‘If Indian democracy collapses…the planet suffers a fatal blow’

 

‘If Indian democracy collapses…the planet suffers a fatal blow’

What is the truth about Rahul Gandhi’s lecture at the Cambridge University and his other statements made in London during his recent visit? Here is look at some of the statements he made at various events:

 

Cambridge University: In his lecture at the Cambridge University’s Judge Business School on ‘Learning to Listen in the 21^st Century’, February 28, 2023, Rahul Gandhi, the Congress MP and leader, said: ‘Everybody knows and it’s been in the news a lot that Indian democracy is under pressure, is under attack. What’s happening, the institutional framework which is required for a democracy- Parliament, a free press, the Judiciary, just the idea of mobilization, just the idea of moving around, these are getting constrained. You’ve also heard of the attack on minorities, the attack on the press so you get a sense of what is going on …Narendra Modi is destroying the architecture of India…he is blowing our country to smithereens. He is imposing an idea on India that India cannot absorb.  As the Opposition, it is very difficult to communicate with people when you have this type of assault on media and on the democratic architecture. Indian democracy is a public good. Because it is by far the biggest democracy…At least 50 per cent of people who live in a democratic space live in India and so preserving and defending Indian democracy is greater than just about India. It is actually about defending the democratic structure and the democratic system on the planet. “

 

Indian Journalists Association: During his interaction with the IJA on March 4, he said: “People don’t quite understand the scale of India and its democracy. So how would you react if democracy suddenly disappeared in Europe? Well, how would you react if something, a structure three- and- a- half times Europe suddenly went non-democratic. That’s happened already. That’s not something that is going to happen in the future. That’s already happened but there’s no reaction…but Indian democracy is a public good and if you’re looking at the democratic structure…It is the single most important public good… It is three or four times the size of the United States in numbers…so the surprising thing is that the so-called defenders of democracy which are the United States, European countries seem to just be oblivious that a huge chunk of the democratic model has come undone which is the real problem. The Opposition is fighting that battle...the battle for a huge part of the democratic people on this planet.”   

 

Chatham House:  In an interactive session at the Chatham House think tank on March 6, Rahul Gandhi said, “the challenges confronting Indian democracy are India’s internal problems… we will deal with our problems…If Indian democracy collapses, in my view, democracy on the planet suffers a very serious, possibly fatal blow…the idea of a democratic model is being attacked and threatened…The RSS is a secret society- a fundamentalist, fascist Organisation… It is built along the lines of the Muslim Brotherhood and the idea is to use the democratic contest to come to power and then subvert the democratic contest.  It shocked me how successful they have been at capturing the different institutions; the Press, Judiciary, Parliament, Election Commission…all the institutions are under pressure, under threat and controlled in one way or another”.

 

Rahul Gandhi did not say anything that he hasn’t said during the recent marathon Bharat Jodo Yatra, covering some 4000 km by walk, that galvanized the entire nation. He was invited to speak at different events in London, including to the Indian diaspora. He was responding to the questions in a forthright manner, reflecting the political reality in today’s India.  He didn’t attack or defame India.  He was expressing his anguish and concern how serious is the threat to democratic system in India under the present political dispensation. As a prominent opposition leader, coming from a pre-eminent political family and belonging to the party that won the independence from the British and built a modern liberal secular democratic India, he was within his right to criticise the government.

 

The ruling party, its Ministers and spokespersons, nay the entire government apparatus, has been carrying a vociferous vilification and an orchestrated campaign against Rahul Gandhi, through every possible platform- the electronic media and the social media - by distorting and twisting and doctoring what he actually said in London, accusing him of insulting and defaming India on foreign soil and charging him of being ‘completely in the grip of anarchist and Maoist elements’. The Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju called him Pappu- a Hindi term that is often pejoratively used to describe a person with low IQ- and described him ‘dangerous for India’s unity.’ The Vice President of India, who is the Chairman of Rajya Sabha—the upper House of Indian Parliament-setting aside the constitutional propriety of being non-partisan and politically neutral, accused Rahul Gandhi of engaging in a ‘thoughtless unfair denigration of India’s democratic values ‘and that his comments were ‘ill-premised, unwholesome and motivated’ (TOI 10/3).

