Rahul Gandhi slams mob lynchings and attacks on Dalits; BJP hits back

Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday said mob lynchings and attacks on Dalits and minorities reflected the anger that currently pervaded India’s society because of growing joblessness and the Narendra Modi government taking away protections provided to the country’s poor. He said the Modi government’s demonetisation and poorly implemented goods and services tax (GST) have destroyed the informal economy and killed jobs in the small and medium businesses, which contributed to this anger.

Addressing a gathering at the Bucerius Summer School at Hamburg in Germany, of which Rahul Gandhi is an alumnus, the Congress president pointed to the example of the rise of the Islamic State, in Iraq and Syria to caution that excluding a large number of people from the development process could lead to creation of insurgent groups anywhere in the world.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) picked on Rahul Gandhi’s comments to allege the Congress chief was not only belittling and insulting India abroad, but also justifying terrorism. BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said Rahul “lied through his teeth” in his criticism of the Modi government. Patra asked whether Gandhi's submission was that minorities in India would “sell their soul” to IS if jobs are not available for them, and this amounted to “denigrating” the community. The BJP spokesperson said he wondered whether the data on job growth was “made in 10, Janpath”.

However, Gandhi’s speech in Hamburg was more nuanced as he spoke of the discrimination that lower castes faced in Indian villages, and how “protections” like Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, Right to Food, Forest Rights Act, helped transform Indian villages. He said these protections allowed poor in rural areas social and economic mobility, where they could go to urban areas to find work for some months and then return to their villages. Rahul Gandhi said the Modi government has weakened these protections and the money is now going in the hands of a very few corporate groups.

Rahul Gandhi said the Modi government believed that tribals, poor farmers, Dalits, minorities and people from other lower castes should not get the same benefits that the elite of India does. He said unleashing of demonetisation and faulty implementation of GST killed jobs that the poor used to get, and the accompanying weakening of "protections" has “made India angry”, and the result is lynchings, attacks on Dalits and minorities.

“If you do not give people a vision in the 21st century, somebody else will. And that is the real risk of excluding a large number of people from the development process,” Rahul said. To illustrate his point, the Congress president said that after the US attacked Iraq in 2003, they brought a law that stopped a particular tribe in Iraq from getting jobs in the government and in the army.

It seemed an innocuous decision at the time, but resulted in a large number of people joining insurgency that fought the US and caused massive casualties, Gandhi said.

"It did not end there. That insurgence slowly entered empty spaces. It entered the empty space in Iraq and in Syria and then it connected with... a horrific idea called ISIS," Rahul said.

On violence against women, Rahul Gandhi said, "India needs to change... Men have to start viewing women as equal and with respect. I am sorry to say that men do not." On him hugging Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the discussion on the no-confidence motion in July, Rahul Gandhi said some of his own party members did not like it. He said Modi was making "hateful remarks" about him but he showed affection. The basic idea is — it is foolish to respond hate with hate, as doing so would not solve any problem, Rahul Gandhi said.

On India’s foreign policy, Gandhi said India's role should be to balance the US and China — much like Europe's role.