Emphasizing that a beehive is stronger than an elephant, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Thursday highlighted the need to give powers to the people, and said that no person on a horse can fix all the problems of the country.
“One man riding a horse cannot solve the country”s problems, but it is a collective effort. The architecture we have to build is to connect the grassroots with the political system, open the political system. The legislative engine in India consists of 5,000 people who determine everything, how many people choose them? How can you talk of Centre-State relationship when only MPs and MLAs are defining the Vidhan Sabhas?” said Gandhi.
“People talk about individuals, large number of problems can be sorted out by the lower level people. Give a billion people the power to solve a problem, it”ll be solved in a jiffy,” he added.
Addressing the annual general meeting of industry body Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) here, Gandhi said that the spirit of the people of India is energetic and optimistic.
“Optimism for me is just like India, it is bursting with dreams and fearless ideas, brave ideas. Millions and millions of youngsters struggling every day with optimism,” he said.
Gandhi, who spelt out his vision for economic growth of the country, said India is home to the largest pool of human capital the world has ever known and probably will ever know.
“And it is this movement of people, this tremendous movement of people and ideas that is going to define this country in the 21st century. It is this energy that is producing your best managers. It”s driving the stock market and it”s the energy providing labour for all your factories. It drives the consumption upon which your businesses are built,” he added.
Asserting that democracy and technology have triggered a non-reversible chain reaction in India, Gandhi said: “This reaction is now unstoppable. Nobody can stop that. We have to channel this reaction.”
The 42-year-old Congress leader said India is now sitting on an unstoppable tide of human aspiration.
“The tide is so great that it is going to move forward regardless of what we do. But for this massive movement of people and ideas to be truly transformational, we need to nurture it. We need to make it harmonious. We need to make it happen smoothly,” he said, while emphasizing that there is a need to use the energy generated by the movement of people and ideas.
Gandhi told the business leaders that it is the responsibility of all to provide India with a physical infrastructure to enable the unprecedented movement of people and ideas.
“The first thing that we need to do is to accelerate this movement. It is our duty to provide India with a physical infrastructure to enable the unprecedented movement of people and ideas. This infrastructure needs to connect India. It needs to connect Indian villages. It needs to connect Indian cities and it needs to connect India to the rest of the world,” said Gandhi.
“We have to provide the roads on which our dreams are paved. And these roads can”t have potholes, they can”t break down in six months. They have to be big roads because they are going to carry strong people, they are going to carry strong forces,” he added.
Gandhi also lauded India Inc. for introducing India to the world.
“When I went to university in 1991, nobody knew India…that is not the case now thanks to you people,” he said.
The Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, inaugurated the CII meeting earlier on Wednesday.
The theme for this year”s deliberation is “India Tomorrow: Imperatives of Growth, Security and Governance”. (ANI)