Another Hindu festival where Congress prince Rahul Gandhi chose to omit Hindu iconography. On the 26th of August, as the nation celebrated the birthday of Lord Krishna, Rahul Gandhi wished the nation on the Hindu festival in his usual style of leaving out the image of the Hindu god as if wishing for the sake of wishing. The Gandhi scion extended his hearty wishes to the people on Krishna Janmashtami without the image of Lord Krishna but only a flute.
“Hearty wishes and congratulations to everyone on Shri Krishna Janmashtami. I hope that this festival of joy and happiness fills the life of all of you with new enthusiasm and excitement,” Rahul Gandhi posted on X.
सभी को श्री कृष्ण जन्माष्टमी की हार्दिक शुभकामनाएं एवं बधाई।
— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) August 26, 2024
आशा करता हूं कि हर्ष और उल्लास का यह पर्व आप सभी के जीवन को नई उमंग एवं उत्साह से भर दे। pic.twitter.com/PdPCorUSvL
This, however, is not the first time that Rahul Gandhi deliberately omitted Hindu iconography from his posts wishing on Hindu festivals.
On the occasion of Vijay Dashmi or Dussehra last year, Rahul Gandhi shared a picture showing a bow and arrow avoiding Lord Ram’s picture.
Similarly, on the Hindu festival of Diwali [Deepawali], which marks the return of Lord Ram, his brother Laxman, and Goddess Sita to Ayodhya, Gandhi chose not to include their images marking their joyous return.
Rahul Gandhi’s ‘tradition’ of avoiding images of Hindu deities when extending wishes on Hindu festivals has been going on for many years. In 2022, he shared his greetings on Dussehra without using images of Hindu deities.
In his 2022 Rath Yatra post, Gandhi avoided using Lord Jagannath, Devi Subhadra, and Lord Balabhadra’s images. In 2020, he wished Ram Navami with the image of Lord Ram absent.
In 2021, Gandhi shared greetings on Ganesh Chaturthi with the image of Lord Ganesh missing.
During Maha Shivarathri, Rahul Gandhi put out an image of the Kailash mountains instead of posting Lord Shiva’s images or his symbols in his tweet.
Rahul Gandhi’s subtle messaging behind skipping images of Hindu deities in posts related to Hindu festivals
Despite the Congress party’s Muslim appeasement policy over the decades, Rahul Gandhi has consistently positioned the party and himself as ‘secular’, avoiding Hindu religious iconography to preserve a farcical ‘inclusive’ appeal. By excluding images of Hindu gods, he perhaps intends to create a neutral or impartial image that respects all religions equitably. This, however, is an outright secularisation of Hinduism. Religion is the only aspect that is not and should not be secular; however, the prince of the grand old party is secularising Hindu festivals solely to strengthen his secular credentials. This attempt to selectively portray Hindu festivals as ‘inclusive’ probably has a subtle motive of diluting the religious essence of Hindu festivals making it more of a cultural thing than Dharmic.
Probably, Rahul Gandhi is attempting to secularise Hindu festivals by avoiding images of Hindu deities or using imagery focusing on cultural aspects rather than religious fearing his party’s anti-Hindu votebank might get offended or perceive Gandhi as a Hindu leader, a perception due to which a large section of Muslims and other anti-Hindutva elements hate BJP calling them Hindu ‘hardliners’.
The very attempt to downplay the religiosity of Hindu festivals either to assert political correctness or out of fear of backlash from the Hindu-disdaining voter base alongside intended secularisation, is a blatant politicisation of Hindu festivals.
This mistreatment of Hindu festivals also appears to be an attempt to confirm certain Abrahamic beliefs, with no image of God being a prominent one. A lack of images of Hindu deities in Rahul Gandhi’s Hindu festival-related social media posts suggests that the Gandhi scion is laying emphasis on the Abrahamic notion that God is formless and without any image, in absolute contradiction to the Hindu beliefs wherein the “Nirarakar Brahma” [God’s formless state] takes “Saakaar” [God’s manifest and perceptible state] forms from time to time for varied reasons.
