A Call for India's Soul: Priyanka Gandhi

Brothers and Sisters,

It is election time — a time for politics, and perhaps a time for promises and polemic — but I am here today as your sister and your fellow citizen. And here in Thrissur, which is the cultural capital of Kerala, I would like to speak to you about something that is far greater than politics and polemic. I would like to speak to you about our country.

This country that gave us life. This country that is our motherland. This country that teaches us how to overcome anger with love, how to transform suffering into compassion and how to pluck the stars of hope from the darkest of nights.

This country that has made us proud for its foundation of incomparable spirituality, its unbreakable resilience, its unfailing enterprise and its immense ability to embrace diversity and thrive in it. Yet, these very foundations of our nationhood stand at the threshold of destruction today.

I know that some would say that this is not so, that in fact, a new India is emerging, one that has developed a new identity and a newfound pride in its self-assertion. And to them, I would like to say that if they are right, then we must all embrace the will of the nation and accept the new, even as it emerges from the ashes of the old.

But let us first be clear what it is that we are accepting. Let us understand what the consequences of this acceptance are and let us not be in any confusion over what this new nation that is being sold to us so vociferously, stands for.

In this new nation, force asserts itself over righteousness. Laws are enacted bypassing the processes of democracy and enforced upon people against their will.

Lakhs and lakhs of farmers from across India protest for months against laws that are thrust upon them. Some of them die, some lose their sons, others are beaten and humiliated, called terrorists and anti-national, yet they continue their peaceful protest. In this new nation, their voices remain unheard until the government is compelled to repeal the laws due to an upcoming election.

In this new nation, an entire state is locked down without internet and phone services for months, and democracy is suspended for nine million people as the government and the media celebrate. Thousands go on a hunger strike to demand their rights in Ladakh, they protest against Chinese encroachment on Indian land, but the government says nothing.

In this new nation, the Prime Minister’s men speak haughtily about changing the Constitution that was written with the blood of our freedom fighters and martyrs.

They treat the Constitution of India that upholds our rights of liberty, equality, and brotherhood as an instrument of their own greed and ambition — as if it is a piece of paper worth nothing.

They seek to deprive Indian citizens of the laws that protect their rights and to weaken their participation in democracy.

This is the New India we are accepting today.

In this new nation, voices of dissent are silenced.

Like thugs who oppress those who raise their heads in protest, the government harasses, accuses, and imprisons those who dare to speak against them.

Students are arrested for expressing their opinion, activists are raided and jailed, journalists are sacked, beaten, and imprisoned for reporting the truth and much of the media is controlled by collaborators of a government that believes in false propaganda, silence, and oppression.

Opposition leaders are imprisoned and expelled from Parliament with impunity. Government agencies that are meant to protect the law are turned into unlawful extortionists and used to silence dissent.

This is the New India we are accepting today.

In this new nation, uniformity of culture, religion and language is imposed, and diversity is stamped out for political gain.

Laws like the CAA are passed in order to segregate and fracture society. Students are attacked in the temples of their learning; warring tribes massacre each other in the North-East while the government turns away simply because it brings political benefit to do so. In this new nation, our history is re-written, we are told what to wear, which language to speak, which Gods to revere, and whole sections of society are singled out as traitors.

This is the New India we are accepting today.

In this new nation, those in power tell women what to wear, they propagate laws that demand women’s movements to be registered with the police, and they claim the right to decide whom women can love and whom they can marry.

The government protects rapists and defends the oppressors and abusers of women, they vilify victims of heinous crimes using the entire strength of their administrations to question the characters of victims of abuse. Olympic medalists protest for days on the streets begging to be heard, while their abuser is defended by the Prime Minister.

Women are molested and paraded naked before the entire nation in Manipur and the government does nothing. Instead, our Prime Minister tells us that he is fighting for the rights of women, and we are told to believe him.

This is the New India we are accepting today. In this new nation, policies are made for the benefit of the Prime Minister’s monopolist friends as the masses are pushed into unemployment and poverty.

Public assets that belong to the people of India, assets that were built by the sweat and toil of our people, are handed to the Prime Minister’s billionaire friends one after the other with impunity. Airports, ports, highways, vast tracts of public land and whole sectors of industry like cement, power and coal are virtually controlled by just a handful of businessmen close to the Prime Minister.

Loans worth ₹ 16 lakh crore are waived for them while farmers unable to afford their basic needs commit suicide for a few thousand rupees they don’t have the means to repay.

