I visit a human being, not a Dalit: Rahul Gandhi

Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi while interacting with media in Thiruvananthapuram(Kerala) said that he goes to poor man’s house and don’t think in terms of Dalit or an upper caste. Replying to a question he said, “See, first of all the press sees me as staying with Dalits. I don’t see myself as staying with Dalits. I see myself as going to a human being’s house. I don’t see him as a Dalit, or an upper caste or a lower caste. As far as I am concerned that there is a poor human being and I am going to his house. And I will go to a poor person's house whether he is a Dalit, an upper caste or a minority. And I spend nights in people’s houses who are non-Dalits. So, this differentiation occurs in the media, it does not occur in my mind. I personally don’t believe in the caste. I believe that whether they are a Dalit or an upper caste they are the same. It has only one difference what I can see, between a rich person or a poor person, and that is of opportunity. So this frame of Dalits is your frame; it is not my frame. My frame is; every single Indian is equal and as far as I am concerned as a politician, it is my duty to try and understand as many people’s frame as possible. If I have to understand their frame then I have to understand what they are close to, and my view is to go close to them. I can’t do it sitting in an air conditioned office or in any big house. So, when I do it, I go close to them. The same way I go to a university and talk to a student; the same way I go to a chaiwalla and sit down and talk to him. I don’t ask the Chaiwalla, are you Dalit? No, he is a person for me. I tell my office people that please find the poorest village in Uttar Pradesh; take me there and take me to the poorest person’s house. That is the format I use. If the poorest people happen to be a Dalit, he is a Dalit. You see him as a Dalit; I see him as a poor person. What I am trying to do here, I am a youngster, I am not an experienced politician; all I want to do here is to understand what the people of this country are facing, whether they are rich or poor, handicapped, whatever. And I want to spend as much time of mine trying to understand what they are faced with. As a politician I think that it is very important that I do that. Because, if I don’t, I will not understand the issues.”

Speaking on the Youth Congress and the NSUI, Congress General Secretary said, “Our model in the Youth Congress and the NSUI and the KSU is to have an open system, where we allow as many youngsters to enter the system. That is the first step. The second step is the promotion within that system should be based on democratic norms meaning that people, who go ahead in that organization, go ahead democratically. We don’t have any norms about educational qualification in NSUI and the KSU. We feel that, that decision of the leadership should be left to the students and they should decide how they want to elect somebody who is doing well in the school and somebody who is not. So, the whole idea behind the democratization of these two organizations; the central idea is that we believe fundamentally in the youngsters of this country. And we would like them to take the decision in these two organizations.”

On visiting university campuses across the country he said, he has not violated the instructions of Supreme Court as the court only spoke about the rules and regulations to be followed during the students Union elections. He said, “It has not been a contempt of court; so I am not in a trouble in contempt of court.”

On growing Naxal problem in the country, Congress General Secretary said, “My view on this matter is that the states like Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Orissa is that; governments are not reaching to the population. That is one cause for the Naxal problem. I think the governments need to get development of the people. Wherever you find development is taking place, wherever the people are involved in political system or involved in the democratic system, Naxalism will not take over. That is my personal view. Seeing that the government has taken very strict measures in countering Naxalism and a lot of progress has been made in some states; I am sure a lot of progress will be made by the government of India.
I think there are experts in the government who are knowledgeable about how specifically to combat Naxalism; I am not an expert on Naxalism and I am not going to explain to you how I feel Naxalism should be combated. There are specialists who do that. As I already said, there is a connection between Naxalism and lack of ability of local governments to reach to the people. And as somebody involved in politics I would say that the more involved the people are in a political system, the better, there are less likely chances that Naxalism is taking place.”

On the participation of youth in the politics he said, “The idea behind what we are doing here in KSU election or the Youth Congress elections is not directly linked to this but the idea behind this is the participation of youngsters in politics. We feel that youngsters should have a voice in politics and we also feel that the best way to give youngsters a voice in politics is to give them the democratically elected organization. That is the idea we are trying out in the KSU, in the NSUI or in the Youth Congress.”


