India’s freedom was the defining moment in ending colonialism all over the world, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday, reported ANI. Speaking on the 75th anniversary of the Quit India movement, the Prime Minister added that poverty, malnutrition and lack of education were the major challenges India faced today.

“In 1942, the need of the hour was to free India from colonialism,” Modi tweeted. “Today, 75 years later the challenges are different. Let us pledge to free India from poverty, dirt, corruption, terrorism, casteism, communalism and create a ‘New India’ of our dreams by 2022.”

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Modi asserted that the Quit India movement led to the growth of new leadership in the country. He said that the youth of India needs to know about historical events like the Quit India movement.

The 66-year-old Prime Minister said that from 2017 to 2022, when India celebrates the 75th anniversary of Independence, it needs to create the same spirit that existed from 1942 to 1947. Modi said that while Mahatma Gandhi used the slogan ‘karenge ya marenge’ (do or die) in 1942, today the slogan is ‘karenge aur kar ke rahenge’ (we will do and we will accomplish).

Politics of revenge in the country today, says Sonia Gandhi

Congress President Sonia Gandhi said that the country’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, spent many years in jail during the freedom struggle. She said that many Congress workers died in jail. Sonia said that while a lot of atrocities were committed by the British on the Quit India protestors, no one took a step back.

Gandhi, in an oblique reference to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, added, “We must not forget that some organisations opposed the Quit India movement,” Gandhi said. “ Such organisations have no role in the freedom struggle.”
She also claimed that politics of hate and revenge had taken over the country today, and that the space for dissent was shrinking.