Gandhi-scion Rahul Gandhi yet again courted controversy on Tuesday as he challenged India’s national unity by referring it to as a “union of states” and not a nation.
Speaking at an event titled ‘India at 75’ at Corpus Christi College at the Cambridge University hosted by a Congress party sympathiser Shruti Kapila, Rahul Gandhi once again promoted sub-nationalism besides instigating people by calling for a mass movement against the Indian state.
In what seems to be a scripted interview with Kapila, Rahul Gandhi shared several ideas that included his idea on India as a nation while casting aspersions on India’s electoral system and democratic credentials, including expressing doubts against the independent functioning judiciary of the country.
Responding to the question on the Congress party’s idea of India, the Gandhi-scion tried pushing sub-nationalist tendencies by claiming that India was a “union of states” and not a nation. He went on to add that several federal entities got together and negotiated to create what is today referred to as India, the Bharat. He said India as a political entity is nothing but a negotiation between the states.
In his interview, Rahul Gandhi claimed that there was a systematic attack on the institutions that allowed the countrymen to speak. He also added that the basic structures, the electoral system, parliament, and democratic system, are being captured by one organisation. He said the conversation about India is being stamped out, and the deep state, which as per Rahul Gandhi, is RSS, is capturing these spaces.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has alleged that there is a “systematic attack” on the institutions that allow India to speak, and as the conversation is being stamped out, the “deep state” is entering those spaces and redefining the way the conversations that are happening in the country.
During an event entitled ‘India at 75’ at Corpus Christi College at the Cambridge University on Monday evening, Mr Gandhi spoke on a broad range of subjects: from Hindu nationalism, the Gandhi family’s role within the Congress party and efforts to mobilise the people of the country as he fielded questions from a large diaspora of Indian students.
In a conversation with Shruti Kapila, Rahul Gandhi reiterated some of his points during last week’s conference, including the impact of the “deep state” on Indian politics.
“For us, India comes alive when India speaks, and India dies when India goes silent. What I see as going on is a systematic attack on the institutions that allow India to speak – Parliament, the election system, and the basic structure of democracy being captured by one organisation. And, as the conversation is being stamped out, the deep state is entering those spaces and redefining the way that conversation is happening,” he said.
As per Rahul Gandhi, the democratic contest depends on certain structures like a free and fair electoral system, an independent judiciary, and a fair press. Rahul Gandhi also lamented that the Election Commission is not responding to their appeals made against the electoral practices of the BJP while accusing the press of not providing give enough space to other political leaders, except Modi.
The Congress MP also claimed that the BJP has total dominance over the media and social media platforms which, according to him, is influencing the elections in India.
Rahul Gandhi compares India with European Union and compares states in India as independent entities
In his interview, Rahul Gandhi again brought up the issue of sub-nationalism to compare it with the other democracies. Interestingly, the Gandhi-scion compared India to confederations such as European Union and not to the federal democratic setup as the United States. As per Gandhi, India’s political formation is much like a loosely-connected supranational European Union, where multinational political unions together negotiated power as an arrangement.
“In our system, if you are going to compare the United Kingdom. Think of India much more like Europe than you think of England. India is much closer to Europe than it is to England. It is much more accurate to think of India as Europe and think of a Europe that is politically and economically united. That is what India achieved 70 years ago. By the way, Europe has not achieved that. What was achieved 70 years ago was a powerful unique thing. But it requires a conversation between these states. Now where the question of BJP and Congress comes in. The national party is the party that stitches up the conversation. So actually, I do not see it as a real challenge to the Congress party. I see it as a huge opportunity for the congress party reacts to it properly,” Rahul Gandhi said.
With this speech, Rahul Gandhi took a step ahead in openly professing his sub-nationalism rhetoric as he almost declared federal units in India as independent entities, while placing the national identity of the nation at a superficial level by comparing it with European Union. It is important to understand that European Union is not a national identity but a political formation by the European nations for their political-economic convenience. No shared identity or value system represents European Union, unlike India, which is a civilisation state.
