Former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi on Friday said the country is moving towards an ‘authoritarian state and anyone who criticises Prime Minister Narendra Modi or his government is put in jail.’
Mr. Gandhi, who is away in his constituency of Wayanad in Kerala to express solidarity with the protests against the night ban on traffic passing through the Bandipur Tiger Reserve, made these remarks in response to a question on an FIR being filed against nearly 50 celebrities for writing an open letter to Mr. Modi on mob lynching.
“Everybody knows what is going on in the country. It’s not a secret. In fact the whole world knows it. We are moving into an authoritarian state. It’s pretty clear,” he told reporters.
“Anybody who says anything against the Prime Minister, anybody who raises anything against the government is put in jail and is attacked. Media is crushed. Everybody knows what’s going on. This is not a secret,” he added.
On Thursday, an FIR was filed at Muzaffarpur in Bihar against nearly 50 celebrities, including Ramchandra Guha, Mani Ratnam, Adoor Gopalakrishnan and Aparna Sen, for writing an open letter to Prime Minister Modi in which they had raised concern over growing incidents of mob lynching.
Ideological battle
“On one side, there is the idea that the country should be ruled by one man, one ideology and everybody else should shut up. On the other side, there is the Congress party and the Opposition who are saying no (to this) and that this country has many divergent views, different languages, cultures, many different expressions and those voices should not be crushed. That’s the main battle going on in the country,” he said.
Hitting out at the Modi government over the “massive joblessness” and the dwindling economy, Mr. Gandhi said the “GDP growth was not visible” anymore.
The Centre could give a tax benefit of ₹1,25,000 crore to 15 people, but not to the poor, he alleged.
“That is what is important in India today. The BJP should answer, Narendra Modi should answer why has he destroyed the Indian economy. Why has he created massive joblessness in this country? Why cannot youngsters dream about getting a job in this country? That is the discussion Mr. Narendra Modi needs to have,” he said.
At a separate press conference, former Union Minister Manish Tewari asked “people and pluralistic and nationalistic political parties to stand up collectively to fight against the growing spectre of authoritarianism.”
He said while the country celebrated Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th birth anniversary on October 2, hashtag #GodseAmarRahe [Let Nathuram Godse be immortal] was trending on social media.
“We would like to demand that the government needs to enquire into all those people who are responsible for defiling the memory of the Father of the Nation,” Mr. Tewari said.
“The portentous signs of growing authoritarianism will spell the death-knell of democracy, if people and all right-thinking progressive, pluralistic, nationalistic political parties do not stand up collectively to fight this growing spectre of authoritarianism which seems to have become the new normal in this nation,” he alleged.
( With PTI inputs)
Published - October 04, 2019 10:24 pm IST
