During a recent fiery speech, Rahul Gandhi, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, delivered a severe blow to the ruling BJP government and its leader, Narendra Modi, putting across his argument of BJP’s attack on the Indian Constitution for a decade.
“It is quite funny that BJP leaders started talking about ‘Constitution’ every few minutes,” Gandhi sarcastically said. “There has been a sustained attack on the Constitution and the spirit of India over the last decade,” he said, pointing out that anyone who opposes what BJP stands for or supports the Constitution has been attacked.
Gandhi drew attention to violence against political adversaries with the personal illustration of physical attacks and detentions of opposition politicians to demonstrate that the current government continues to suppress autonomous and democratic voices. Most of us have been shut down, assaulted, imprisoned, and some are still locked up today: those of us who dared to resist tyrannical power, tyrannical wealth, and marginalization of minorities.
He went on to state, “I myself was attacked under orders from the Government of India which one can easily deduce means the Prime Minister. ”
Interrupting Gandhi’s speech, Om Birla said the speaker did not permit the use of placards in the House and showed a poster of Lord Shiva.
To this, Gandhi responded, “Hinduism means no hate, no anxiety, and no lies,” but as he pointed out, it seems to represent only hatred by attacking Muslims and distorting their beliefs.
“While our leaders like Mahatma Gandhi advocated non-violence, those who today burst to be identified as Hindus are only promoting violence, hatred, and lies,” Gandhi remarked, pointing towards the treasury benches.
The statement given by Rahul Gandhi led to a ruckus in the House; to counter this, Prime Minister Narendra Modi also reacted sharply over Gandhi’s comment on Hinduism. ”It is highly disturbing that you are branding the entire Hindu community as violent,” Modi fired back. In response, Gandhi said that he has never done that, though there are antecedents from the Hindu community that support violence and hatred.
It also brought out intensified political polarization and conflict of ideologies within the Lok Sabha, which is a mirror image of the social cleavages in India on issues of political governance, citizenship, and democratic ethos.
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