New Delhi, Sept. 24: Prime Minister Narendra Modi today said his "Selfie With Daughter" campaign had given girls a new sense of self-confidence and pride in themselves.
His comments came two days after his convoy's route in Varanasi was changed to prevent it being stopped by Banaras Hindu University students who were protesting the alleged shaming of a campus molestation victim by the vice-chancellor.
Yesterday, hours after the Prime Minister had ended his two-day visit of his constituency, police baton-charged the students, sending six girls and six boys to hospital.
Modi made his claim in his monthly Mann Ki Baat radio programme, which completed three years today.
Listing the programme's achievements, he said: "Selfie With Daughter (launched in mid-2015 over a Mann Ki Baat address) became a big campaign not only in India but across the world. This is not only a matter of social media. It became a development that created a new self-confidence and a feeling of atmagaurav (self-pride) in every daughter.
"Every parent started feeling that they should take a selfie with their daughter. Every daughter started regaining her self-confidence and self-esteem."
At BHU, the protesting students had hung a large hand-painted banner over the campus gate yesterday that took a dig at Modi's flagship pro-girl child initiative, saying: " Bachegi beti tabhi toh padhegi beti (Only if daughters survive can they study)."
Modi had launched the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (Save Daughter, Educate Daughter) awareness programme in early 2015, months before kicking off the campaign for fathers and daughters to take selfies together and post them on Twitter.
In his address today, the Prime Minister seemed to equate Sangh parivar stalwarts Nanaji Deshmukh and Deendayal Upadhyaya with Mahatma Gandhi and anti-Emergency hero Jayaprakash Narayan.
"October 2 is the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi and Lal Bahadur Shastri; October 11 is the birth anniversary of Jayaprakash Narayan and Nanaji Deshmukh; and Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya's birth anniversary falls on September 25," he said.
"And what was the focus of all these great men?... To live for the country, do something for the nation. They led the people not by mere sermon but by action."
Modi said: "Gandhiji, Jayaprakashji, Deendayalji were great personalities who remained far away from the corridors of power but lived every moment for the people, kept fighting all odds following the principle sarvajan hitaya, sarvajan sukhaya (for the welfare and happiness of all)."
He added: "In respect of Mann Ki Baat, I have always remembered one sentence by Acharya Vinoba Bhave (a Gandhian who led a movement for voluntary land donation to the poor). He used to say 'A-sarkari, asar-kari (non-government is effective).
"I too have tried to focus on the people of the country in Mann Ki Baat; have kept it away from political hues and tried to remain connected with you with a stable mind rather than being diverted by the heat of the moment or anguish."
Modi alluded to the Swachhta Hi Seva sanitation campaign, part of his Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, which concludes on October 2.
"A kind of pressure has been created in public places and now people resist if someone tries to spoil or make a public place dirty in any way. Those spoiling public places are feeling this pressure too," he said.
He praised 18-year-old Bilal Dar, a Kashmiri rag-picker who single-handedly helped reduce pollution in the Wular Lake and whom the Srinagar Municipal Corporation has made its brand ambassador.
While speaking of the pressure being felt by those spoiling public places, Modi made no mention of Zafar Khan. The CPIML Liberation member had allegedly been beaten to death by civic employees in Rajasthan's Pratapgarh town in July for objecting to their taking pictures of women defecating in the open - part of an official drive to shame polluters.
