Rich Tributes to Mahatma Gandhi, Shastri: Congress Hints at Prolonged Agitation against Modi Government
Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Oct 2: As the country celebrated the 151st birth anniversary of the Father of the Nation, the Congress promising to agitate on the Gandhian lines gave a clear indication of a prolonged fight against the BJP government at the centre over the issues of farm bills, alleged atrocities on dalits, price rise and other problems facing the people.
The president Ram Nath Kovind, the prime minister Narendra Modi and several of his cabinet ministers paid rich tributes to Mahatma Gandhi. After paying floral tributes to the Mahatma at his “samadhi” in Rajghat, Modi tweeted, “We bow to beloved Bapu on Gandhi Jayanti. There is much to learn from his life and noble thoughts. May Bapu’s ideals keep guiding us in creating a prosperous and compassionate India”, the Prime Minister said.
The leaders also paid tributes to the former prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri whose birth anniversary was also on Friday.
The country also celebrated six years of the “Swachha Bharat Mission” launched on the Gandhi Jayanti Day in 2014 and the central government claimed that besides other achievements more than 97 per cent of the cities in the country have become “open defecation free.”
But for the leaders of the Congress, who besides other opposition leaders were prevented from expressing their solidary with the dalit family at Hathras in Uttar Pradesh for suffering the death of a 19-year old rape victim, Gandhi Jayanti was the day of agitation on the “Gandhian path to preserve Gandhian values” against injustices to the weaker sections of the society.
While amidst growing dissent and nation-wide agitation by farmers against the farm bills, Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi said fighting on the Gandhian lines the farmers would emerge victorious, her son and former party president Rahul Gandhi invoked Mahatma Gandhi to declare that he was not afraid of anyone in this world.
“I will not fear anyone in the world … I will not bow down to anyone’s injustice. I will win the untruth with the truth and I can bear all the sufferings while opposing the untruth,” Rahul quoted Mahatma Gandhi.
On Thursday the UP Police had held Rahul along with his sister and party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi when they had tried to enter Hathras, which grabbed the headlines following the gang-rape and murder of a Dalit teenager (19) by four upper caste men. Rahul’s comment also underlined his intentions about his next round of agitations against the Modi government.
Sonia Gandhi in her message on the occasion announced that her party would continue to fight against the farm laws. “The Congress’s agitation against three black (farm) laws will continue. I want to emphasise that this movement of farmers and the Congress will be successful and the farmers will win,” she said in a video address.
Sonia, who was paying her tributes to Mahatma Gandhi and Lal Bahadur Shastri, said while the Mahatma was the biggest sympathiser of labourers, Shastri had coined the slogan of ‘Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan’. “The Modi government is making the farmers cry tears of blood, even though they grow foodgrains for the country with their sweat,” she added.
The Congress chief also said her party always took into consideration public opinion and had formulated laws alongside the interests of the people. “Today, the country’s prime minister is doing gross injustice to our ‘Annadata’ farmers. The laws were made for the farmers, but they were not even consulted. The issue was not even discussed…their interests were set aside by talking to their select friends before framing the three black laws,” she added.
Speaking of the violence that broke out in certain areas during the farmers’ protests, Sonia said: “Far from listening to their voice, the anti-democratic, anti-people government blew lathis on them. What do our farmers and farm labourers want. They only want the right price for their hard earned produce in these laws and this is their basic right.”
The Congress chief expressed the apprehension that under the new laws when grain markets were abolished, hoarders would be given a free hand to hoard foodgrains and the farmers’ land would be handed over to the capitalists for farming. “Then who will protect the crores of small farmers?” she asked.
Rahul Gandhi is due to participate in a few programmes against the newly enacted farm bills in Punjab organized by the chief minister Amrinder Singh including a tractor rally on Saturday, according to Rahul’s aides.
His aides said though many state units of the party have requested Rahul to attend their regional protest programmes, a final call on his participation in the upcoming events would be taken after factoring in the raging coronavirus disease (Covid-19) outbreak across the country.
The brother-sister duo wanted to visit Hathras amid the Dalit victim’s family members’ allegations that the UP Police hurriedly cremated her at the dead of night at around 2:30 am on Wednesday in a bid to contain the public outcry against the heinous crime. They, however, were prevented from entering Hathras by the police.
The police also did not allow several other opposition party leaders from visiting the dalit family in Hathras. The UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath has constituted a three-member Special Investigation Team (SIT) to look into the Hathras incident.