In this new nation, prices of basic commodities, petrol, diesel, gas cylinders, food — anything the ordinary citizen needs to manage his life — touch the sky, crushing his livelihood and reducing him to penury. He struggles to support his family as unemployment rates are the highest in 45 years. Our growth rate falls from 7.5 per cent to 5.9 per cent, our national debt rises from ₹ 55 lakh crore to ₹ 205 lakh crore, our household savings drop drastically, yet we are fed false figures, and we are told to celebrate our booming economy.

In this new nation, when a pandemic strikes us, millions of migrant labour are thrown out of our cities on a day’s notice. They are left to walk hundreds of kilometres towards their villages risking death and disease with no support whatsoever. A woman dies of fatigue before her children’s eyes leaving them orphaned on a railway platform in Bihar, a young girl cycles hundreds of kilometres carrying her father on the pillion, a man hoists his parents on his back and walks barefoot towards his village. The world watches dumbfounded as the Prime Minister and his government do nothing.

This is the New India we are accepting today. In this new nation, corruption is institutionalized.

The government passes an ordinance enabling Electoral Bonds, so that political donations can be accepted anonymously from companies. It then coerces, harasses, and raids companies to extort donations from them. One company’s valuation is lower than the amount it donates to the ruling party! Others have cases opened against them before they make hefty donations and suddenly their problems vanish. Many appear to donate in exchange for business deals and contracts, the list is endless.

When the courts force the government to disclose the list of donations, the Prime Minister and the entire nation’s media lie to us that the whole scheme was made to ensure transparency in the first place, and we are expected to blindly believe their lies.

This is the New India we are accepting today.

In this new nation institutions are brought to their knees, the judiciary is bullied and those entrusted with the protection of our freedoms are made to fall silent.

Elected governments are bought and sold at the will of our Prime Minister, hundreds of crores are offered to elected representatives to switch sides as the media and other institutions egg them on. We are told this is the power of one man’s rule and we bear it silently.

This is the New India we are accepting today.

Today people whisper among each other that it is better to keep their heads down and remain silent. They ask themselves what would happen to them if they joined in the dissent. They excuse themselves by saying that there is no alternative. But sometimes, my sisters and brothers, it takes the force of a storm rattling the rafters of our homes, its gusts shaking down the roofs of our aspirations and gutting our foundations, for us to awaken from our complacency and gather the strength to protect the ideals we believe in. Standing here, ten years into the rule of a racist, fascist, and oppressive government, I have no hesitation in saying to you that we are, at this moment in our nation’s history, standing in the eye of such a storm. A storm that is wreaking havoc on the soul of India.

And I have no hesitation in saying to you that the time has come for each one of you to awaken. As the great American leader, Martin Luther King, once said, the time has come to ask yourselves, “What will happen to you if you do not stand up for what is right today?”.

In the Shrimad Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna taught us to set aside fear, greed, and ego, and embrace the ways of love, compassion and humility. How can we watch in silence while our beloved country is overrun by the untamed ego, greed and ruthless arrogance of the BJP, its allies and its supreme leader?

How can we, the nation with the youngest population in the world, allow election after election to be decided on irrelevant and divisive issues rather than force our leaders to focus on the struggles, the needs and the aspirations of billions of Indians?

Brothers and sisters, there is a great battle taking place across our nation today.

On one side, stand those who want to distract you, divide you and use your power to fulfil their greed. On the other side stand those who are begging you to unite, to focus on your own future and take your power back into your own hands. On one side stand the forces of this new version of India and on the other, stand those who fight for the India that was built from the toil of our people and the blood of our martyrs.

In this land of Mahatma Gandhi and Narayan Guru, this land of the great people of Kerala that celebrate Vishu and Onam, and Id and Easter, this land of harmony and plurality, of equality and education, I implore you to recognise that this election is not a mere election.

It is a fight for the soul of this great nation. It is a fight for a democratic India that stood valiantly against tyranny and inequality. It is a fight for the freedom we once took for granted, it is a fight for hope, and it is a fight for all that is right.

India does not need hatred and anger, it needs unity to survive, it needs love to hold its diverse cultures together, its needs real progress permeating down to each citizen, to fulfill the dreams of its millions of young men and women, it needs dissent and justice and equality, and it needs a billion voices to speak their own truths with freedom and fearlessness in order to stand among the great nations of the world and give its children the futures they deserve.

So, my sisters and brothers, you have an onerous responsibility towards your country today. The choice you make in a few days will determine which side will win the battle for India.

Choose with the force of Dharma in your hearts and the power of truth in your beings, choose wisely and choose well.

The writer is general secretary, All India Congress Committee.