On Wednesday (7th February), former NDTV ‘journalist’ turned YouTuber Sanket Upadhyay attempted to ‘fack-check’ Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent speech in Parliament in which he talked about former PM Jawaharlal Nehru considering Indians as “lazy” and “less intelligent”. Upadhyay in his desperate attempt to defend PM Nehru ended up embarrassing himself.
In a video uploaded to his YouTube channel, Sanket Upadhyay said that the speech PM Modi quoted in his Motion of Thanks address was former PM Nehru’s 1959 Independence Day speech. He then plays the audio clip of the said speech: “In India, the habit of working very hard is not very common. (Hindustan mein kaafi mehnat karne ki aadat aam taur se nahin hai). It is not our fault, habits form due to incidents (aadatein aise pad jati hain, vaakyat se). But the fact is we don’t work as hard as people in Europe or Japan or China or Russia or America do (Lekin baat ye hai ki hum utna kaam nahin karte jitna ki Europe ya Japan wale ya Cheen [China] ya Roos [Russia] ya Amreeka [America] wale karte hain). These communities became prosperous not through some magic, but through their hard work and intelligence (Ye na samajhiye ki ve qaumein khush-haal hogayi kisi jadu se, ve mehnat se hui hain, akal se hui hain). We too can progress through hard work and intelligence, there is no other option (Toh..hum bhi mehnat aur akal se badh sakte hain koi aur chara bhi nahin hai).”
Subsequently, Upadhyay tries to justify Nehru’s speech saying that the former prime minister did not essentially call Indians “lazy” and “less intelligent” rather he said that “Indians generally [emphasis added] don’t have the habit of working hard.”
“There is a generalisation from Jawaharlal Nehru’s side that generally (aam taur se), he has added those riders. Let’s first talk on a factual basis, did Jawaharlal Nehru say that Indians are lazy? So, he did not [explicitly] say that ‘Indians are lazy’. He said that Indians generally don’t have the habit of working too hard. But PM Modi made its interpretation that Jawaharlal Nehru has said that all the Indians are lazy. You have listened to both speeches, the truth is right before you,” Upadhyay said.
One is pressed to understand what Upadhyay was trying to “fact-check” here. The very definition of lazy is someone who does not like to work hard. To say that one said the latter and not the former is simply an attempt to mislead people.
Hilarious!
— Abhishek (@AbhishBanerj) February 7, 2024
Desperate ex-NDTV Sanket Upadhyay makes excuse for Nehru
He says Nehru never called Indians "lazy"
Instead, Nehru said that Indians don't work hard
Fact-checker of the century 🙏
😋 pic.twitter.com/UlbQ4VJglo
He then addresses the second ‘interpretation’ by PM Modi that Nehru said that Indians are “less intelligent”. After playing the audio clip of Nehru’s speech again, Upadhyay repeats Nehru’s words and said, “So Nehru is saying that these communities like the Europeans, the Japanese etc did not become prosperous due to some but by working hard and applying their intelligence. At the last, he [Nehru] said that we have to use our intelligence. But, he did not call Indians ‘less intelligent’ (Kam-akal). Both things are very different. While giving this bizarre justification Sanket Upadhyay looked as if he cracked some code.
“Nehru saying that Indians have to work hard and use their intellect and bringing out its interpretation that so far Indians have been lazy and less intelligent are absolutely two different things,” Upadhyay continues as he tries to cover up the obvious.
While Nehru admirers may come up with senseless arguments to say that it is PM Modi who misinterpreted Nehru’s assertion in his 1959 speech, it is undeniable that PM Nehru indeed insinuated that Indians are lazy and less intelligent and should work hard and use their brains to become prosperous like the Europeans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians or Americans.
Sanket Upadhyay then goes on to say that in today’s context, however, it is not right to say that Indians have grown lazy or are not that intelligent as Indians are not only working hard in India but also in European countries as well. Furthermore, he somehow brought ‘unemployment’ into the context saying that there is an ‘employment paradox’ as he said that there is a high number of unemployed people but a very limited talent pool in the country. It still does not justify Nehru’s ‘generalisation’ since unemployment is not a problem exclusive to India.
Europe recorded an unemployment rate of 6.4% till December 2023 while India’s unemployment rate has reduced to 3.2% in 2022-23, according to the information provided by the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS).
Interestingly, after miserably failing at ‘fact-checking’ PM Modi’s speech, Upadhyay tried to do monkey-balancing saying that it is not right even though Nehru made a general proposition that Indians don’t have the habit of working very hard and he did not directly call Indians lazy and ‘kam-akal’ since Indians work hard to earn their livelihood. He, however, blames the successive governments somehow for this senseless assertion regarding Indian people.
In an X post, Upadhyay continued to defend Nehru’s remarks as he shared a Swami Vivekananda quote which says “arise, awake and stop not till the goal is reached. “The whole ‘Lazy and Unintelligent Indian ‘attribution to Nehru in PM Modi’s speech can be understood with this simple Swami Vivekananda quote. Would it be correct to interpret that Swamiji meant we are all sleeping, unawakened and have stopped? No, right?”
The whole ‘Lazy and Unintelligent Indian ‘attribution to Nehru in PM Modi’s speech can be understood with this simple Swami Vivekananda quote. Would it be correct to interpret that Swamiji meant we are all sleeping, unawakened and have stopped? No, right? pic.twitter.com/V0Y8YVCuPU
— Sanket Upadhyay (@sanket) February 7, 2024
Interestingly, while Swami Vivekananda’s saying is inspired by a Katha Upanishad verse उत्तिष्ठत जाग्रत प्राप्य वरान्निबोधत, क्षुरासन्न धारा निशिता दुरत्यद्दुर्गम पथ: तत् कवयो वदन्ति | (chapter 1.3.14) which means “Arise! Awake! Approach the great and learn. Like the sharp edge of a razor is that path, so the wise say−hard to tread and difficult to cross”. Nehru’s generalisation of Indians having developed a habit of not working hard and that they need to apply their intelligence to become prosperous was his personal opinion giving the obvious impression that Indians had so far been lazy and less intelligent.
PM Modi quoted Nehru in his Lok Sabha speech
#WATCH | PM Narendra Modi read out a statement from a speech of former PM late Jawaharlal Nehru, in Lok Sabha today.
— ANI (@ANI) February 5, 2024
PM Modi said, "…It means that Nehru ji thought that Indians are lazy and less intelligent." pic.twitter.com/GBba9NEbz3
During his speech in the Lok Sabha on Motion of Thanks on the President’s Address on 5th February, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, “Let me read what Prime Minister Nehru had said from Red Fort. Indians generally do not have the habit of working very hard, we do not work as much as the people of Europe or Japan or China or Russia or America. It means that Nehru ji thought that Indians are lazy and less intelligent. The Congress never trusted India’s potential. They always considered themselves rulers and belittled people.”