 

The truth is otherwise. As if all this malicious campaign to denounce and defame and discredit Rahul Gandhi is not enough, Prime Minister Narendra Modi took a dig at him on March 12 in the poll-bound state of Karnataka, accusing him of putting ‘on trial the mother of all democracies and insulting 130 crore Indians’ (TOI 13/3). It was his sixth visit to the state this year. He didn’t stop there. He gave a political spin, charging ‘Rahul Gandhi of insulting 12^th century social reformer Basaveshwara...I had the honor of veiling a statue of Sri Basaveshwara in London. But in the same London, some people have raised questions about the democratic system in India... insulting Karnataka.’  Modi converted the criticism of his government to an insult and attack on India.

 

The BJP is accusing Rahul Gandhi of badmouthing India in the foreign country. The Congress Party countered the charge saying badmouthing of the country was begun by Narendra Modi after he assumed the charge of Prime Minister in 2014.  And-

 

“While it is correct that Rahul has minced no words in criticising the Modi government and the RSS for undermining the country’s democracy, capture of institutions, rising communal tensions during his foreign visits, but PM Modi has been no angel. In his first visit to the US in September 2014, Modi told the Indian diaspora at Madison square in New York that a corrupt government had been voted out…During his visit to Canada in April 2015, the PM addressing a gathering in Toronto said past governments had left a mess behind. So far you had known scam India, now you will know skill India, he said thrashing the previous governments.  In May 2015, during his visit to China, Modi told the Indian diaspora you were ashamed of being born in India, today you are feeling proud.  Modi has more than once said no development took place in the country in seven decades before he came to power. The PM is not at all shy or hesitant in attacking previous governments of the role of the opposition while travelling abroad” (FPJ 12/3).

 

There were more instances of Modi attacking the previous governments and the opposition and defaming India when he was on foreign soil. The Congress President and the Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge stated that "in South Korea, the PM said that earlier people would lament, they would ask what sin they committed to have been born in India...Businessmen wanted to leave the country for better opportunities abroad"(IE 14/3)., 

 

The Congress spokesman Pawan Khera rebutted the Prime Minister saying that he wasted nine years in abusing the elders and ancestors of this country and insulted three generations when he said nothing happened in the last 70 year, and did not bother about the image of the country.  And Kharge said, ‘they are running the country like a dictatorship and then they talk about democracy. This is like ulta chor kotwal ko daante -pot calling the kettle black’ (FPJ 14/3).

 

The campaign of calumny against Rahul Gandhi is due to the fact that he is the only courageous and fearless opposition leader, unsparing in his frontal attack on the Modi government. The ruling party is rattled by his blunt and plain talk; worried about his growing popularity and acceptance in India and abroad and posing ultimate threat to its ideological hegemony. And at the same time, it is envious of his political lineage and intellectual articulation that no one in the ruling dispensation could match. It is also a calculated attempt to distract people’s attention from the Adani scam and other serious issues confronting the country. 

So it is the Ministers and the members of the treasury benches who have now invented a novel method of creating ruckus in the Parliament, and then obstructing and not allowing it to function, and demanding apology from Rahul Gandhi, what they call, for ‘insulting and defaming India on foreign soil’.  The Dy.  Leader of Lok Sabha, Rajnath Singh on the opening day of the second leg of budget session of Parliament on March 13, accused: that Rahul Gandhi had gone to London and tried to discredit India and sought foreign powers help to save India's democracy.  And Parliamentary Affairs Miniter Pralhad Joshi condemned Rahul Gandhi 'for seeking intervention of foreign powers like the US and Europe' (IE 14/3). To this Sam Pitroda reacted strongly: "Stop promoting and propagating lies about what Rahul Gandh said in London. He never invited any foreign countries to help"(TOI 15/3) .By their conduct, the ruling party Ministers and leaders have only proved Rahul Gandhi right.