New Delhi: Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, has said that Indians today are “scared” and unwilling to confront “certain truths” unlike in the past under the British when “we were much more courageous”.
In a podcast released by the party Saturday, Rahul, in conversation with Congress leader Sandeep Dikshit, said that, for him, politics is about “publicly standing for the truth” even if it was “politically damaging” in the current context.
In the 32-minute-long podcast, titled ‘Truth and Courage—What I Inherited from Nehru,’ Rahul said India was in a much harder situation under colonial rule than it is today, as people were “completely squeezed” between the British and the maharajas, who were in a partnership.
“In some ways similar to what’s going on today with Adani, Ambani and others. But we were much more courageous at that time than we are today. Today, what is missing, certainly at the leadership level and also overall, is that people are scared, right? And these people were not scared.”
“Their whole message—Gandhi, Nehru, Patel and Ambedkar—was about confronting fear. All Gandhi and Nehru did was show India that can be brave, you can be courageous. And millions of people followed them. So that to me is the difference. All human endeavour, all powerful human endeavour, is a confrontation of fear,” Rahul said.
Even under the British, he said, Indians, for many years, refused to accept that they were essentially enslaved, and a “large majority” of the country’s elite was perfectly happy with the colonial rule.
“And what Gandhiji and Nehru said was: this is slavery. You will never be successful under the British. So, in a sense, they awakened India and made India look at the truth. Now India has certain truths that it’s not ready to face right now, but it will have to face them. You are going to have to develop the courage to face them.”
“You have huge unemployment. Your entire economic system has failed. You have a complete lack of harmony in the country. These are truths. And these things are damaging for the future of India. So certain people have to stand for the truth and say this is it, and they have to defend the truth. Sooner rather than later, everybody will have to face it,” Rahul said.
He then referred to the tariffs imposed by the US government, saying it was going to have “huge economic consequences”.
He took a swipe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, claiming that US President Donald Trump gave the PM a “dressing down” when the two met in Washington.
“Modi just bowed his head and came back,” said Rahul.
Rahul said he views himself not as a politician but a “seeker of the truth”. It was a strain, which, he said, has been passed down the generations in the Nehru-Gandhi family.
Rahul said leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, his great-grandfather Nehru, or his grandmother Indira Gandhi did not “really care what people will think of them” and acted for what they thought was the truth. He said he was guided by the same thought process.
“And I see them in myself, too. They are also damaging, politically, in today’s context. Because people these days don’t want to hear the truth. But somebody has to say it. As a politician, if you frame it the usual way, it becomes easier…But my soul doesn’t let me do it. I just can’t. I am happy to take the hit. But I am not going to veer off from the truth because you want me to,” he said.
(Edited by Sanya Mathur)
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