Speaking on Tuesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi put forward the position that India represents democracy's oldest roots, and underscored that the free exchange of differing perspectives has long been part of Indian public life. Speaking at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum, he pointed to the country's wide range of languages, its extensive print media landscape spanning more than 80,000 registered newspapers, and the expansion of digital civic engagement as evidence that democratic traditions run deep in India — a nation he described as democracy's origin point.
Pointing to a combined user base of more than 500 million across YouTube and Instagram, he noted that social media now defines the current era of communication. At the forum, he set out a framework centred on distributing authority to those at the grassroots level.
Pointing to the exercise of authority rather than its mere possession as the more telling measure, he argued that the central question concerns how power is actually put to work on behalf of ordinary people. The question of whether technological advancement will concentrate its advantages among a narrow group or open pathways across a vast population, he said, remains unresolved. He raised the question of whether access to knowledge would stay concentrated among a select few or extend meaningfully to the wider population.
His argument centred on a fundamental shift in how power operates — moving away from control toward enabling others, and away from competition toward collaboration, with shared progress outweighing personal gain, a set of ideas he put forward as laying the groundwork for a different way of thinking about leadership. The distinction he drew places enabling authority above controlling authority. Cooperation takes precedence over rivalry when it comes to exercising influence, he remarked, adding that lifting others toward their own success matters more than accumulating personal power.
Modi put forward the position that governments exist to strengthen the capacity of individuals to look after themselves, and that while those in authority hold genuine power, directing it in ways that make people reliant on the state runs against the purpose such power is meant to serve. He argued that the goal of governance centres on building up citizens and expanding their capacities.
Over a ten-year span, roughly 250 million people in India moved above the poverty threshold — a number that exceeds the total population of a broad range of nations. Modi went on to assert that structural changes in the country stem from deeply held belief rather than external pressure, and that the nation positions itself as a source of dependable, stable engagement in an unpredictable global environment.
Official data placed India's economic expansion at 7.8 percent for the April-to-June period, though analysts note that the underlying drivers of that pace remain a subject of ongoing assessment. Foreign exchange reserves have climbed past the $700 billion mark, according to the latest figures. Those underlying economic conditions have contributed to upward revisions in India's sovereign credit ratings. Assessments of the nation's standing point to a degree of self-assurance not previously recorded at this level.
