Congress leader Rahul Gandhi during an interaction at the Chatham House, in London, on March 6, 2023.
| Photo Credit: PTI
Former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi claimed that the BJP believes it will be in power eternally but that won’t be the case as Opposition parties can come together to ‘repair’ the damage to Indian democracy.
Addressing a session at the London-based think tank Chatham House late on Monday evening, Mr. Gandhi also compared the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) to Muslim Brotherhood and called it a “fundamentalist, fascist organisation”.
Wrapping up his week-long tour of the United Kingdom, the Congress leader, who represents Kerala’s Wayanad in the Lok Sabha, accused the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of trying to silence dissent in India and reiterated the charge that Israeli spyware Pegasus was planted on his phone.
“Before the BJP was in power for 10 years, we were in power for 10 years. The BJP likes to believe that they have come to power in India and they are going to be in power eternally, that’s not the case,” Mr. Gandhi said, adding, “To put it in perspective, if you look at the time from independence to now, the Congress party has been in power for the majority of the time”.
He noted that the foreign media has also been highlighting that there is “a serious problem with Indian democracy” but asserted that it for “the battle for the democratic institutions of India is India’s responsibility”.
During the Q&A session, when he was asked what would he want European governments to do about the state of democracy in India, the Congress leader replied, “First of all, this is our problem, an internal problem. The solution has to come from inside. However, the scale of Indian democracy implies that is a global public good and it impacts way farther than our boundaries”.
“If Indian democracy collapses, in my view, democracy on the planet suffers a very serious, possibly fatal blow. So, it’s important for you too, it’s not just important for us. We will deal with our problem but this problem is going to play out on a global scale. What you do about it is, of course, up to you. But you must be aware that in what is happening in India, the idea of a democratic model is being attacked and threatened,”he said.
The Congress leader also repeated his charge that institutions are being captured by the RSS to subvert democracy. Asked to explain the RSS to a foreign audience, he said,” You can call it a secret society. It is built along the lines of the Muslim Brotherhood and the idea is to use the democratic contest to come to power and then subvert the democratic contest afterward…It has shocked me how successful they have been at capturing the different institutions of our country. The press, judiciary, Parliament, Election Commission— all the institutions are under pressure, under threat, and controlled in one way or another”.
On India’s foreign policy, he drew a parallel between the Russia-Ukraine conflict and India-China relations and how China is threatening India over its relations with the United States.
Asked for his views on India-Pakistan relations, he said it is important to have good relations with neighbours but added, “If the Pakistanis are promoting terrorism in India, that becomes very difficult. And that does happen”.