Rahul Gandhi uses Hindu imagery and symbols for political mileage
Interestingly, over the last decade, Rahul Gandhi has adopted a Janusian approach. On one hand, Gandhi is seen conducting electoral temple runs to establish his ‘Hinduness’ ahead of elections, on the other, he also does not want to be seen as a Hindu leader by highlighting the religiosity of the Hindu festivals. On one hand, Rahul Gandhi claims to be a Shiv Bhakt ‘tapasvi’ on the other, he claims to be fighting against “Shakti”. Similarly, the Congress party claims that Lord Ram is in their hearts but Rahul Gandhi loses his cool over people raising “Jai Shri Ram” slogans in the glory of Bhagwan Ram. Not to forget, he once said that “those who go to temples molest women”.
In 2022, Rahul Gandhi used the occasion of Saraswati Puja, to extend his support to Muslim girls hell-bent on wearing Hijab in school in Karnataka defying the dress code. Politicising the Hindu festival, Gandhi asserted that Saraswati Maa gives knowledge to all and doesn’t discriminate. Gandhi, however, failed to mention what Allah or the Islamic text says about polytheist Hindus.
Rahul Gandhi also has a record of patronising anti-Hindu elements be it Hinduphobic pastor George Ponnaiah who told Gandhi during Bharat Jodo Yatra that Jesus is the real God unlike Shakti, or Rijil Makkuty who slaughtered a cow in broad daylight in 2017 to mock Hindu sentiments. Moreover, Gandhi once said that OBC MPs of the NDA have been filled in the party like Murtis [Vigraha/idols] without any power implying that Murtis are powerless.
While the Gandhi scion has left no opportunity to mock Hindu belief in some way or the other, he uses the same randomly to make a political point. In his social media posts, Rahul Gandhi strictly avoids using images of Hindu gods when sharing greetings on Hindu festivals but has no qualms about bringing the image of Lord Shiva to parliament to use it as a weapon to attack the ruling dispensation. In July this year, it was seen how Rahul Gandhi shamelessly used the image of Lord Shiva to peddle his distorted narrative of non-violence associating Bhagwan Shiv’s Trishul [trident] with Ahimsa even as the trident symbolises power, authority and destruction of evil alongside the “Tri Gunas”—Sattva, Rajas and Tamas.
Besides peddling false and malicious narratives around the beliefs and aspects of Hindu Dharma in his attempt to establish that BJP’s idea of Hindutva is bad and his corrupted understanding of Hinduism is good, Rahul Gandhi also takes delight in mocking the struggle of Hindus to reclaim Ram Janmbhoomi as he recently said that I.N.D.I. Alliance defeated the Ram Janmabhoomi Movement in Ayodhya. Clearly, the political compulsion may have compelled Congress to at least not appear “anti-Hindu”, its mindset remains the very same that denied the existence of Lord Ram in 2007.
Even as Hindus are being persecuted in Bangladesh with their temples attacked, the self-proclaimed “Janeudhari” did not speak a word in support of Bangladeshi Hindus. Why? The Congress party fears that it untangle their meticulously constructed warp and weft of perpetual Muslim victimhood which led them to table the communal violence bill, which if passed would have made sure that only minorities and SCs/STs could be “victims” and the perpetrators of communal violence would always be Hindus.
In a nutshell, Rahul Gandhi uses and will continue to use Hindu Dharma for electoral gains. He also ensures that his core vote bank, which harbours deep disdain for Hindus and their Dharma, does not see him as a pro-Hindu leader. His use of subtle imagery, avoiding images of Hindu gods in his Hindu festival-related social media posts, indicates the same. Since Hindus still [emphasis added] form the majority, complete neglect of the community could be disastrous for the party, so the party’s unannounced supreme leader does the humbugging by extending wishes on Hindu festivals but keeping them devoid of its religiosity.
Some supporters of Congress have shown old tweets of Rahul Gandhi and a couple of recent ones where images of Hindu gods are visible, but it doesn’t negate the fact that a recurring feature of Rahul Gandhi’s posts on Hindu festivals have been missing photos of Hindu gods and goddesses, which has led people to question this pattern.
