The Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday accused Congress leader Rahul Gandhi of creating a “dangerous narrative” outside India after the Opposition MP criticised the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh at an event in the United States, The Hindu reported.
Speaking at an event organised by the Indian diaspora in Washington DC on Monday, Gandhi accused the Hindutva organisation of treating some religions, languages and communities as inferior to others. He also voiced concerns about the treatment of religious and linguistic minorities in India.
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is the parent organisation of the BJP.
“First of all, you have to understand what the fight is about,” Gandhi said. “The fight is not about politics. That is superficial.”
Gandhi then addressed a Sikh member of the audience, saying: “The fight is about whether he as a Sikh is going to be allowed to wear his turban in India or a kada in India. Or he, as a Sikh, is going to be able to go to gurdwara. That’s what the fight is about. And not just for him, for all religions.”
Gandhi is in the United States for four days to meet with members of the Indian-American community, politicians and students.
Responding to the remarks, BJP leader and Union home minister Amit Shah said that making “anti-national” comments had become Gandhi’s habit.
By making “anti-India statements on foreign platforms, Rahul Gandhi has always threatened the nation’s security and hurt sentiments”, Shah said on social media.
The Opposition leader’s statement “lays bare the Congress’ politics of causing rifts on the lines of regionalism, religion and linguistic differences”, he added.
On Monday, Gandhi also said that the 2024 Lok Sabha election result had damaged “the idea of [Prime Minister Narendra] Modi being a person with a 56-inch chest”. He claimed that people no longer feared Modi and the ruling BJP.
The BJP won 240 seats in the general election, a significant dip from its tally of 303 seats in 2019. Without a simple majority, it had to depend on its partners in the National Democratic Alliance to form the government at the Centre.
Responding to the Congress leader’s comment, Union minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on Tuesday that if the Sikh community had “felt anxiety, a sense of insecurity and existential threat”, it was when “Rahul Gandhi’s family has been in the seats of power”, The Hindu reported.
Puri was referring to the anti-Sikh riots in Delhi in November 1984. They were triggered by the assassination of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards. Mobs, allegedly helped by some Congress leaders, had attacked Sikhs and torched their homes.
“In 1984, a pogrom was carried out against the Sikh community when Rajiv Gandhi was prime minister,” Puri said. “As many as 3,000 innocent people were killed. People were dragged out of their homes, tyres were put around them and [they were] burnt alive.”
Rahul Gandhi’s father Rajiv had succeeded Indira Gandhi as the prime minister.
Puri said that Rahul Gandhi had, of late, been making statements on sensitive issues, “involving our national identity, unity, the strength of our unity and diversity”.
“I think he is trying to set a new kind of narrative which I think is a dangerous narrative,” Puri added.
Congress General Secretary KC Venugopal defended Rahul Gandhi’s statements, saying that the BJP was “nervous and flailing” because the Opposition leader had spoken the truth.
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