There Is Nothing Hindu About What BJP Does: Congress Leader Rahul Gandhi In Paris

The Opposition leader spoke on a range of topics such as his ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’, the Opposition alliance’s fight to defend India's democratic structures, changing global order, and other key issues.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi during an interaction with students in Paris.

Source : PTI

New Delhi: In a scathing attack on BJP, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has said that the ruling party is out to get power at any cost and that there is "nothing Hindu" about their actions. He made the remarks while interacting with students at the Sciences PO University in Paris.

During the interaction, the Opposition leader spoke on a range of topics such as his ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’, the Opposition alliance’s fight to defend India's democratic structures, changing global order, and other key issues.

He said, "I've read the ‘Gita’, I've read a number of the Upanishads, I've read many Hindu books; there is nothing Hindu about what the BJP does, absolutely nothing,” in response to a question about the rise of “Hindu nationalism” in the country at the interaction, a video of which was released on Sunday.

"I have not read anywhere, in no Hindu book, from no learned Hindu person have I ever heard that you should terrorise, harm people who are weaker than you. So, this idea, this word, Hindu nationalists, this is a wrong word. They're not Hindu nationalists. They have nothing to do with Hinduism. They are out to get power at any cost, and they will do anything to get power… They want dominance of a few people and that is what they are about. There is nothing Hindu about them,” he said.

Responding to questions regarding violence against the Dalit and other minority communities in the country, Gandhi said it requires “political imagination” to combat the issue “head on” and the Opposition is committed to that fight.

"What the BJP and the RSS are trying to do, the heart of what they're trying to do is trying to stop the expression, the participation of lower castes, other backward castes, tribals and minority communities. And, for me, an India where a Dalit person or a Muslim person, tribal person, upper-caste person, anybody, is being mistreated, is being attacked, is not the India I want,” he said.

"If the Prime Minister tomorrow morning was to decide there would be no chest thumping and no violence in India, it would stop. It is the direction that the leadership of the country gives, the imagination that the leadership of a country gives that shapes people," he stated.

"The feeling right now is that you can do whatever you want and nothing's going to happen to you… This is an attack on the soul of India, and the people doing this should pay a price for it,” he said.

Referring to his conviction in the 2019 defamation case, the Congress leader said "first time in Indian history" that somebody was given the maximum sentence for criminal defamation. 

Notably, last month, the Supreme Court stayed his conviction, paving the way for the revival of his Lok Sabha membership.

"We are part of that fight… we are going through a process; we are going through turbulence in our democratic structure and there are millions of people who really believe in that democratic structure and are going to defend it with everything that they've got.

"So, it's a fight and also an opportunity to rethink and to reimagine our country. There are many things that can be improved, and I think this is an opportunity, this is a test that many countries go through. And, I think we'll come out just fine in this test,” he said.

When asked about the debate around the name of the country, Gandhi noted that both India and Bharat are documented in the Constitution and therefore, the government was acting in “strange ways” because they are “irritated” with the name of the Opposition’s Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (I.N.D.I.A.).

"There is something deeper that is going on, which is that people who want to change the name of anything are basically trying to deny history. The fact of the matter is, whether we like it or we don't like it, we have a history. We were ruled by the British, we fought the British, we defeated the British… English is spoken by more Indians than English people; it's our own language more than theirs,” he said.

"Embedded in that English is a huge history, lot of pain, lot of happiness, imagination, struggle, those things are embedded. And the people who want to change the name want to erase that; they don't want the history of our country is known to our future generations, it disturbs them,” he said.