When asked about the response of his recent Tamil Nadu tour, Congress General Secretary said, “What the youngsters of Tamil Nadu are feeling about the Youth Congress is that over a million have joined the Youth Congress. So that should be the extremely positive disposition for the congress. We still have not calculated exactly how many members have joined in Tamil Nadu but we do know that there are over a million. A million is a huge number. So we are very positive. I think there are two issues here; first one is to be positively predisposed to the congress and the second issue is that they feel, as I have spoken to the lot of students, we had election already in JNU, they feel that the first time they have a voice in electing their own leaders. No other youth political organization in the country allows that. We are only one who allows it. That is also why a very large number of students and youngsters are joining us. I mean I give you an idea about the membership of Youth Congress in Punjab. We had about 30,000 members before our election and the moment we declared the election and carried out membership campaign, number grew to three and half lakhs; where we had first election. In Gujarat, we had similar numbers; 35,000 members in Gujarat. We had election; we have seven and a half lakhs. In Tamil Nadu, we have told you a million; we have not calculated the number yet but I try to point out that we interact and whichever state we go to, our number goes increasing. We started with three and half lakh members, we estimate that we have gone to thirteen lakhs members. And the expectation that the people have; I am extremely impressed by the way the students have, the desire to enter politics; I am extremely impressed by. I fully believe in them; so I don’t believe that I should be giving them specific direction that you will have only highly educated leaders. They have to choose them. I am only a medium. I am not going to make a decision for the youngsters in the Youth Congress. They are going to make their decision.”

On the representation of SCs, STs and minorities in the Youth Congress and NSUI he said, “Our system is designed in such a way that it ensures that. We have explained in detail to the press in Kerala what our system looks like. That our system is not a winner or taker away system. So one man does not win the election. The system is; the electing a committee and in that committee there are mandatory places for women, mandatory places for SCs, mandatory places for STs and mandatory places for weaker sections. So, in our election you will not have result where SCs, STs, the minority communities will not have a place; it can not happen. And we design the system in this manner. In fact in Gujarat, we had the opposite problem. In our election in Gujarat in the tribal areas, the tribals swept everything; and the non-tribals were saying that the system would be unfair to them. So our system positively discriminates towards weaker sections.”

Speaking on the availability of opportunities for the poor he said, “ For me there is only one difference and this is the way I see the world. Regarding weaker section, only thing is that people lack opportunities. That is the only difference. The difference between me and the poorest person in this country or the difference between you and the poorest person in this country, the only difference as far as I am concerned, there is no difference in capability, there is no difference in understanding; the only difference is difference in opportunity. We have the opportunity, we went to the university; which university you go to? (Asking a journalist)…You studied in Hyderabad, you went to Hyderabad, studied in the University of Hyderabad and you had lot of opportunities; that’s why you are sitting here and we are talking. There are millions of people in this country, just like you and me as intelligent, as smart as you; who have not had the opportunity to go to a university. That is the only difference; there is no other difference.”

Talking on his recent visit to poor man’s house he said, “As far as I am concerned I reach out to people. Now if you want to ask some of the MPs why they went with food, you have to ask them. I don’t have the answer to that question. As far as I am concerned my aim is not only to reach out to them; it is to understand. I want to understand that what a poor person in Shravasti is facing. That’s what I want to understand. I don’t actually reach out and go to them and say that I am Mr Rahul Gandhi and I have come to see you. No. All I want, I want to understand them; you can go to them and ask them what were the questions I asked to them when I sat with them. I asked to them; What you find difficult? What happens to NAREGA here? Does NAREGA help you? What happened with Karjamaafi; did it help you? Did it get to you? Why did not it get to you? Because as somebody who is involved in politics, the biggest problem in this country is; the all good intentions the governments have, don’t reach to people. And as a politician I want to understand what is going on. That’s why I go there. There is an element of reaching out, but the main thrust from my side is understanding for myself what is going on.”


Replying to a question he said, “The day I die my learning will end. Until that day, I will keep learning. Learning does not mean by the way making a distinction between learning and action. Action is learning and learning is action, so there is no distinction between the two things. So, my point is that I hope that I continue to learn until the day I die. I think that is the thing one should strive for.”

Speaking on the differences between the rich and the poor, he said, “I did not say that the difference is only between the rich and poor. I said that there is a big difference in opportunity between the rich and the poor. But there are other people also who lack opportunity. For example there are people in government job who should be getting the opportunity they are not getting. There are people in every sphere of life who are not getting the opportunity that they should be getting. But the biggest difference in my mind is the difference in opportunities.”

Responding to a query relating to the concerns of Kerala's farmers Congress General Secretary said, “ I would like to point out about the ASEAN free trade agreement. There is a worry in Kerala that certain crops in Kerala will be impacted. I just want to make it clear that there are the crops in Kerala, are either in the negative list or in the special list and will not be impacted. So, the ASEAN, as far as Kerala is concerned is a non-issue. We are not going to let, and the government in Delhi is the government of the poor; we are not going to let the farmers of Kerala to suffer. There is no question of that. This is (the view) from the Prime Minister of the country. So, the Left Front is most welcome to make it a election issue; as far as we are concerned nothing we do is going to damage the interests of the farmers of the Kerala.”

