prasad1
Active member
Teachers Day in India is usually a staid affair to felicitate teachers and honour the profession.
This year it became a political grandstand with the BJP prime minister Narendra Modi dislodging the President of India from his customary prerogative of addressing the nation’s teachers. On Friday September 5 Modi took to the stage in a packed Delhi auditorium to address not teachers but the nation’s students. Seven hundred were in the hall, but students across India were listening. In a mass propaganda exercise – his government had made the speech, held during school hours, compulsory for all students – schools were required to arrange TVs for live transmission.
In response to a girl student from the eastern state of Assam, who noted her generation’s concern about climate change, the premier had replied “The climate has not changed. We have changed.”
Modi’s opening reply was reported in the media as: “Climate has not changed. We have changed…our tolerance and habits have changed. If we change then God has built the system in such a way that it can balance on its own.”
He then spent the next six minutes expounding Indian cultural values on the environment and invoking Hindu scripture, before ending with a surreal reference to threading a needle by moonlight.
In a country that faces power cuts on a daily basis the idea of spending an evening in the dark is not a novelty, but Modi somehow made it appear desirable.
The question needs to be asked. At a time when Kashmir is suffering the worst floods in independent India why can the prime minister of India not give a straight answer on climate change and climate risk?
Why give patronizing guff when an intelligent young person asks a serious question and the Kashmir floods could have provided a clear and present reference point and example?
Modi is a consummate politician who elsewhere in his speech noted the importance of using words carefully. Why then the folksy whimsical response on climate change? Earlier in his address Modi spoke of being impressed with Japan’s “scientific temperament” on his recent visit. Why then leave science out – the starting point surely for any response on climate change?
The PM’s apologists have tried to spin him out of trouble claiming he was misunderstood.
Narendra Modi is not your average politician when it comes to climate change.
Four years ago he projected himself as India’s answer to Al Gore when he published an Convenient Action: Gujarat’s action on climate change as chief minister, although his former state still does not have the state-level climate plan required by central government. Given Modi’s public image as a climate guru, his mis-education on climate change on Teachers Day is all the more eyebrow-raising. Inexcusable some would say. The point is simple and non-political. On Teachers Day, India’s prime minister had an unparalleled opportunity to talk to young India about climate change.
If he has not done so already, Narendra Modi might wish to pick up the phone and ask his fellow Delhi resident, Dr Rajendra Pachauri for a personal briefing on climate change and India.
The chairman of the UN’s IPCC climate science panel might be able to fill in the evident gaps in the PM’s knowledge about why climate change poses a development risk to India and offers a low-carbon growth opportunity.
Perhaps then we will have less talk about the sun and moon and stars, and more about how India’s government is going to show the leadership on climate change that its young people deserve.
Malini Mehra is an Indian climate campaigner and founder, Centre for Social Markets (India)
The miseducation of Narendra Modi on climate change
The modi apologists will point out that it si posting by "prasad1", yes I am not a BJP fan.
It was in English Media, and by a NGO.
But fact of the matter remains same, Modiji was less than Honest.
This year it became a political grandstand with the BJP prime minister Narendra Modi dislodging the President of India from his customary prerogative of addressing the nation’s teachers. On Friday September 5 Modi took to the stage in a packed Delhi auditorium to address not teachers but the nation’s students. Seven hundred were in the hall, but students across India were listening. In a mass propaganda exercise – his government had made the speech, held during school hours, compulsory for all students – schools were required to arrange TVs for live transmission.
In response to a girl student from the eastern state of Assam, who noted her generation’s concern about climate change, the premier had replied “The climate has not changed. We have changed.”
Modi’s opening reply was reported in the media as: “Climate has not changed. We have changed…our tolerance and habits have changed. If we change then God has built the system in such a way that it can balance on its own.”
He then spent the next six minutes expounding Indian cultural values on the environment and invoking Hindu scripture, before ending with a surreal reference to threading a needle by moonlight.
In a country that faces power cuts on a daily basis the idea of spending an evening in the dark is not a novelty, but Modi somehow made it appear desirable.
The question needs to be asked. At a time when Kashmir is suffering the worst floods in independent India why can the prime minister of India not give a straight answer on climate change and climate risk?
Why give patronizing guff when an intelligent young person asks a serious question and the Kashmir floods could have provided a clear and present reference point and example?
Modi is a consummate politician who elsewhere in his speech noted the importance of using words carefully. Why then the folksy whimsical response on climate change? Earlier in his address Modi spoke of being impressed with Japan’s “scientific temperament” on his recent visit. Why then leave science out – the starting point surely for any response on climate change?
The PM’s apologists have tried to spin him out of trouble claiming he was misunderstood.
Narendra Modi is not your average politician when it comes to climate change.
Four years ago he projected himself as India’s answer to Al Gore when he published an Convenient Action: Gujarat’s action on climate change as chief minister, although his former state still does not have the state-level climate plan required by central government. Given Modi’s public image as a climate guru, his mis-education on climate change on Teachers Day is all the more eyebrow-raising. Inexcusable some would say. The point is simple and non-political. On Teachers Day, India’s prime minister had an unparalleled opportunity to talk to young India about climate change.
If he has not done so already, Narendra Modi might wish to pick up the phone and ask his fellow Delhi resident, Dr Rajendra Pachauri for a personal briefing on climate change and India.
The chairman of the UN’s IPCC climate science panel might be able to fill in the evident gaps in the PM’s knowledge about why climate change poses a development risk to India and offers a low-carbon growth opportunity.
Perhaps then we will have less talk about the sun and moon and stars, and more about how India’s government is going to show the leadership on climate change that its young people deserve.
Malini Mehra is an Indian climate campaigner and founder, Centre for Social Markets (India)
The miseducation of Narendra Modi on climate change
The modi apologists will point out that it si posting by "prasad1", yes I am not a BJP fan.
It was in English Media, and by a NGO.
But fact of the matter remains same, Modiji was less than Honest.
