When 26 political parties named their united front as the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) last month in Bengaluru, it was conceived as much more than just a catchy name. But given that most political contests have become largely a war of narratives lately, the ensuing discussions around INDIA remained restricted to its name and how it may be a thorn in the “nationalist” Bharatiya Janata Party’s eye.
However, as seen in the House proceedings in the monsoon session, the united fight that the parties have waged against the government over Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s continued silence on the Manipur violence has shown that the leaders are bound, ideologically enough, to carry the weight of the honorific.
Rahul Gandhi’s first Lok Sabha speech on Wednesday, August 9, after his reinstatement as a member of parliament is a valid case. He did not merely speak as a Congress leader but as an alliance leader steering the ideological beliefs of INDIA.
His 37-minute speech was as much an attack on the BJP’s nationalist credentials as on its claim of delivering corruption-free governance. The Congress leader not only laid down how INDIA parties considered “Bharat” as a union of diverse and equal voices but also how the Modi government’s decisions have been largely controlled by corporate interests.
In each of his attacks, Gandhi also responded to the barrage of criticisms that INDIA parties have faced over the last few days.
Deriding the INDIA group, Modi had recently said that the group should be called ghamandiya (arrogant) instead of INDIA.
Gandhi responded to the prime minister by reminding him of his continued silence on the Manipur violence, which, according to the Congress leader, reeks of nothing but ahankar (hubris). He spoke about how the Bharat Jodo Yatra was a humbling experience for him. His experiences with groups of marginalised women and deprived farmers in the Yatra, he recalled, made him sensitive to their grief, their problems, and their helplessness and how it crushed his ahankar.
“If we have to listen to their voices, then we have to let go of our arrogance. When we do that we will be able to hear the voice of the people, and we have to [do so] by leaving behind arrogance and hatred,” Gandhi retorted, implying that it was not the INDIA bloc but Modi who is “arrogant”. He alleged that Modi has “murdered” that voice, and killed “Bharat Mata” in Manipur and Haryana.
He claimed that the BJP has put India and its voices on fire by sprinkling “kerosene” from Manipur to Haryana. Flipping the BJP’s accusation against INDIA on its head, Gandhi said that the saffron party leaders are deshdrohi (traitor) – a clear attempt to assert an inclusive form of nationalism as espoused by the INDIA parties against the BJP’s muscular, Hindu majoritarian nationalism.
Only recently, BJP MP Nishikant Dubey had called former CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat a deshdrohi, even as he made similar allegations against the Congress.
At the same time, Gandhi had hit out at the government for its proximity with the Adani Group, taking off from his sustained criticism of alleged cronyism under Modi’s leadership – a response to the BJP’s remark that the INDIA parties’ no-confidence motion was an attack on the “son of the poor”.
“Ravan would listen to two people – Meghnad and Kumbhkaran. Similarly, Modi also listens to only Amit Shah and [Gautam] Adani. Hanuman did not set fire to Lanka. It was set on fire by Ravan’s arrogance,” Gandhi had said, adding that it was Modi’s arrogance that prevented him from visiting Manipur at a time when people from the state were facing their worst-ever crisis.
“You are anti-national, you cannot be desh bhakts [patriotic], you cannot be desh premi. You have murdered India,” Gandhi had said.
The moniker INDIA was coined by the opposition parties after they navigated through their multi-layered differences to come together on a common agenda. They signalled that despite the mutual differences, the parties have united to battle the BJP’s alleged onslaught on democratic practices and the constitution.
Gandhi, at the time, had said, “Our fight is against the BJP’s ideology and its thinking. We have named our front INDIA because our India is under attack and we realised that the fight is not between two political formations. The fight is between two different ideas of India.”
The monsoon session was the first real test for INDIA to put up a united ideological front. Throughout its course, the grouping has taken a concrete shape in the way its leaders have coordinated, acted, and performed in unison during the monsoon session. The leaders have been meeting constantly to decide on their course of action every day in both Houses. They have also unitedly appeared in black clothes as a mark of protest against Modi’s silence on the issue.
Despite some debate on whether to move a no-trust motion against the Union government, they could stand together in the Houses once it was decided that the motion would be moved.
Gandhi’s speech on Wednesday, preceded by several such interventions by leaders of INDIA parties in the last few days, has shown that the bloc is resolved to take on the BJP and the prime minister with aggression – an aspect many believed was missing in the opposition politics until recently.
