Politics
#RaGaInGermany: Unemployment reason behind lynchings, an ISIS reference, and more
Congress President Rahul Gandhi launched an attack at ruling BJP and PM Narendra Modi as he addressed a gathering in Bucerius Summer School, Hamburg, Germany. Gandhi blamed demonetization, 'badly implemented' GST, and BJP's government weakening of support structures provided to downtrodden, as reasons for the increased number of attacks on minorities and lynchings. Here's more on what he said.
Gandhi then goes to explain how ISIS was formed
In an attempt to support his statements, Gandhi said after the US invaded Iraq, it stopped a tribe, Tikriti network from getting government jobs. This tribe then linked itself with other groups, which led to an insurgency, claimed Gandhi. "That insurgency then entered empty spaces in Iraq and Syria. Then it connected with global internet to form horrific idea called the ISIS," he added.
It's very dangerous to exclude people in 21st century: Gandhi
"It is very dangerous in the 21st century to exclude people. If you don't give people a vision in the 21st century somebody else will give them one. And that's the real risk of excluding a large number of people from our development processes," he said.
Gandhi says everyone thinks about minorities except PM Modi
Furthering his attack on PM Modi, Gandhi said India began a journey from being a rural country to urban, 70 years ago. He said all governments, except the current one, focused on helping the minorities, tribals etc. "They (the BJP government) feel that tribal communities, poor farmers, lower caste people, minorities shouldn't get the same benefits as the elite," he alleged.
After note-ban and GST, small business owners faced problems
Further, Gandhi added that note ban and badly-conceptualized GST broke the backbone of businesses and forced small business owners to move back to villages. He said this then got translated to incidents of violence. "When you hear about lynchings when you hear about attacks on Dalits in India when you hear about attacks on minorities in India, that's the reason for it," he insisted.
India isn't most unsafe for women, claims Gandhi
In his address, Gandhi agreed that violence against women in India was rampant, but disagreed that the country was most dangerous. He said many instances of violence go unreported while adding it was a cultural issue. "It is an issue of how Indian men view Indian women and I think it requires a huge amount of work to fix that problem," he said.
