Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi has alleged that cowardice lies at the heart of the BJP-RSS ideology, accusing the ruling dispensation of targeting the weak while avoiding confrontation with the strong.
Speaking at an interaction with students at EIA University in Colombia, Gandhi cited remarks made by External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar to make his point.
“This is the nature of BJP-RSS. If you notice a statement of the foreign minister, he said, ‘China is much more powerful than us. How can I pick a fight with them?’ At the heart of the ideology is cowardice,” he said.
He also referred to an episode from Vinayak Damodar Savarkar’s writings.
“In his book, Savarkar has written that once he and his few friends beat up a Muslim man, and they felt very happy that day. If five people beat up a single individual, which makes one of them happy, it is cowardice. This is RSS ideology, to beat weak people,” Gandhi remarked.
Expanding on his criticism, the Congress MP said India’s democratic system itself was under attack. “India has many religions, traditions and languages. A democratic system provides a place for everyone. But right now, the democratic system is under attack from all sides.”
He accused the Narendra Modi government and the RSS of undermining the country’s pluralistic foundations, calling the assault on democracy as the single biggest risk to India’s future.
Gandhi contrasted India’s political framework with China’s centralised structure.
“India has tremendous potential with its 1.4 billion people. But India has a completely different system from China. China is very centralised and uniform. India is decentralised and has multiple languages, cultures, traditions and religions. India has a much more complex system,” he said, adding that suppressing diversity through authoritarianism was not possible in India.
He also pointed to rifts between different regions, stressing the importance of giving linguistic and cultural traditions the space to thrive. “Some 16-17 different languages and different religions. Allowing these different traditions to thrive, giving them space to express themselves, is very important for India. We cannot do what China does: suppress people and run an authoritarian system. Our design will not accept that.”
The Congress MP drew attention to global shifts in energy and their impact on geopolitics, describing how Britain rose to power with coal and the steam engine, and the United States with petrol and the internal combustion engine.
“Now we are facing a new transition to the electric motor, from the fuel tank to the battery. The real fight between the US, which has a maritime vision of the world, and China, which has a terrestrial vision, is about who is going to manage this transition. The Chinese are winning so far,” he said, noting that India sat in the middle of this great-power rivalry.
He also spoke about the challenge of employment generation, linking it to both India’s and America’s struggles.
“Despite the economic growth in India, we are unable to provide jobs because we are a service-based economy and are unable to produce. In America, most people polarised with Trump are those who have lost their jobs in the manufacturing sector. China has demonstrated production in a non-democratic environment, but we need a democratic structure. Therefore, the challenge is to develop a model of production in a democratic environment that can compete with China,” the Congress leader said.