Civil Services Day: Adopt ‘nation first’ approach, says PM Modi

Addressing an event organised to mark the 15th Civil Services Day in Delhi, he urged bureaucrats to do everything, even at local level, to strengthen the unity and integrity of India.

“No matter what we do, be it at the local level or in villages, never lose sight of the fact that the unity and integrity of the country is supreme. Whatever system we create, whatever decisions we take, always ask yourselves whether these strengthen the unity and integrity of India. India first, nation first should be the benchmark of our work,” he said.

The Prime Minister said the next 25 years for India, as it goes towards 100 years of Independence, is a landmark journey. “Our Amrit Kaal is not just to laud the last seven decades. We may have gone from 70-75 (years of independence) in routine. We may have gone from 60-70 (years of independence) in routine. But from 75 to 2047, India at 100, cannot be routine,” he said.

Citing a discussion he had many years ago in the US before he held any public office, Modi said no society in the world, be it believers or atheists, had the courage to change the tradition followed after death.

“I told them that traditionally the Hindu used to consider being cremated in the fire of sandalwood by the banks of the Ganges to be pious. That same Hindu adapted to the electric crematorium without any hesitation. There is no better example than this of the evolving mindset of society,” he said, adding that it was now the government’s responsibility to give pace to that tradition of adapting to the changing needs of time.

Speaking about the change in the mindset of people, the Prime Minister said India’s start-ups had set up 14 unicorns in 2022.

He said the government had abolished 1,500 obsolete laws in the first five years of the NDA government and the Cabinet Secretary had taken up the task of identifying and ending the provision of imprisonment in obsolete laws. “There is a law that says if the toilet of a factory is not whitewashed periodically, then that will attract
imprisonment. Our job is to free the people of this garbage and burden of compliance.”

He implored the bureaucracy to break out of the mentality of indifference and live freely. “During the last eight years, many big things with behavioural change have taken place,” he said. “Along with urging people to change their behaviour towards old customs, we should implement those first in our own offices and homes.”