RSS man’s daughter questions Rahul Gandhi on ‘India’s lost values’, gets lauded for speaking up

During a conversation session at the Chatham House think tank in London, Malini Mehra said it pained her to see the current state of her homeland and that her father, who used to be a proud RSS man, no more recognises India as it was.

By: Express Web Desk

New Delhi | Updated: March 9, 2023 03:17 PM IST

4 min read

Participant Malini Mehra and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi during a conversation session at the Chatham House think tank in London. (Twitter/PTI)

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Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who is on a week-long UK tour, has lauded a participant of a conversation session for having pointed out that India needs to go back to its values.

During an in-conversation session at the Chatham House think tank in London on Monday evening, Malini Mehra said it pained her to see the current state of her homeland and that her father, who used to be a proud RSS man, no more recognises India as it was.

“I am feeling wretched about the state of my country. My father was an RSS man and was proud of it, but now he does not recognise the country. For those of us outside India, how can we engage, how can we empower our democracy?” she said.

Replying to the question, Gandhi praised the participant for having expressed her feelings about the state of the country and said that it is a “powerful thing to speak up” when her father itself was in the RSS.

Gandhi went on to say that if he said something like that, people would perceive him as someone who is biased, and added that she is doing a service by speaking up that India has lost its core values and that it needs to go back to those values.

In Political Pulse | ‘If Indian democracy collapses …’: Rahul remark draws fire, BJP says he’s ‘seeking intervention of Europe and US’

Meanwhile, in his address at the Chatham House, Gandhi had targeted the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) as a “fundamentalist, fascist organisation” that has changed the nature of the democratic contest in India by capturing the country’s institutions.

Asked to explain the RSS to a foreign audience, he noted: “You can call it a secret society. It is built along the lines of the Muslim Brotherhood and the idea is to use the democratic contest to come to power and then subvert the democratic contest afterwards.

“It has shocked me at how successful they have been at capturing the different institutions of our country. The press, judiciary, Parliament, Election Commission — all the institutions are under pressure, under threat and controlled in one way or another.”

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Meanwhile, Gandhi’s remark that the “collapse of Indian democracy” will “play out on a global scale” has invited sharp criticism from the BJP which has accused the Congress leader of “seeking the intervention of Europe and the United States in India”.

Also Read | BJP slams Rahul Gandhi for ‘insulting India’s democracy’ on foreign land, Congress calls it ‘distorting’

As the BJP accused the Wayanad MP of ‘insulting’ India’s democracy, the Congress hit back, saying the ruling party is “rattled” whenever he speaks. As former Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad accused Gandhi of seeking foreign intervention in India, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh alleged that the BJP leader was distorting, twisting and lying “with a straight face”.

During his UK tour, Gandhi has repeatedly said that Indian democracy is under threat and criticised the BJP-led government for “controlling all the institutions”.

– With PTI inputs

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