Baroness Verma | This House Believes That Modi’s India is on the Right Path | 7/8

thank you Mr President and thank you ladies and gentlemen and those rushing out hurry up um Mr President this proposed um this proposition today I'm going to speak on behalf of me being a British Indian I'm not going to delve into the politics that I've heard around deriding a country because of one person because for me the growth of India over the last nine years has made Indians out of India incredibly confident and proud and I say that standing here as somebody who went to India for the first time in 1976 as a 16 year

old so you can figure my age from that and then again 77 and then again onwards until 2020 when the panda pandemic hit and for one year I did not go to India but I was there in April I was heading the or party parliamentary group for trade and investment with India and I can tell you that in all the years that I've been going not just as a politician but as a businesswoman somebody taking delegations to India I've seen transformational change particularly in the last nine years now I don't double in Indian politics that

is for the in people of India to decide but what I do say is that somebody looking from the outside in that the progress that I've seen in recent years has made many of us incredibly incredibly confident that we can now go about the world because the world now wants to know us now that ladies and gentlemen is what we should be talking about we've derided and discussed one human being and you've rightly pointed out elections are there to decide who comes in and who goes out and all countries have their challenges but the infrastructure

I've seen the roads that I've seen build the flyovers that I've seen and more importantly for me who stands up for the rights of women and girls the emphasis on education for women and girls the rights for Muslim women on the triple to luck was a real big moment for me because these are women who were kept in the shadows no rights and yet now they have that right I won't delve into the internal politics of a country I have no right to do so just like I know politicians have no right to come here

and double in ours we have a right to an opinion we have a right to raise an issue when we don't agree with something at a political level we raise them I've been a former Minister I had to do it all of the time not with India only but with many countries but the point is in a growing democracy and I have to remind many many people India in its new form is only 75 years old and in 75 years old we should be envious those of us who have been democracies forever because we've not

managed the growth story that India has managed we should be envious that they've got a GDP far greater than ours and that is why the whole world is looking to partner up with India and it's important that we actually talk up our partners because we then are joining that story of success we do share a history and for me it's a very painful history because my ancestors were part of the movement that wanted freedom from the British Raj but I have the great privilege of serving as a parliamentarian in the oldest democracy alongside partnering with

the largest democracy and of course there is a long way to go in giving the GDP per capita at the par that you'd like to see it but my God 75 years and you've managed to do so much now you mystified me when you talked about the toilets goodness sake those people particularly women who couldn't go out are now safe because they have access to the very basic needs of a human being denied and I'll tell you why I feel really really angry when we demean the values of those sorts of very simple interventions but

the impact on so many people is because girls stopped going to school because they could not get the privacy of toilets they had menstrual cycles and they could not go to school because they had no privacy of toilets they may sound basic to all of you sitting in this wonderful room your privileged to be here but the large majority of people across the planet not just in India but across the planet do not have the Privileges that we are enjoying and therefore when a leader comes along with a 1.4 billion population you know I actually

thought my goodness what would we do we have a 1.4 billion population 65 percent of which is under 35. so of course the unemployment rates are going to be higher because you've got more people and of course you're going to have to progress quicker because you've got more people but we're a country here there are aging with losing young people because we our child birth rate is not big enough I think the pope or somebody said have more children but it's true so let us celebrate actually what you've achieved and I sat there thinking that

we talked about Kashmir now we talk about Kashmir in the negative all of the time now let me tell you I've had a delegation from Kashmir come and they are Keen for investment in Kashmir because it's now a safe environment so let us enjoy the fact that people want to invest in Kashmir and for those who raised the point of hundreds and thousands of people dying I hope the the tears were shed for all of those people that were pundits who were also being killed those bundles who had to flee their homes I always say

let's not look at one side of a catastrophe there are two sides there are victims from all sides and we need to share the pain for all there are countries today where if you are not a Muslim in that country you you get you do get attacked your religious places are destroyed so where is all the up in arms about that let's be fair let's be fair in our judgment on how we want to see the world for me as somebody who was born in India I was nine months old when I left India in

1960 came to a country growing up here faced huge racism but I knew one thing this country enabled me even with the racism even with all of the challenges that I had I ended up knowing that I could do what I wanted to do and I see confident young Indians doing that when I go to India they come from all backgrounds I see all Indians doing what they want to do they want to see a prosperous India they want to take that Prosperity out I urge young people from the UK to go and visit India

because today is much easier to invest in India than it has ever been before the systems and I don't know about the state's politics but I do know different states have different governments and all governments are working really really hard to make investment easier and that's what you want to see so this proposition that this house believes that mood is India is on the right path yes it is because there is economic growth there is confidence in the Indian people they don't believe that they are now beholden to having to listen to somebody's else's way

of democracy the world is wooing India India itself has become a convening Force for so many places we should celebrate that we should celebrate that there's another democracy doing exactly what democracies should be doing and that is enabling people to be themselves ladies and gentlemen this debate has in my view been so emotive it has barked on hawked on all of the things that we can see negative and yet the people of India are the most I I often look at them they're the most entrepreneurial people I've ever come across they are fascinated by what's

going on in the digital world in the world of AI in the world of cyber in the world of space they are fascinated by being a big force on the world stage we should celebrate that I'll be there again at the end of the year I'm taking another delegation and I encourage businesses to come just as I encourage businesses from India to come and invest in the UK is Partnerships it's growth it's confidence thank you very much foreign [Music]