New Delhi: The BJP has spread kerosene all over the country and even a single spark could cause big troubles, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said on Friday. "India is not in a good place. The BJP has spread kerosene all over the country. You need one spark and we'll be in big trouble. I think that's also the responsibility of the opposition, the Congress - to bring people, communities, states, and religions together," Rahul said at the “Ideas for India” conference at the Cambridge University in London on Friday.
"We need to cool this temperature down because if this temperature doesn't cool down, things can go wrong. We have massive polarization and unemployment and could have a situation like Sri Lanka if we don’t manage well," he said.
The ‘Ideas for India’ conference was organised by Bridge India, an Indian diaspora think tank in the UK, from May 18-20. The three-day conclave had a variety of speakers from the UK, India, Europe, and other parts of the world.
Addressing the gathering, the former Congress chief identified “polarization and total dominance of media” as key reasons why the Congress was losing polls against the BJP and alleged that the media was not giving voice to the opposition leaders.
"We need to go much more aggressively to the large mass of people, to 60-70 per cent of people who don't vote for the BJP and we need to do it together," he said. The Indian Constitution, he said, was the biggest attack on Manusmriti and added that acts like MGNREGS and RTI ensured that “all human beings get the same opportunities.”
Targeting the BJP, he said, “The BJP stifles the voices of people, we listen to them. The opposition is not only saying stop BJP but it is saying we need diverse views in the country.” Rahul further alleged, “India’s voice is being crushed by an ideology, by technology and by institutional framework which has become parasitical. The deep state like CBI, ED is chewing the Indian state much like what happened in Pakistan.”
According to the former Congress chief, India was a union of states and its institutions allowed a dialogue to take place between people while today there was a systematic attack on the institutions which blocked such conversations between the states.
“The CBI, ED are being used. It is the job of the opposition to defend that conversation from the ruling BJP,” Rahul said. The ongoing tussle was not a political fight but a contest to protect the institutions and for this the opposition including the Congress go back to its roots, to the people, said Rahul.
“The BJP controls the media hence we have to think of new ways of communication with masses, how to ramp up our party,” he said, adding that “the Congress was a mass-based party and should never become a cadre-based party like the BJP.”
On an economic vision for India, the Congress leader said, “China dominates global production today. India needs to boost its manufacturing system which will create jobs. There is a huge opportunity for us and the world wants an alternative. We need to support small and medium companies,” he said, adding “The 2016 demonetization attacked the informal sector.”
The public sector said Rahul, should be a strategic sector and the private sector will drive the economic process. Hence, the private sector needs to be free from the fear of state agencies, he said.
"I think it's very dangerous for one company to control all airports, all ports, all the infrastructure. It has never existed in this form. It has never existed with such a massive concentration of power and capital. This is another aspect that is throttling the conversation because there is control of the media through this concentration of capital," he said.
On the US vs China rivalry for global domination, the Congress leader said that “China’s Belt and Road Initiative was an attempt to turn the planet into a territory. China has a vision but there is no counter vision either in India and the US,” he said.
“The West is not offering prosperity but just saying stop China, which is offering prosperity and solid infrastructure,” he said. According to Rahul, PM Modi has just stretched the idea of 1990 economic vision but the country needed a new vision which offered prosperity.
On the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently raising human rights issues in India, the Congress leader said, “We don’t need the US to tell us that there are human rights violations. We are fighting polarization here. Democracy in India is a global public good. No one else has managed democracy so well. We are three times the size of Europe and I think the US understands that,” said Rahul.
He cautioned that Chinese troops were sitting at India’s borders and building infrastructure there. “If there is no discussion, how will the government deal with the problem.” In a course correction, Rahul said that Congress did not have a big brother attitude but is working together with the other opposition parties to take on the ruling BJP.
“The Congress is not a big daddy but is working together with the other opposition parties. The point that I made in Udaipur was misconstrued. Congress is the party that has an ideology at the national level. It will enable the opposition. It is not that Congress is superior to other parties. We are fighting the same battle,” he said. Rahul’s earlier comment that “only Congress could defeat the BJP and the regional parties were not capable of doing that,” had miffed allies like RJD and JD-S.
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