RaGa Is Surely No Pappu Now; He Is Rapidly Morphing Into Jinnah

At a prime-time TV debate yesterday (10 September) on Rahul Gandhi’s controversial remarks about India, Narendra Modi and the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh), a guest referred to Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s infamous statement that made the partition of India inevitable.

In August 1946, Jinnah’s Muslim League called for a Direct Action Day on the 16th of that month in order to press for partition. Among other things, Jinnah said that he would “either (have) a divided India or a destroyed India”.

After independence, there have been many claimants to the mantle of Jinnah in India’s Muslim leadership, the latest being Asaduddin Owaisi of the All-India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen and the (now banned) Popular Front of India, to name only two. However, we must now consider the possibility that the real Jinnah may well emerge from a minority-vote dependent “secular” party.

The panellist at the TV show mentioned above hinted at the possibility that Rahul Gandhi has the same approach as Jinnah. If his party cannot be in power, it will try and damage India itself. 

One statement, in particular, reeks of Jinnah. At an interaction in Virginia, the Leader of the Opposition had this to say about what his fight is really about: “The fight (in India) is about whether a Sikh is going to be allowed to wear a turban in India...whether a Sikh will be allowed to wear a kada in India or will be able to go to the Gurudwara...that's what the fight is about, and it is not just for Sikhs, it is for all the religions...".

This is not just ignorance of Sikhism in India, but outright dangerous. Sikhism emerged from the womb of Hinduism without rancour, where Hindu families in the north-west allowed one son to join the Panth, while remaining Hindu otherwise. The Hindu-Sikh relationship has been one of partnership, with “roti-beti” ties where there was widespread acceptance of inter-marriage and inter-dining between the two communities.

Rahul Gandhi made this comment with a straight face, when it was the Congress party, and associated goons, who had killed over 3,000 Sikhs in the aftermath of the assassination of Indira Gandhi in 1984. It shows how far Rahul is willing to go to create enmities between people in order to make himself electable.

He should be worried that his statement has been applauded by Gurpatwant Pannun, a separatist Sikh leader operating from US soil, but apparently he does not care.

More recently he has taken an aggressive stance on a nation-wide caste census, which is intended to divide Hindus among themselves, pitting upper castes against other backward classes and scheduled castes and tribes, and between “jatis” within these groups too.

The problem isn’t about a headcount itself, but what you plan to do after that headcount. Rahul Gandhi has not indicated what he plans to achieve after getting castes divided among themselves. How will he put out the fire that will surely begin after the census numbers are out?

The gap between what Rahul Gandhi claims to be and what he is actually turning out to be is widening. For example, he claims that he is for diversity, and criticises the RSS for having only “one idea” of India when India contains within it a multiplicity of ideas. If he truly believes this, surely the strand of ideas the RSS represents is also part of this diverse tapestry, and not something that needs to be rooted out.

He also alleged that the RSS saw other religions as inferior, when the Sangh has tried hard to reach out to Muslims and Christians in recent years. In fact, the core voters of the BJP think that the party is trying to woo Muslims too hard to the detriment of Hindu interests.

Equally worrisome are his repeated attempts to put down India vis-a-vis China. India, he says, has a huge unemployment problem while China apparently doesn’t. Most western reports say China’s economy is in trouble, and there is a legion of unemployed people there too. 

He also alleged — not necessarily wrongly here — that the Modi government’s response to China has not been good enough, and that India has lost control of sizeable stretches of territory previously patrolled by both sides. But he does this without mentioning that from Jawaharlal Nehru to Manmohan Singh, India has kept losing territory till Narendra Modi finally realised that there was no way to appease the Dragon with a soft stand.

After the Ladakh clashes in 2020, India has stiffened its response to Chinese aggression and salami-slicing policies. Anyone who thinks Modi underestimated the Chinese must note the changes post the Galwan clashes too.

Throughout his recent speeches, including ones made outside India, Rahul Gandhi has done nothing to build the nation’s confidence in itself. Clearly, power is more important to him than national interest. He is certainly not the amusing and harmless “Pappu” we thought him to be some time ago. He is rapidly becoming the new Jinnah. Patriots should worry.