Washington, Sept 10: Opposition is the voice of the people, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has said in Dallas, Texas, underscoring that its main focus is to raise issues concerning the people after understanding their perspectives “carefully” and “sensitively”.
Gandhi, who is the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, is on a four-day unofficial trip to the US.
During an interaction with students at the University of Texas in Dallas on Sunday, Gandhi said, “Opposition at its heart is the voice of people, there is a whole sequence of events that go on, but what you generally think about is where and how can I raise the issues of the people of India.”
People with skills getting sidelined in India
Millions of people with skills are being sidelined in India, said Gandhi and referred to Eklavya from Mahabharata, who had to chop off his thumb on his guru’s demand.
The Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha said that although India has no dearth of skills, yet, it lacks respect for skills.
“If you want to understand what is happening in India, it is millions and millions of Eklavya stories every single day. People with skills are being sidelined—they are not being allowed to operate or thrive, and this is happening everywhere,” the official X account of the Congress quoted Gandhi as saying.
“You won’t unleash India’s power by empowering just 1-2 per cent of the population,” he warned.
Pointing to the problem of unemployment that India, the US and other countries in the West are facing while China isn’t, as it is dominating global production, Gandhi underscored the need to focus on manufacturing in India.
He said he remains convinced that India can take on China if it starts aligning itself for production and starts respecting skills. He cited success stories from states like Tamil Nadu, and Pune in Maharashtra.
“The only way to provide jobs for a large number of people is to start producing things, to start manufacturing,” he said.
“Until we do that, we will face high levels of unemployment. And frankly, it’s not sustainable.”
“… If we carry on down this path of forgetting about manufacturing, you’re going to see massive social problems coming in India and in the United States and Europe. The polarisation of our politics is because of this…” he added.
Love, respect & humility missing in Indian politics
Rahul lamented that love, respect and humility are beginning to disappear from Indian politics and criticised the RSS for believing that India is “one idea”.
“We believe that India is a multiplicity of ideas,” he said.
Making an indirect reference to the Lok Sabha results in which the BJP failed to get a majority on its own, Gandhi said, “Within minutes of the election result, nobody in India was scared of the BJP, of the Prime Minister. These are huge achievements. These are huge achievements of the people of India who realised democracy, of the people of India who realised that we are not going to accept an attack on our Constitution. We’re not going to accept an attack on our religion. We’re not going to accept an attack on our States,” he said.
Asserting that the US needs India and vice versa, Gandhi said the Indian diaspora is a “bridge” between the two nations.
“In my view, you should travel freely between these two homes. You should bring the idea of India to the United States and the ideas of the United States to India,” Gandhi said in his remarks.
Gandhi arrived in Dallas on Saturday night and was welcomed by dozens of members of the Indian-American community led by senior Congress leader Sam Pitroda and president of Indian National Overseas Congress, USA, Mohinder Gilzian.
During his trip, Gandhi will interact with the members of the Indian diaspora and youths in Washington, DC, too.
He also plans to meet lawmakers and senior officials of the US government during his visit to Washington DC, beginning Monday. (PTI)
