From Red Fort to Reality Check: Modi's Grand Promises Under Scrutiny

Over the past decade, the Prime Minister’s Independence Day addresses from the Red Fort have served as the launchpad for some of India’s most ambitious national programmes. Narendra Modi used the historic platform to unveil sweeping initiatives—Swachh Bharat, Ayushman Bharat, Gati Shakti, the National Hydrogen Mission, and the far-reaching Viksit Bharat 2047 vision. They were billed not merely as policy announcements, but as turning points in the country’s history, capable of transforming public health, infrastructure, industry, and governance. Yet, while the symbolism was powerful, the reality on the ground often tells a more complicated—and less flattering—story, one in which ambition meets delays, irregularities, and, in some cases, outright corruption.

In 2014, the Swachh Bharat Mission promised to eradicate open defecation across India. By 2019, the government claimed rural India was “Open Defecation Free” and that 11 crore toilets had been built. However, independent audits, including data from the National Statistical Office and investigations by The Wire, suggested that as many as 30% of reported toilets did not exist or were unusable. The World Bank’s own sanitation monitoring in 2020 found that roughly 20 million Indians continued to defecate in the open. In some states, villagers showed journalists empty fields where “toilets” existed only in government records. The initiative undoubtedly shifted public awareness, but the combination of inflated figures and missing infrastructure hinted at systematic data manipulation and a rush to declare victory.

When Modi stood at the Red Fort in August 2021 to announce the ₹100 trillion Gati Shakti master plan, it was pitched as the solution to India’s chronic infrastructure bottlenecks. The plan aimed to integrate 16 ministries for faster project execution, improve logistics efficiency, and generate millions of jobs. The Economic Survey 2021-22 even projected that cutting logistics costs from 13% to 8% of GDP could save ₹20 lakh crore annually by 2030. Yet, within three years, headlines emerged of the CBI arresting four railway officials for allegedly taking bribes in connection with Gati Shakti contracts in Uttar Pradesh. The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) also flagged that several sanctioned projects under related infrastructure schemes were stalled for over 18 months, leading to cost overruns exceeding ₹15,000 crore. Critics noted a troubling lack of publicly accessible, detailed planning documents for many “priority” projects, leaving citizens unable to track progress or spending.

In 2024, Modi unveiled his boldest long-term pledge yet: making India a fully developed nation by its centenary of independence—Viksit Bharat 2047. The speech was packed with targets: 500 GW of renewable energy by 2030, 75,000 new medical seats, a Uniform Civil Code, hosting the 2036 Olympics, and tripling the economy to secure the world’s third-largest GDP slot. But here too, questions emerged quickly. Farmer incomes, which were supposed to double by 2022 according to earlier Red Fort pledges, have risen by only 25% in real terms over the past decade, according to the Reserve Bank of India’s rural economy data. Procurement shortfalls and payment delays persist, while CAG reports for 2023 showed subsidy leakages of over ₹3,000 crore in key agricultural schemes. Critics accused the government of focusing more on branding the Viksit Bharat Yatra than on addressing these chronic economic vulnerabilities.

The CAG has repeatedly flagged irregularities across these marquee programmes. A 2023 audit of the National Highways Authority found ₹3,000 crore in avoidable costs due to flawed tendering and delayed land acquisition. A separate audit of the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana—often linked to Gati Shakti’s rural connectivity goals—found that 38% of sampled roads failed quality standards. The Public Distribution System, despite reforms, still leaked up to 40% of foodgrain allocations in some states. In healthcare, Ayushman Bharat’s reach has expanded, but the National Health Authority reported in 2022 that over ₹200 crore worth of fraudulent claims had been filed by empanelled hospitals, pointing to persistent oversight failures.

These findings cut against the repeated Red Fort refrain of “corruption-free governance.” Even when projects deliver partial success—Ayushman Bharat has provided cashless treatment to over 5 crore beneficiaries—weak enforcement allows waste and fraud to siphon off public resources. The Right to Information framework, a key transparency tool, has seen rising rejection rates, while the Lokpal’s anti-corruption mandate has produced few high-profile prosecutions.

Public sentiment mirrors this tension. Supporters argue that large-scale schemes inherently take time to mature, and point to visible improvements—like increased sanitation coverage, the rollout of Vande Bharat trains, and higher electrification rates—as evidence that the trajectory is positive. Detractors counter that the government’s mastery of narrative often outpaces its ability to deliver on the fine print. On social media, even sympathetic voices have questioned the lack of granular, public-facing data on Gati Shakti’s progress or Viksit Bharat’s sectoral roadmaps. As one commentator put it: “We keep getting slogans from the Red Fort, but not the spreadsheets to see if they’re real.”

The consequence of this gap between vision and delivery is cumulative. Each unfulfilled or compromised pledge doesn’t just dent the credibility of a single project; it adds to a broader narrative that the system is structurally incapable of matching execution to ambition. This is especially risky for a government that has made high-visibility promises a central part of its political brand. With just over two decades until 2047, the margin for drifting between symbolic announcements and tangible results is shrinking.

For the grand visions unveiled from the Red Fort to truly reshape India, delivery will have to catch up to rhetoric. That means strengthening institutional oversight, restoring transparency tools to full strength, and addressing corruption vulnerabilities before they hollow out flagship schemes. Without that, the Red Fort speeches of the Modi era may be remembered as compelling pieces of political theatre—rich in symbolism, bold in ambition, but haunted by the lingering question of what might have been.