Kicking off a two-week American sojourn that has been billed as a major outreach to the Indian Diaspora, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday courted a fresh controversy by virtually defending India’s bane of dynastic politics, asserting it was something fairly common to the country’s political or corporate landscape.
“That’s how India runs,” he remarked during a Q&A at the University of California, Berkeley, after delivering a lecture on “India at 70: Reflections on the Path Forward” that hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “divisive politics” and “reckless” economic policies.
Gandhi, who slammed the BJP for projecting him as a “reluctant” and “stupid” politician, also declared that he was “absolutely ready” to take up an executive role in the Congress Party, before quickly adding that it was a decision for his party to take.
“Actually most parties in India have that (dynastic) problem. So don’t give us stick,” he said, when the moderator at Berkeley asked him pointedly about his party’s long association with dynastic politics.
listing a host of political leaders, Gandhi said: “Mr Akhilesh Yadav (Samajwadi Party) is a dynast. Mr Stalin (of DMK) is a dynast. Mr Dumal’s son (apparent reference to BJP’s Anurag Thakur) is a dynast….Even (actor) Ahishek Bachchan is a dynast.”
“So don’t get after me because that’s how the entire country is running,” he remarked amid much laughter. “By the way, last I recall, Mr Ambani’s kids are running his business. And that’s also going on in Infosys. RightIJ” he commented.
In his address, Gandhi came down hard on Modi’s “politics of hate” and “reckless and dangerous” economic policy decisions such as demonetization and the “hastily-applied” Goods and Services Tax (GST).
“Millions of people feel that they have no future in their own country,” he said as he dwelt on the “politics of polarisation which has raised its ugly head in India today”. He spoke of “liberal journalists being shot, people being lynched because they are Dalits and Muslims killed on suspicion of eating beef”.
Questioning the Modi government’s record on job creation, Gandhi said a mere 500 jobs were being created a day whereas 30,000 youngsters are joining the job market every single day. As he put it, “The decline in economic growth today is worrying and it’s leading to an upsurge of anger in the country.” He attacked the Prime Minister for not listening to experts on important decisions such as demonetization of high-value currency notes undertaken last November. The DeMo decision was “carried out unilaterally without asking the Chief Economic Advisor, the Cabinet or even Parliament”, he alleged, adding: “Ignoring India’s tremendous institutional knowledge and taking ad hoc decisions is reckless and dangerous.”
While calling demonetization “a completely self-inflicted wound” that caused 2% loss in India’s GDP, Gandhi went on to say: “India cannot afford to grow and create jobs at the current rate. If we continue at the current rate, if India cannot give the millions of people entering the job market employment, anger will increase and it has the potential to derail what is being built so far. That will be catastrophic for India and the world beyond it.”
Quizzed about the Modi decisions that he would approve of, Gandhi cited the “Make in India” and “Swachh Bharat” programmes. “I like the concept of Make in India,” he said, but quickly added that his orientation would be different, namely small and medium industry and not big business.
On Swachchh Bharat, he commented, “The idea of hygiene I think is a good one. And I think I think the sort of stuff that they are doing on open defecation is not a bad thing.”