New Delhi: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi Tuesday weighed in on the controversy surrounding the seating capacity of the new Parliament building as he interacted with the Indian diaspora in the US city of San Francisco.
At an event in Santa Clara, Gandhi was asked about the fact that the new Parliament has a seating capacity of 888, and whether proportion-to-population — a state having MPs in proportion to its population — was a fair way of ensuring representation.
“One has to be very careful when one changes the representative structure of the country,” Gandhi said. “I’d be quite interested in understanding how they’ve come up with the number 800 and what are the criteria they are using. India is a conversation. It is a negotiation between its languages, people, histories and cultures” That negotiation, he added, “has to be fair”.
“All states of India should feel that there is fairness in the process of negotiation,” said Gandhi.
The proportion-to-population formula is seen as controversial because it is seen to benefit states that have not managed to effectively control their population, at the expense of those that have, including the southern states.
“I think the Parliament House is a distraction. The real issues in India are unemployment, price rise, spread of anger and hatred, crumbling educational system, price of health,” Gandhi said. “BJP can’t really discuss these issues. That’s why they have to do this whole sceptre thing. Lying down and doing all that”.
At the interaction, Gandhi spoke of his experience with the Bharat Jodo Yatra, and answered questions on “language imposition”, the Women’s Reservation Bill, and caste census, among other things. He once again emphasised that India is a union of states, and the need to “listen” to what the Bharat Jodo Yatra taught him.
The interaction was the first in Gandhi’s 6-day visit to the US, during which he will be spending time in Silicon Valley, Washington DC and New York meeting the Indian diaspora.
He’s scheduled to have a discussion on democracy with researchers at Stanford University, meetings with members of the US Congress and Senators, with a mega concluding event planned at the Javits Centre in New York City.
At Santa Clara, Gandhi once again repeated his “nafrat ke bazaar mein mohabbat ki dukaan” refrain.
“It was not us that was walking [during the 4,000-km Bharat Jodo Yatra]. It was India that was walking with us,” he said. “The large mass of people who were coming were creating an atmosphere of love and affection where nobody was feeling tired.”
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Women’s reservation, caste census
After a roughly 14-minute address, Rahul was asked questions by members of the audience.
Asked about his party’s stand on the Women’s Reservation Bill, that seeks to reserve seats in the legislature for women, he said the Congress was committed to the legislation.
“We wanted to pass it in the last government but some of our allies were not too happy with it and they didn’t give us the support for that Bill,” he said. “I’m confident that when we come to power, we will pass that Bill.”
When asked by a member of the Tamil community about making India the “United states of India”, Gandhi said that the definition of India in the Constitution is as a “union of states”.
“Within our Constitution is the idea that all our languages, cultures of each one of our states has to be protected under the Union. I’m aware that the Tamil language is more than a language to the Tamil people,” he added. “It is their history, it is their culture. It is their way of life. And I will never allow Tamil language to be threatened. For me, threatening Tamil language is threatening the idea of India.”
When asked what the Congress wants to do to ensure social justice, Gandhi said the party will release the numbers of the 2011 caste census when it comes to power.
“One of the things that we are suggesting is that when we were in government, we had carried out a caste census and the idea behind the caste census was to take an x-ray of Indian society,” he said. “To find out what are the exact demographics of our country. What are the different communities and caste. How many people in each community and caste. Because without understanding our demographics and without understanding who is who, it is very difficult to distribute wealth and power effectively.”
He added, “We have been putting pressure on the BJP to release the numbers of the caste census. And when we come to power we will do that.”
San Francisco’s Bay Area Muslim community also asked Gandhi what hope he was giving to Indian Muslims.
“The best way for me to explain that is ‘nafrat ke bazaar mein mohabbat ki dukaan’. It [hatred] is felt most strongly by the Muslim community because it is being done most directly to them,” he said. “But, in fact, it is being done to all minorities. I can guarantee you that the same way you are feeling attacked, our Sikh brothers, Christian brothers, Dalit community, tribal community is feeling the same thing.”
Anybody “who is poor in India today, when he looks at the extreme wealth that the limited number of people have, in some ways he feels the same way that you feel”, he said.
“It’s a phenomenon that is taking place against everybody in India,” he added.
(Edited by Sunanda Ranjan)
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Source: The Print
