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Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday used the occasion of becoming India\u2019s longest continuously serving Prime Minister to attack the Congress, saying the term \u201cHindu rate of growth\u201d was coined to hide the failures of Congress governments and should instead have been called the \u201cCongress rate of growth.\u201d<\/p>
Addressing a meeting of NDA leaders at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi, Modi criticised the phrase often used by economists to describe India’s modest economic growth between the 1950s and the 1980s. According to him, the label unfairly associated slow growth with Hindu society while shielding Congress governments from accountability.<\/p>
\u201cThe country has been liberated from the Congress. They made people believe that development would be slow in India. They gave it a name: Hindu rate of growth. The failures were of the Congress, but the blame was upon Hindus. It should have been called the Congress rate of growth,\u201d Modi said.<\/p>
Elaborating on his criticism, the Prime Minister said, \u201cThe Congress had plunged the country into an abyss of helplessness, destitution, and an inferiority complex. The nation was conditioned to believe that development in India inevitably moves at a snail’s pace, that rapid growth was simply not possible here. With great cunning, this sluggish growth was labelled the ‘Hindu Growth Rate’, implying that while the style, responsibility, and failure were all Congress’s, the stigma was pinned on the country’s vast Hindu population.\u201d<\/p>
\u201cIn reality, this phenomenon should have been named “Congress Growth Rate”. This “Congress Growth Rate” was characterised by a complete absence of governance, policy, intent, and decisiveness. It was under Atal ji’s leadership that the NDA government first came to power; only then did we catch a glimpse of what accelerated development looks like. Unfortunately, however, in 2004, the country was once again caught in a vortex of instability and the stranglehold of the Congress,\u201d he added.<\/p>
Modi also credited the NDA government under former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee for demonstrating what rapid development could look like and said the country had benefited from political stability under the NDA.<\/p>