Rahul Gandhi is now dangerously pushing for an idea to weaken India’s cultural and civilisation identity by instigating sub-national identities to flourish in one of the world’s most complex societies, i.e. India.
On the question of the two-party system in India, Rahul Gandhi also claimed that there were only two political parties in many states in India, including Uttar Pradesh, while indirectly agreeing that the Congress is no longer an entity in India’s largest state where the Nehru-Gandhi family’s political fortunes once flourished.
Rahul Gandhi on Big-tech and monopolies
Yet again, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi bashed the social media platforms for their alleged partial and biased stand and accused them of having a major say in the Indian political system. Even though the Big Tech is accused of pushing the Left narrative, Mr Gandhi peddled a contrary claim that the social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp favoured the ruling political party in India and that its respective CEOs never met, never considered the opposition parties.
“I do not believe that the large social media companies are neutral. The way the Indian elections are being fought, they are essentially being fought on these platforms. They are being fought on WhatsApp, not so much on Twitter but Facebook and WhatsApp definitely”, he said. Gandhi was speaking at the event that was organised by the School of the Humanities and Social Science at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge University, as part of a series of events celebrating the 75th year of Indian independence.
The Congress leader further specifically took a jibe at Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and stated that he favours the Prime Minister of India and his party. “The head of Facebook has never met an Indian opposition leader. He comes, meets the Prime Minister and goes home. The CEO of Facebook in Delhi was also a BJP person. So how can we say that these social media platforms are impartial? Major politics happens on these platforms”, he claimed.
He, meanwhile, also cited his personal example to claim that his new Twitter followers stopped growing from 40,000 daily to zero. Gandhi, in August 2021, had held protests seeking justice for a nine-year-old Dalit girl who was raped, murdered and then cremated by the perpetrators in Delhi. However, he had revealed the minor’s identity on social media, following which Twitter removed his tweet, which also contained a picture of the parents of the deceased minor girl.
“On my Twitter account, I used to get 40,000 Twitter users a day. I went to Delhi for the protest, and after that, magically, my Twitter users went to zero. We wrote to Twitter and sought the reason, but no satisfactory answer was provided. Three months later, we contacted the Wall Street Journal and the day before the article was scheduled to publish, my users were back to 40,000 a day. The same is with WhatsApp. I don’t believe that these are neutral platforms,” Rahul Gandhi said while lamenting that the big-tech companies are working against him.
At the event that marked the conclusion of Gandhi’s UK tour, which began last week, the Congress leader also accused the Indian Media of opera functioning. “Around 140-160 media entities are owned by one person. There’s a media monopoly, and then there are multiple business monopolies supporting and financing the Bharatiya Janata Party”.
Rahul Gandhi says China is creating prosperity in India’s neighbourhood
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi also defended China’s rising influence in the Indian sub-continent and claimed that China wanted the countries around it proper.
Speaking to Shruti Kapila at Cambridge University, Rahul Gandhi left no stones unturned to defend the dragon, where he said, “There are two competing visions now on the ground. One is the western, India is part of it, which is a maritime vision, and the other is a terrestrial vision, the Belton road, where most trade moves from China through the old silk road to Europe and China dominates that trade. That is the clash.”
Continuing, “That is what China is building. What China is offering to countries around it is the idea of prosperity. China is saying allow us to build your infrastructure. Allow us to put in the communications backbone. Allow us to put in 5G. We will give you the money. You build your own infrastructure, and then we will have prosperity together. That is what they are offering, and it is a very powerful thing to offer. But it is not in our interest. It is not in India’s interest for China to expand out like this.”
Rahul Gandhi also referred to the ongoing cold war between the US and China as a civilisation rivalry and said it would have severe consequences for India. He said the United States defends one vision, and China is placing another vision on the table. He said,
“My problem is, you [the US] cannot say to India that we will have a defence pact and we will fight with China without the prosperity part. If there is an alternative vision, that vision actually needs to create prosperity. It needs to create wealth,” the Wayanad MP said.
The event, organised by the School of the Humanities and Social Science at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge University, as part of a series of events celebrating the 75th year of Indian independence, marks the conclusion of Gandhi’s UK tour, which began last week.
