Rahul: What's happening to Muslims today happened with Dalits in 80s

Rahul Gandhi equated the attacks on Muslims with those that meted out to the Dalits in the 1980s and that almost every other minority community in India is threatened by the current regime.

Hyderabad: What's happening to the Muslims in India happened to the Dalits in Uttar Pradesh in the 80s, Rahul Gandhi told an NRI community audience in San Francisco on Tuesday evening(local time). He was responding to a question on how he plans to address the Islamophobia writ that runs large across India.

• The poor and people from minority communities feel helpless today.
  
  Indians do not believe in hating each other. A small group of people who control the system and the media are stoking the flames of hatred.
  
  : Shri @RahulGandhi in San Francisco, U.S pic.twitter.com/72JqXiLX0F

  — Congress (@INCIndia) May 31, 2023 " class="align-text-top noRightClick twitterSection" data="

  The poor and people from minority communities feel helpless today.
  
  Indians do not believe in hating each other. A small group of people who control the system and the media are stoking the flames of hatred.
  
  : Shri @RahulGandhi in San Francisco, U.S pic.twitter.com/72JqXiLX0F

  — Congress (@INCIndia) May 31, 2023

  ">

  The poor and people from minority communities feel helpless today.
  
  Indians do not believe in hating each other. A small group of people who control the system and the media are stoking the flames of hatred.
  
  : Shri @RahulGandhi in San Francisco, U.S pic.twitter.com/72JqXiLX0F

  — Congress (@INCIndia) May 31, 2023

Rahul said he'd like to point out that this happens periodically in India. What is happening, for example to the Muslim Community in India today, happened to the Dalit community in the 80s. If you went to UP, in the 80s with Dalit Community what is happening with the Muslims now (happened to them). So periodically this type of stuff happens and we have to challenge it. We have to fight it. And we have to fight it with affection not with hatred. We will do that, Rahul assured.

The best way for me to explain that is the line- "Nafrat ke Bazar mein. Mohabbat ki Dukhan." That is the best way I can say which is that, it is felt most strongly by the Muslim Community. Because it is done most directly to them. But, in fact, it is being done to all minorities, Rahul said.

"The same way you're feeling attacked, my Sikh brothers are feeling the same thing; my Christian brothers are feeling the same; Christian sisters are feeling the same thing; the Dalit community is feeling the same thing; the tribal communities are feeling the same thing," the disqualified Lok Sabha MP from Wayanad said.

In fact, anybody who is poor in India today, when he looks at the extreme wealth that a limited number of people have, in some way, he feels the same thing that you feel that what is going on? How is it that? These five people have lakhs of crores. And I have nothing to eat. You feel utmost because it is directed at you most aggressively. But it is a phenomena that is taking place against everybody in India, Rahul said.

You cannot cut hatred with hatred it's impossible. And you know that you can only cut hatred with love and affection and I was surprised at how easy it was to erase hatred in India. I didn't imagine it, he explained citing his experience from his Bharat Jodo Yatra.

Indian people as you yourself have said they don't believe in this stuff. They don't believe in hating each other. They don't believe in killing each other. This is a small group of people who have got control of the system. Who've got control of the media? And who are fully supported by you know? Big money, he said.

Right, but this is not the large mass of Indian people. I can guarantee you I walked from Kanniyakumari to Kashmir. I can guarantee you there are more people who believe in love and affection than hatred. Millions and millions more. Don't be pessimistic, the senior Congress leader said.