Rahul Gandhi’s U.S. speech on RSS triggers a storm; BJP calls it a ‘dangerous narrative’

BJP accuses the Congress leader of creating a “dangerous narrative” on foreign soil; claims he has displayed an anti-reservation mindset

Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi drinks water while interacting with students and faculty of Georgetown University, in Washington, D.C. on September 10, 2024. | Photo Credit: ANI

Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi’s criticism of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) before the Indian-American community triggered a political storm on Tuesday (September 10, 2024), with the BJP accusing Mr. Gandhi of creating a “dangerous narrative” by speaking on “sensitive issues” abroad.

Speaking at a diaspora event in Herndon, a Virginia suburb of Washington DC, on Monday, Mr. Gandhi accused the RSS of treating some religions, languages and cultures as “inferior” to others and expressed concern over the status of religious and linguistic minorities in India.

“First of all, you have to understand what the fight is about. The fight is not about politics. That is superficial,” Mr. Gandhi said.

Turning to a member of the audience, who belonged to the Sikh community, he then asked his name and said, “The fight is about whether 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”.

Mr. Gandhi is on a four-day trip to the United States, where his programmes include interaction with the Indian-American community, students and individual meetings with officials in the Capitol Hill.

Over the past three days, Mr. Gandhi, in his public engagements, has been targeting the RSS-BJP combine and their vision for India.

“What the RSS is basically saying is that certain States are inferior to other States. Certain languages are inferior to other languages. Certain religions are inferior to other religions. Certain communities are inferior to other communities. This is what the fight is about,” he said on Monday.

On Monday, he had also said that people no longer fear the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the election results had destroyed “the idea of Modi being a person with 56-inch chest”.

Responding to such comments on Tuesday, Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri addressed a press conference at the BJP headquarters to condemn Mr. Gandhi’s remarks and said,“ if there has been one time in our history when as a community we [Mr. Puri being a Sikh] have felt anxiety, a sense of insecurity and existential threat, it has been the times when Rahul Gandhi’s family has been in the seats of power.”

Anti-Sikh riots

Referring to the anti-Sikh riots following the assassination of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, Mr. Puri said, “In 1984, a pogrom was carried out against Sikh community, when Rajiv Gandhi was Prime Minister. As many as 3,000 innocent people were killed. People were dragged out of their homes, tyres were put around them and burnt alive”.

Claiming that the Congress leader, of late, had been making statements on sensitive issues, “involving our national identity, unity, the strength of our unity and diversity,” Mr. Puri said, “I think he is trying to set a new kind of narrative which I think is a dangerous narrative”.

Hitting back at the BJP criticism, Congress general secretary in-charge of organisation, K.C. Venugopal said the BJP ecosystem was “nervous and flailing” because Mr. Gandhi had spoken the plain truth.

“It is also doubly hypocritical for the BJP to complain about statements made by Rahul ji in the U.S. when the PM does not miss a single chance to repeat his hackneyed ‘nothing happened in the 60 years before 2014’ line which is truly an insult to the collective efforts of multiple generations of Indians who made our country great,” Mr. Venugopal said in a post on X.

Countering Mr. Gandhi’s attack on the Sangh Parivar in the U.S., the BJP’s retaliatory fire included calling him a person “with an anti-reservation mindset”. The ruling party’s accusation came after the Congress leader told the students at the Georgetown University that the Congress would think of scrapping reservations when “India is a fair place”, which, he said, “is not the case right now”.

“The prejudice against reservation which Rahul Gandhi has in abundance got reflected in America. His opposition to reservations is part of his legacy...you might know that we have often mentioned Nehru ji’s letter where he had told the Chief Ministers that reservations should not undermine merit. Indira Gandhi opposed reservations, and Rajiv Gandhi also openly opposed the Mandal Commission,” former Law Minister and senior BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad said in a separate press conference.