Speaking at the Hertie School in Berlin last week, Gandhi also alleged that the BJP has launched a full-scale assault and has captured the institutional framework of the country to help use it as a tool for building its political power and that is what the Opposition is fighting against.
In an hour-long video released by the Congress on Monday, Gandhi said India’s largest and complex democracy is a global asset and the “assault” on the Indian democratic system is also an attack on the global democratic system.
“What the BJP is proposing essentially is the elimination of the Constitution. Elimination of the idea of equality between states, elimination of the idea of equality between languages and religions, elimination of the idea of the central core of the Constitution which is that every individual will have the same value,” the leader of opposition in Lok Sabha said to a group of students at the Hertie School.
In the video, ‘Politics is the art of listening’, Gandhi said, “We will create a method, a system of opposition resistance that will succeed. But, we’re not fighting the BJP. You have to understand that we’re fighting their capture of the Indian institutional structure.”
Answering queries of students, Gandhi claimed that there is a weaponization of the institutional framework.
“We fundamentally believe that there is a problem with the electoral machinery in India. Second thing is that there is a wholesale capture of our institutional framework. There is a full-scale assault taking place on the institution framework of our country,” he claimed. He noted that there is an atmosphere in India where the institutions are not performing the role they should be performing.
Gandhi said while the Europeans struggled to build a European Union, India built an economic and political union in 1947, which was based on the Constitution.
“If you are going to have any conversation about democracy on the planet, you cannot ignore by far the largest and most complex democracy in the world. That is why I say Indian democracy is a global public good, it is not just an Indian asset, it is a global asset.
“So when I talk of the attack on the Indian democratic system, I don’t say it but it is actually an attack not just on the Indian democratic system, it is an attack on the global democratic system,” Gandhi observed.
The Congress leader was on a tour to Germany last week.