New Delhi: The disqualification of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi as a Member of Parliament continues to draw sharp reactions from various quarters including foreign governments (the US and Germany), journalists, lawmakers and now, a former Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor.
Gandhi’s disqualification from the Lok Sabha last week, which came after a Surat court convicted him in a 2019 criminal defamation case, has led critics overseas to question India’s democratic credentials, just days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi participated in the second edition of US President Joe Biden’s Summit for Democracy.
The virtual summit, first held in December 2021, focuses on strengthening democracy across the world, besides countering authoritarianism, fighting corruption, and promoting respect for human rights.
“India, despite the many global challenges, is the fastest growing major economy today. This itself is the best advertisement for democracy in the world,” PM Modi said in his virtual address to the summit Wednesday.
Meanwhile, reporters like Financial Times journalist Edward Luce criticised India’s participation in the summit given the situation at home. “With friends such as these, democracy hardly needs enemies,” wrote Luce, while adding that India is “in the process of jailing opposition leader Rahul Gandhi on a trumped up defamation ruling”.
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‘Not the image we are trying to portray’
Former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan also spoke against Gandhi’s conviction and subsequent disqualification from Parliament. “It doesn’t sit well with the image we are trying to portray internationally,” he told journalist Barkha Dutt Wednesday.
Rajan further pointed out that India is holding key positions in the international arena such as the G20 Presidency, where it has emphasised the strength of its democratic principles.
“We flood the G20 with the fact that we’re a great democracy and the fount of democracy. Then a few weeks after the G20 meetings, something like this happens,” he said, adding that it is a “tragedy” if free speech is curtailed in India.
Addressing a press briefing Wednesday, a spokesperson for the German Foreign Ministry too said Berlin had taken note of the case against Gandhi and “expects that the standards of judicial independence and fundamental democratic principles will apply”.
The remarks came days after the US State Department principal deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said Washington was “watching” Gandhi’s case play out in the courts.
“Respect for the rule of law and judicial independence is a cornerstone of any democracy, and we’re watching Mr Gandhi’s case in Indian courts, and we engage with the Government of India on our shared commitment to democratic values – including, of course, freedom of expression,” he said in a press briefing earlier this week.
Last week, US Congressman Ro Khanna — who is of Indian origin — termed the Congress leader’s disqualification as a “deep betrayal” of Gandhian philosophy. “The expulsion of Rahul Gandhi from parliament is a deep betrayal of Gandhian philosophy and India’s deepest values,” the lawmaker representing the 17th district of California in the US House of Representatives said in a tweet.
Khanna’s remarks invited criticism on social media, particularly against his late grandfather Amarnath Vidyalankar, a Gandhian who was a supporter of former prime minister Indira Gandhi during the years of the Emergency. “Attack me. Don’t attack India’s freedom fighters,” he responded to one tweet, asserting that his grandfather “wrote two letters to Indira Gandhi opposing the emergency”.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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Source: The Print