The parties will soon come together again in Mumbai to divide roles and responsibilities for the Lok Sabha polls. INDIA’s effort will be to reclaim its pole position by asserting its idea of inclusive, redistributive nationalism.
The 2024 Lok Sabha election may indeed turn out to be “a fight between two different ideas of India”, as Gandhi had proclaimed.
(Courtesy: The Wire.)
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Another article in the Newsclick titled “Doesn’t Behove PM Modi to Laugh, Joke in Parliament When Manipur is ‘on Fire’: Rahul Gandhi” gives extracts from Rahul Gandhi’s criticism of PM Modi’s reply to the no-confidence motion (extract):
Stepping up the attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the Manipur violence, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday said it does not behove the Indian Prime Minister to laugh and crack jokes in Parliament when the state has been “on fire” for the past four months.
The Prime Minister “wants Manipur to burn and allows it to burn”, Gandhi alleged at a press conference at the AICC headquarters here and asserted that if the Modi government wanted to stop the violence, there are multiple tools in the hands of the government that can stop it immediately.
“Women and children are dying over there, women are being molested and raped and the Prime Minister of India is sitting in the middle of Parliament and laughing. This is not about Rahul Gandhi, it is not about the Congress, it is not about Opposition, it is about India, it is about our country. A state has been decimated, it does not exist anymore and it has happened because of the politics of the BJP — divide and rule and burn,” Gandhi said.
Gandhi said his remarks that Prime Minister Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah had “murdered Bharat Mata in Manipur” were not hollow words as he had for the first time in his 19 years in politics been told in a state that if he takes a person from one community in his security detail to the area of another community, they will shoot that security personnel.
“I watched the Prime Minister yesterday, speaking for two hours, laughing, joking, and raising slogans in Parliament. The Prime Minister would say one line and the BJP (leaders) would shout another slogan. The Prime Minister seems to have forgotten that the state of Manipur is on fire and has been on fire for four months,” the former Congress leader said.
He said it does not behove the Prime Minister that when there is violence in the country, he indulges in “making fun for two hours”.
“When we went to Manipur and went to the Meitei area we were told that they want us to come, they love us, but we should not have any Kuki in our security detail or they will be shot. We were told the same thing when we were going to the Kuki area about Meitei,” Gandhi said.
He said the central security personnel told him in Manipur that they had never seen anything like what was happening in Manipur.
“That is why I said the idea of India has been murdered by the BJP in Manipur. I was not speaking metaphorically, I was speaking literally,” the former Congress chief said.
“That is why in my speech (in Lok Sabha) I said Bharat Mata has been murdered in Manipur. For the first time, the words Bharat Mata have been expunged from Parliament. It is an insult to those words. What is it that I have said is wrong? I have said Bharat Mata, which is the idea of India, where everybody lives peacefully, harmoniously and with affection, has been killed in Manipur, it is a fact,” Gandhi said.
Manipur no longer exists as a state because the state requires control and authority which have disappeared from there, he said.
It would take the Indian Army two days to put an end to the “nonsense” going on there, Gandhi said.
“The Prime Minister refuses to stop the fire, he wants Manipur to burn, he allows Manipur to burn because if he did want it to stop, there are tools in the hands of the government that can stop it immediately,” Gandhi alleged.
“I have full faith in the Indian Army, every Indian knows that if the Indian Army is told to put an end to this (violence), it will stop immediately. There are reasons for the PM not being able to go to Manipur. I don’t want to speak about them publicly,” the Congress leader said.
He claimed that the Prime Minister “ridiculed” the state and the women there in his address in the Lok Sabha.
Gandhi asserted that when a person becomes the Prime Minister, he ceases to be a politician and should become the representative of the voice of the people.
“The politics should be put aside and the Prime Minister should not speak as a petty politician, as the leader of a political party, but he should speak with the weight of the Indian people behind him. It is tragic to watch Narendra Modi, it is sad because the Prime Minister does not understand what he actually is,” Gandhi said.
“He is our representative, he is my representative and watching the Prime Minister spend two hours talking about the Congress, talking about the opposition, making ridiculous remarks about the name (of the opposition alliance), this really does not do justice to an Indian Prime Minister,” he said.
“I have seen prime ministers from the Congress, the BJP. I have seen Mr (Atal Bihari) Vajpayee, and I have seen Mr Deve Gowda. There is a complete misunderstanding in the mind of Narendra Modi ji about what the PM of India is,” he said.
Gandhi reiterated his assertion that “Hindustan has been murdered by BJP in Manipur”.
