 "Nirmala Sitharaman, Sitharaman")
Budget 2024: During the interim Budget presentation on Thursday, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman incorporated a quote from Prime Minister Narendra Modi in her address to the Parliament.
Speaking on the second day of the Budget session in the Parliament, Sitharaman began her sixth budget address, giving an extensive report card of the Narendra Modi government's decade-long tenure. Follow the full coverage of Budget 2024 here.
Sitharaman also quoted PM Modi's latest speech from the Independence Day in her address. "There will not be a bigger day to commit to national development, with new inspirations, new consciousness, new resolutions, as the country opens up immense possibilities and opportunities," Modi had said from the ramparts of Red Fort on the 77th Independence Day occasion on August 15, 2023. It is our 'Kartavya Kaal', she added.
Heaping praise on the works of the Modi government in the last 10 years, Sitharaman exuded confidence in the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government's return to power in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
Notably, in the past, many finance ministers have employed the art of poetry in their budget speeches.
Inclusion of poetry in Budget speech in the past:
1) Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's 1991 budget: As the then finance minister under the P.V. Narasimha Rao government, Singh had quoted Urdu poet Allama Iqbal in the 1991 budget presentation. “Yunan-o-Misr-o-Roma sab mit gaye jahan se…Ab tak magar hai baaki, naam-o-nishaan hamara. (Old civilisations of Greece, Egypt and Rome have vanished from the earth. But our civilisation continues to thrive.)"
In the same Budget, Singh also quoted French poet and politician Hugo Victor saying, "No power on Earth can stop an idea whose time has come." Notably, the 1991 budget carried the vision of India's economic liberalisation.
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2)During the 1997 budget, former FM P Chidambaram quoted Tamil saint Tiruvalluvar, "Idipparai Illatha Emara Mannan Keduppar Ilanum Kedum" (Behold the King who reposeth not on those who can rebuke him/He will perish even when he hath no enemies.)
3)In 2001, the then Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha quoted "Taqaazaa hai waqt ka ke toofaan se joojho, kahaan tak chaloge kinaare kinaare? (The need is to fight the storm of time, how far will you walk on the shore?)".
4)In 2007, P Chidambaram, the finance minister under the Congress government, quoted Tiruvalluvar's verse again, this time about good governance in his speech. He recited a couplet from 1794 classic Tamil text 'Thirukkural', "Generous grants, compassion, righteous rule and succour to the downtrodden are the hallmarks of good governance."
5)In 2016, former Finance Minister Arun Jaitely recited an Urdu couplet to highlight the challenges faced by Modi government since coming to power in 2014. "Kashti chalaane walon ne jab haar kar di patwar hamein, lehar lehar toofan mile aur mauj mauj manjdhaar hamein. Phir bhi dikhaya hai humne, aur phir yeh dikha denge sabko, in halato mein aata hai daria karna paar humein. (When people riding the boat handed it to us after being defeated, we encountered many storms…but we proved that we can withstand the storms)
6)The 2017 budget, which followed the demonetisation move of the Modi government, Jaitley recited, "Nayi duniya hai, naya daur hai, nayi hai umang, Kuchh thay pehle ke tareeke, to kuchh hai aaj ke rang dhang." (It is a new world, it is a new era, there is new enthusiasm, there were some ways in the past, there are some ways of today.)
7)On 31 May 2019, Sitharaman was appointed the FM. Since then, she has employed poetry in multiple budget speeches, including the one presented during the once-in-a-lifetime Covid-19 pandemic era. She presented her first Budget during the June-September 2019 quarter, after the conclusion of that year's Lok Sabha elections.
Expressing confidence on Modi government's new five year tenure, she quoted an Urdu couplet, "Yaqeen ho toh koi rasta nikalta hai, hawa ki oat bhi lekar charagh jalta hai." (If you believe, there is a way out, even if the wind takes cover, the lamp burns.)
8)In the 2020 budget presented, Sitharaman recited a Kashmiri verse, noting that the nation was "blooming like a lotus in Dal lake." "Humara watan khilte hue Shalimar bagh jaise, humara watan Dal lake mein khilte hue kamal jaisa, nau jawanon ke garam khoon jaisa, mera watan tera watan, humara watan, duniya ka sabse pyara watan (Our nation is like a blooming Shalimar Bagh, our nation is like a lotus blooming in Dal lake, like the hot blood of younger generation, my nation, your nation, our nation, world's most beautiful nation)."
9)The following year, the world was reeling from an unprecedented spread of the coronavirus diseases. The event led to huge numbers of deaths and major economic slowdown across the world, from which the countries are still making gradual recovery. In 2021, Sitharaman quoted Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore "Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark."
10)In 2022, while Sitharaman did not recite any poetry, she evoked Hindu-epic 'Mahabharat' over tax collections. Quoting Mahabharata's 'Shanti Parva', Sitharaman said, "The King must make arrangements for yogakshema, which means the welfare of the populace, by way of abandoning any laxity and governing the state in line with Dharma, along with collecting taxes which are in consonance with the Dharma."
