Flagging India’s “multiple religions, multiple traditions, multiple languages” and describing the country as “a conversation between all its people”, Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi said Thursday that the “single biggest risk” to India was “the attack on democracy” and that “a wholesale attack” on its democratic system was underway.
In remarks during an interaction with students at the EIA University in Envigado in Colombia, Gandhi said he did not think India was “arrogant enough” to “see itself as taking leadership in the world” and that the country rather believed in “having a partnership”.
His remarks drew an angry reaction from the BJP which called him “Leader of Propaganda”.
Senior BJP leader and former Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad accused Gandhi of “insulting” India on foreign soil.
Addressing a press conference in New Delhi, Prasad said: “Rahul Gandhi is abroad. It would have been nice if he had wished well, but he is attacking India. He says everything baseless. He says there is no democracy in India. There is complete democracy, but the problem with Rahul Gandhi is that he wants power.”
BJP spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla too targeted the Congress leader: “Goes abroad and attacks Indian democracy! After all, he wants to fight the Indian state… Sometimes demands (that) US, UK should intervene in our affairs and now this.”
Gandhi told the university students that there were risks that India had to overcome. “The single biggest risk is the attack on democracy that is taking place in India. Because India has multiple religions, multiple traditions, multiple languages, and India actually is a conversation between all its people.”
He said different traditions, religions and ideas require space. “And the best method for creating that space is the democratic system. And currently, there is a wholesale attack on the democratic system in India,” he alleged.
He said the “other big risk” was that there were “some 16-17 different languages, different religions”. “So allowing these different traditions to thrive, giving them space to express themselves is very important for a country like India. We can’t do what China does, which is suppress people and run an authoritarian system. Our design will just not accept that,” he said.
Asked if India and China were ready to take a leadership role in the world in the next 50 years, Gandhi said he was not aware about China, but he did not think “India sees itself as taking leadership in the world”.
“That is not our model, right? We are a large country, and we believe in having a partnership. And we do not, sorry, but we are not arrogant enough to believe that we should lead the world, right? Every country has its own perspective. Every region has its own perspective,” he said.
“And I think there is a lot of scope for working together and a lot of scope for partnership. But the idea that India is going to lead the world, I don’t think that is how India views itself. Maybe the Chinese think differently on this,” he said.
Asked how he saw India in the global context, he said India had tremendous potential with its 1.4 billion people. “But India is a completely different system than China. So, whereas China is very centralised, uniform, India is decentralised and has multiple languages, multiple cultures, multiple traditions, multiple religions. So India is a much more complex system and India’s strengths are not necessarily China’s strengths. They are different,” he said.
While asserting that he is “very optimistic about India”, he said that “at the same time, there are also fault lines within the Indian structure”.
He also said India was placed in the middle of the US-China tussle. “We, of course, are China’s neighbour, and we are a close partner of the United States. So, we are sitting right in the middle of where the forces are colliding, and they are colliding everywhere.”
On China “taking more advantage” of the global tariff war, he said, “I wouldn’t classify it as a war, it is more a competition.”
Gandhi also claimed that there was “huge amounts of corruption now at a very, very centralised level” in India. “So you know, three or four businesses basically taking over the whole economy, having a relationship, direct relationship with the Prime Minister,” he alleged.
Asked about “the right-wing taking control of India and the world”, he said: “We are in a transition from one energy system to another… I don’t necessarily think that right-wing parties are here to stay. I think this is also transitional.”
Gandhi is currently on a four-nation visit in South America to interact with political leaders, students, and business executives, according to the Congress.
— With agencies
