Word's worth: Looking at evolution of PM Modi through his 10 I-Day speeches

The prime minister has also set goals for his government and collective ones for the people in his speeches, sometimes shifting the goalposts

On August 15, 2014, in his first Independence Day address, Prime Minister Narendra Modi introduced himself to the people as a “boy from a small-town poor family”, an outsider to Delhi’s elite circles, someone they should think of not as the country’s prime minister but its “pradhan sevak”, the prime servant. 

Modi was then less than 100 days into his new job. Ten Independence Day speeches later, with Parliament elections looming next year, much has changed.

In 2018, in his fifth address from the Red Fort, the last of his first term as prime minister, Modi felt the need to