Changing India: Rahul Gandhi’s Ambitious Goals for a More Equal Democracy

Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi speaks with Georgetown SFS students about his hopes for India (Karina Bhatt, The Caravel).

Rahul Gandhi, descendant of Nehru and Indira Gandhi and the twelfth opposition leader in Lok Sabha (India’s lower house of Parliament), appealed to Georgetown’s Indian-American community on Monday, September 9. He spoke about the June 4 election and the most pressing issues on his agenda. 

Gandhi sees the recent elections as a sign that India is ready for change. Defining the election as a fight for the Constitution, Gandhi emphasized how his party, the INDIA Alliance, won 232 seats despite frozen bank accounts and media bias favoring the governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Although Prime Minister Narendra Modi expected 300 seats and a supermajority for the BJP, they received only 240 seats. Gandhi nonetheless accused the BJP of controlling the election: “In a fair election [the BJP] wouldn’t win even 240 seats.” While Gandhi said he didn’t have any personal hatred towards Modi, he stated that Modi’s policies are trapping India in the past instead of envisioning a future.

Gandhi expanded on how the INDIA Alliance plans to govern India better, specifically vowing to reduce socioeconomic equality. Repeatedly, Gandhi noted, “The elephant in the room is that 90 percent of India don’t play the game; they’re not even in the game.” Traditionally, India has had a rigid caste structure (jati), with four major groups within the caste hierarchy (Brahmins/priests, Kshatriya/warriors, Vaishya/merchants, and Sudra/commoners) and Dalits/“untouchables” (now called Scheduled Castes and Tribes) outside the hierarchy. Following independence, the Indian government outlawed caste-discrimination, which 82 percent of Indians agree has worked. Nonetheless, the majority of Indians still primarily interact within their caste.

Although some studies show that castes no longer prevent economic mobility, Gandhi claimed India still was not a “modern nation.” He wants a Caste Census and an expansion of the government reservation system, a constitutional right providing Scheduled Castes and Tribes and the economically weaker sections (EWS) with university and government positions. While the system has been mostly effective, few support Gandhi’s desire to go above the 50 percent quota. Currently, universities and government offices cannot reserve more than 50 percent of seats without violating equal access doctrines established by the Supreme Court. One Indian college student at GGSIPU went so far as to say Gandhi “will go lengths to destroy India.” She complained: “Imagine you've worked hard enough to lose your hair for a job, and at the end it goes to a person who didn't even care about the position.” First-year College student Adithya Kashyap also expressed skepticism with the plausibility of Gandhi’s plans: “I, much like a great number of people I spoke to, remain unconvinced that Gandhi is calling for much beyond simple statements.”

Besides the reservation system, Gandhi also talked about competition with China and goals to increase Indian domestic production . He noted potential in the brass, jeans, and diamond industries. 

When asked about secularism in India, Gandhi emphasized compassion and love. He lamented “violence, hatred, anger as values.” Instead, Gandhi expressed the importance of honoring India’s diversity: “India at its heart is a union of languages, traditions, religions, and everything. That’s just the design.” He said just as no one would separate dal from rice, India’s peoples, of all religions, languages, clothes, or food, could not be separated from politics. Kashyap reflected, “As someone who has never held strong views toward Rahul Gandhi, I was surprised to see myself agreeing with some of his statements, especially on the need for ‘love’ in politics, a message which […] must certainly reverberate to other countries’ political spheres.”

Looking toward the next election, Gandhi believes that the INDIA Alliance is now an “unstoppable idea.” When responding to a student concern that the coalition was divided, Gandhi protested that they agreed on a lot: defending the Constitution, Caste Census, and preventing the creation of business moguls, especially Gautam Adani. However, Gandhi couldn’t follow-up with a specific name for who would lead the INDIA Alliance, and he avoided answering questions on party complacency and specific plans to address the institutional corruption he claimed earlier. Regardless, Gandhi is confident that PM Modi will struggle in the next elections, calling him “psychologically trapped,” specifically referring to his claim that he could talk to God. Gandhi’s parting words were to reiterate his goal to “give a vision that gives [India] hope.”