan Times.
Fifty-two percent of the 1 247 respondents between the ages of 16 and 25 said they were proud of India’s democracy.
”Young and rocking — this is the popular image of India as it begins celebrating its 60th birthday as a free nation,” the daily said in an editorial.
The Times of India splashed on its front page that India was ”60 and getting sexier”.
”There’s plenty to look forward to. The next 60 years hopefully will be better than the last,” the daily said.
The anniversary was marked by tight security with aircraft, combat troops and tens of thousands of security forces deployed after threats by al-Qaeda and separatist rebels.
In the capital, about 70 000 police and paramilitary troops were on duty.
With insurgencies raging from Kashmir to Assam, Singh promised stern action against ”hatred and extremism”.
He urged Indians to unite against ”these anti-democratic, anti-social and anti-national forces”.
In restive Kashmir, a strike called by the state’s separatist alliance cleared the streets of the summer capital, Srinagar, and shut all shops and businesses.
Kashmiri militants mark independence as a ”black day”. Britain’s withdrawal from the sub-continent led to the partition of India, the birth of Pakistan and the division of Kashmir between them.
Police said troops on Tuesday shot dead two militants in northern Kashmir’s Bandipora town, a day after a grenade killed three people and wounded 19 in the market there.
Police also defused a bomb attached to an Indian flag in southern Banihal town.
Four explosions rocked north-eastern Assam state on Wednesday, police said, but no one was reported hurt.
A wave of separatist attacks in Assam has left 36 people dead in the past week. — AFP
