• Dr. Dhyan Singh Gothwal

The very name of ‘Rahul Gandhi’ brings to the public mind an image of a Gandhian leader who talks about love, unity, brotherhood and harmony, who talks about saving ‘Democracy’ and the ‘Constitution’ in the country and keeping it intact. If we look at the family background of this personality, every Indian knows that his maternal grandfather Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru spent almost 10 years in jail for the freedom of the country and fought for the freedom; struggling along with the Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi.

After independence, Nehru ji became the first Prime Minister of the country, whose ‘vision’ played an important role in giving India a socialist, secular and scientific thinking apart from helping democracy bloom and flourish. That is why he is called the ‘Maker of Modern India’. The work done by Late Smt. Indira Gandhi, the grandmother of Shri Rahul Gandhi and Late Shri Rajiv Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi Ji’s father, while being the Prime Minister of the country, is unforgettable and commendable. Both these great personalities became martyrs while serving the country.

Rahul Gandhi Ji is so immensely entrusted with the grand legacy of his family and the expectations of the general public that the phase democracy is passing through today, is worrying. A grave danger is looming up in the air for our Democracy and our Constitution because of how the country is being run by the Modi government through dictatorship of the majority by communal polarization. An apprehension that is being expressed by every intellectual is that this dictatorial government may end Indian Democracy and Constitution, for which millions of people have laid their lives and have sacrificed everything to bring Indian democracy to this height. In the midst of this danger, the public sees Rahul Gandhi as a light amidst the darkness pervading in the Democracy and the Constitution.

In 2014 and 2019, the Modi government came to power with a sweeping majority with the promise of ‘Achhe Din’ and both times, the Modi government made tall promises to the country that every year 2 crore jobs will be given to all the youth unemployed, Rs. 15 lakh each will be deposited in ‘Jan Dhan’ accounts opened by the public by bringing black money deposited abroad back in 100 days, ‘Make in India’, ‘NamamiGange’, 100 smart cities by 2022, houses for every family, double the income of farmers, 5 trillion Economy, root out corruption and so on. All the promises of cheap petrol-diesel and cooking gas cylinders proved to be meaningless and false. At the same time, the government played with the lives of the people by doing demonetisation and imposing random GST without any thought, destroying their small and medium scale industries and made people stand on the road. Today, all the promises of the Modi government are proving to be mere ‘Jumlas’. Failing on all fronts, the government is diverting people’s attention from the real issues and demands of the country by resorting to religious hysteria, communalism and fake nationalism on the strength of overwhelming majority. They are manipulating and misusing all the constitutional institutions according to their own wishes. The real problems and issues of the public were made to vanish by curbing all the media houses. Also, the entire Godi media projected Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a great man. The media has been sold to such an extent that by suppressing the voice raised against Prime Minister Modi, it is asking questions to the opposition itself. Media is called the fourth pillar of democracy and everyone looks towards the media for a healthy democracy and for the problems and real issues of the people. The current situation today is worrisome.

In a democracy, the work of the opposition is to attract the attention of the government towards the issues concerning the people of the country and to force the government to follow the objectives of the country’s Democracy and Constitution and to motivate them to walk on the right path by criticizing their wrong policies. Today, the opposition leaders who raise their voice against the policies of the government are being called anti-national, their voices are being suppressed by resorting to raids by ED, CBI and Income Tax and by implicating them in false cases in the courts, the result of which is that many leaders have even joined BJP out of fear. The government’s dictatorship is such that wherever BJP does not get majority, its government is formed by intimidation and horse-trading. These conditions point towards the complete dismantling of Democracy and the Constitution.

In this critical period of dictatorship and majority, the voice of a person is always fighting against the wrong policies of the government and to stop the misuse of constitutional institutions and to save Democracy and Constitution in India since 2014. The name of that person is ‘Rahul Gandhi’.

From 2014 till now, Rahul Gandhi Ji has been honestly playing the role of opposition leader with truth without any fear despite how BJP has left no stone unturned to defame Nehru Ji and Congress. The whole world is aware of what all tricks BJP adopted to tarnish his image. He was not allowed to speak in Parliament, his mike was turned off in Parliament, whether it was demonetisation, flawed GST, unemployment, farmers’ problems, Corona pandemic, Adani incident, China’s intrusion in India, etc. whenever he warned the government on issues like these, he was ignored and laughed at. Later, everything turned out to be true. His image was maligned by making various memes on him. In spite of all this, Rahul Gandhi stood as the voice of the people against the government with complete decency, truthfulness and fearlessness, in the Gandhian way.

Hurt by not being allowed to speak in the Parliament, not showing the truth by the media and dividing the country by spreading communal hatred in the country, demolishing democracy and the Constitution, he took a big decision to go among the public and speak and set out on ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’, a journey of about 3600 kilometers from Kanyakumari to Kashmir, on foot. Millions of people participated in this yatra and Rahul Gandhi Ji got immense public support and love. Due to this, the BJP’s Modi government started to get restless.

Issues like - How much money of the Life Insurance Corporation of India and Indian banks was misused by the BJP government to benefit Adani’s company, as well as how public is being looted by creating fake companies in foreign countries to the tune of twenty thousand crore rupees of black money by increasing the price of its company’s shares, how public’s earnings are being siphoned off etc. - were raised openly and vigorously by Shri Rahul Gandhi in front of the public. Angered by the investigation of the Hindenburg report and the continuous demand for JPC on Adani corruption, the Modi government started hatching a conspiracy to implicate and defame Shri Rahul Gandhi.

Being afraid of growing popularity of Shri Rahul Gandhi’s ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ and constantly being surrounded by the issue of corruption, the Modi government has filed a false case of conspiracy on the basis of Shri Rahul Gandhi’s election speech on corruption of Nirav Modi and Lalit Modi in Karnataka four years ago. In order to scare all the opposition parties, the Modi government wants to convey a message to all by cancelling Rahul Ji’s Lok Sabha membership immediately and giving him notice to vacate his residence, that those who will clash with them will be framed and implicated in the same way. This development is being criticized not only in the country but also in foreign countries as to how the Modi government is ruling like a dictator by strangling the country’s Democracy and Constitution.

Today, it is the need of the hour that everyone will have to make a united effort to save the Indian Democracy and Constitution, because if democracy does not survive then this country will collapse like a pack of cards. There is a dire need of leaders like Shri Rahul Gandhi who can fight like a warrior to save the future of the country with truth and honesty, only then Democracy and the Constitution will remain intact in the country.

(The author is State Co-coordinator, Rajiv Gandhi Study Circle, Rajasthan, Deputy Editor, Biyani Times and Senate Member, University of Rajasthan)