During his address at the National Press Club in Washington DC, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha and Congress MP Rahul Gandhi spoke about long-term prospects for India-US relations, especially in terms of strategic partnerships.
“There are two elements. The first is the defence cooperation, which is important, and I think we do a good job there. But then the second is what I touched on just now, which is China has placed in front of us a vision of production and prosperity in a non-democratic environment. What is our response? Are we simply going to just sit there and say, okay, China can be the producer of the world and we’re not going to do anything? Or do we have a response? What is our response to the Belt and Road? I don’t see one. So to me, that’s really where US and India cooperation needs to go. How can we provide a democratic vision of production or manufacturing that works for the rest of the world? And I think both countries bring different things to the table and there’s a huge opportunity there. I don’t see a big diversion in the India-US relationship you know. I don’t see ourselves changing direction very much… I see continuity there. I think everybody on both sides of the equation, everybody does accept the fact that the India-US relationship is key for both countries,” he said.
When asked if the Congress believed that the caste census is the antidote to the BJP-RSS Hindutva politics, and if the Congress acknowledging the way forward is a revival of the Mandal-Kamandal, he said, “No, I don’t think we see it as anything to do with the BJP’s policies. The Congress party has always, from even before independence, we’ve always fought for the idea that India should be a fair country, the idea that all India citizens should be treated the same way. We strongly feel that there is a very deep problem of participation and we’re going to address that problem. I don’t see it as a Mandal vs Kamandal issue. And what we’re saying is different, different than the idea of only reservations. What we are saying is we want a comprehensive understanding first of what’s going on and then we’re going to apply a series of policies to correct it, reservation being one. Somebody misquoted me yesterday saying that I’m against reservations. We’re going to increase reservations beyond 50 per cent.”
On being asked was Bangladesh a focus of discussions in meetings on Capitol Hill with lawmakers, Rahul Gandhi said, “We raised it and they also spoke to us. Look, we are against any type of violence, and we want it to stop. It’s the responsibility of the Bangladeshi government to stop it as soon as possible. From our side, it is the responsibility of our government to put pressure so that violence stops.” (ANI)