Replying to query he said, “Two things I like to do. One is I like to focus on my job. My job is building the Youth Congress and the NSUI. So, the main focus in my life is to try and get youngsters to get involved for these two organizations. I don’t get involved in the decisions and I don’t get involved in these types of things. Yes, except those related to Youth Congress and to a certain extent to the NSUI. With regards to Maharashtra, I am very confident that we will do well in Maharashtra. We have a strong alliance with NCP over there and I am going to campaign there over the next two days, so I will get a better sense of the things there.”

Talking about his business in the public life he said, “I have got very busy these days. I need to refocus away from my work. Yes, but I have been very busy. There are lots of people to tell me that.”


Speaking on the view of Shashi Throor regarding Gandhi Jayanti he said, “That is for the government to decide. I am not going to tell whether Gandhi Jayanti should be working day or not. I mean, I don’t have any personal view on this. Whatever the government decides is good enough for me. I think that I don’t know that everybody should opinionate on every single thing on this planet. I think that there are certain important things that one needs to have opinion on. I think that the government has decided that Gandhi Jayanti is going to be a holiday; and I am perfectly happy with that. If tomorrow the government decides that all of us need to work on Gandhi Jayanti, that is also fine with me. And I think that it is not going to make any difference with Gandhiji, because Gandhiji would be perfectly happy either. Mr. Tharoor has every right for his opinion and everybody has his also. Shashi Tharoorji has a slightly different role as well. Shashi Tharoorji is a minister of state also. So, he has to also spend a lot of time in traveling. So, it is bit unfair to say you know he comes on in times on computer. I have spoken to him a couple of time between and after the election and I get a sense that he is working hard for the country.”

Speaking on austerity drive in public life by MPs he said, “I think they should follow their own model. I think every body has a particular view. I think MPs are highly intelligent adult people and I don’t think that every body should follow anyone’s model.”

Talking about congress party’s strategies in Uttar Pradesh, Congress General Secretary said, “There is going to be a time when congress party will be in power in UP. That’s how I look at it. And I am going to work for that day. When it is going to happen, I can’t tell you but I can guarantee you that it is going to happen. And we will give everything we have to make sure that the people of the UP have a government they can be proud of.”

On his recent visit to villages and growing discontentment he said, “Wherever I go there is a discontentment. I have come here in Kerala, there is a discontentment, and they closed up the university. I go to UP; there is a discontentment with Mayawatiji. So, wherever I go there is a discontentment. How much can I do about that? As far as I am concerned my job is to reach out to the people of India to understand that what they are going through and try to help them out. I do that in Kerala, I do that in Tripura I do that in UP. If Mayawatiji don’t like that, my apology to her but I am going to keep going what I do.”

On the cancellation of his Arunachal Pradesh tour and his visits to Left-ruled states he said, “Because of bad weather my security people said that I am not allowed to go. I mean it is a media interpretation that I am trying to go to ‘red bastion’. What I am trying to do is to develop the NSUI and the Youth Congress in the whole country. So, there is no specific strategy to going to ‘red bastion’ or somebody else’s bastion; the strategy is that we want to make NSUI and Youth Congress democratic and a strong organization across the country. At some point, we are going to everywhere. Tripura and North-eastern states we have chosen at this stage because we are doing a number of large states and we felt that we should not be doing too many large states at the same time. So, we did large state Tamil Nadu and some small state together; there is no idea of going to a ‘red bastion’.”

Speaking on the fusion of experience with young blood in Kerala Congress he said, “See, there is a general idea among the youngsters and this is in every state that progress in politics should be instantaneous. Senior leadership in Kerala has tremendous experience. It is a merger of experience and youth; it is going to most benefit the people of Kerala. The Youth Congress and the KSU in the Kerala are going to develop the future leadership of the state. They are going to work for the congress party; and they are going to work under the congress party, under the senior leadership of the congress party. There is no question in my mind about that. And I am going to absolutely ensure it. However, youngsters in both these organizations, who are capable, will also be provided space by the senior Kerala Congress, because it suits them. And because it is in everyone’s interest that Kerala Congress, KSU and Youth Congress do well in this state. So, this is a team job, there is role for the senior congress party, there is a role for our senior leaders and I will frankly say that the deepest leadership in the country in the congress party is in Kerala. We have tremendous depth in our leadership. There is a role for the senior leadership, there is a role for the congress party, there is a role for the Youth Congress and there is a role for the KSU. And we must not confuse the roles. I would like to end now because I have to go to PCC.”

Speaking on the recent talent hunt by the Youth Congress, Congress General Secretary said, “The idea behind the talent search and still remains the idea behind the talent search is; democratic elections take time. They require an institutional set up to deliver them effectively. They demand a machinery to deliver it. I just give an idea in our Tamil Nadu election, there were around 600 Youth Congress members working to deliver that election. So, the idea of talent search is that; in that intermediate period, until we are ready to start that election process, we should find talents.”