From Electricity to AI: Criticism of Opposition to Development Projects

You'll often hear them say, “That place gets electricity 24 hours a day.

Why not here?” And the very next day, these people will show up with tambourines to oppose dams, solar parks, thermal power, and nuclear power plants.

They'll bring their tambourines.

So, on the first day: “Why isn't there electricity?”

And on the second day, “Why are you building a hydropower dam?”

That's the kind of crowd they are. These are the people who used to oppose mineral mining.

But today they ask where India's rare earth mineral bunker is, where its supply chain is, and why India doesn't have an electric vehicle ecosystem like that of a certain country.

These are the same people who once used to debate data versus flour.

First, “data or flour, data or flour.” It was great fun.

Today these same people ask, “Tell us, Modi ji, what work has been done on AI?”

Just look at the audacity. In one— in one breath, they say, in one breath, they say that this should have happened in AI, that should have happened. Why hasn't it?

But in the next breath, you'll hear those same people say, “Hey, why are you building this data center?”

“Why are you setting up this semiconductor plant?”

And then these people will be there to list a hundred downsides of it, for hour after hour, showing up on social media screens, on TV debates, and filling the newspapers.