 We are excited to have you here as our honorable guest and be assured you have our full attention. Thank you. Thank you. Right. Rahul Gandhi, I mean honestly. You have a little bit of an Indian accent. Yes. Do you speak Hindi? No, not Hindi. Bangla. Bangla. That makes sense. You speak Bengali? Yes. You speak English? Yes. I speak a lot of Bengali. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Yes. Anyway, so I've been trying to impress people over the last few days that, ah, Rahul Gandhi. Okay, so he's famous in his own right, etc. But he is actually, when it's perfectly within the realm of possibilities, the next prime minister. First, I was instructed to sort of have a few questions for you and a little conversation. And then my colleague here who organized everything, Katika Freista, organized everything. Thank you. It is also sending me questions from the audience. At some point it will close down. So sit down for questions. So great. Let's just stop. You're ready? Let's go. Yes. Really? I had some questions written down. So okay, but the first thing first, the reason why you're so interesting, it's not just because you're in the next prime minister quite possibly, but also because of your history as a politician. I mean, in many ways it's been interesting to follow you because in some ways you're different from other politicians. You're a slightly reluctant politician if that's possible to say, you know, you've been in and out and sort of pulled out and then you're back in. And you've done, and for a while without her, well, he's a goner. But then you sort of jump back and here you are. And you just finished this long march and energized a lot of activists. And it was quite a marvelous spectacle. And so my question is, as the leader, you're not formally the leader of Congress with your most famous face. Big star attraction. So what, so how do you see your role in all of this? Microphone. Oh, microphone. How do you see your role in all of this? Your, and your sort of contribution to re-energizing, to making Congress and this broad alliance into really that fighting force that you need to have in order to counter BJP and its, you know, enormous media strategy, its war chair, its enormous position all over the country. How do you see yourself in that role, creating, re-creating, energizing the Congress and the alliance? Yeah. So, I mean, the first, the first thing one has to realize when you're thinking about India is that until 2014, democracy in India was about a set of political parties fighting each other. Neutral institutions, free and fair elections, access to media for everybody, access for finance to everybody. In 2014, this changed completely. So in India today, we no longer fight a political party. So the entire game has changed. Institutions are captured by the RSS. The agencies, CBI, ED, Income Tax Department have been weaponized. They attack those who resist the ideology of the BJP. So we are no longer fighting your regular political contest. We are actually now fighting the architecture of the Indian state, which means that the techniques we used earlier, interviews, conversations like this, they're not available to us anymore. It might surprise some of you. You might have noticed that you've seen me talking to students in the United States. You've seen me talking to students in France. You are seeing me here talking to you. I can't do this in India. I'm physically not allowed to enter Indian universities, as are most of our opposition leaders. If we try to go into a university in India, we find that the vice chancellor belongs to the RSS, and he makes it very clear to us that discussion is not acceptable inside Indian universities. So that is the real paradigm shift. You know, you said India's the largest democracy. It's true. But for me, a democracy where you're not allowed to express your voice, where you're not allowed to say what you feel, where large numbers of people are not given that opportunity, is a weakening democracy. And that's what we have in India. Large parts of our population are not allowed to speak. They are threatened. Political leadership is crushed. I've got 24 cases on me. I've been interrogated for 55 hours. I've been given a jail sentence, two-year jail sentence. The first time in India, somebody's been given a maximum sentence for criminal defamation, a jail sentence for criminal defamation. I'm the first person who's ever had that done to them, right? So this is what we're facing. A lot of what you hear about me, the idea that I'm reluctant, comes through the lens of the BJP. And that lens distorts reality and truth. What we've found is that the old tools don't work. And a lot of people ask me, during my walk, before my walk, after my walk, why have you walked this 4,000 kilometers? The reason we walked the 4,000 kilometers is because we had no option. It was the only way left for us to get our message across to the people of India. What we didn't imagine was that it was an extremely powerful way to do it. And it taught us a tremendous amount about our country, about how to speak to our country, about how to listen to our country. But if you asked me in 2005, even 2012, that I would be walking across from Kanyakumari to Kashmir 4,000 kilometers, I would say no way. But it became a political necessity for us. And we realized that when democracy is under attack and voice is being attacked, then the only real way to combat that is through action, through walking, through physically going and meeting people. And that's really the only instrument that the opposition in India has left for it. Okay, so two follow-up questions. Long answer, but I needed to set the foundation. Excellent, excellent. But follow-up questions. What is your personal contribution to this? So why did you decide that you would be a good leader? You would be sort of the person to lead in this? I don't, I don't. Because everybody could do it. I mean, just give the man. Everybody can do it. Everybody should do it. And I don't decide these things. I defend a particular ideology in my country. I deeply understand, I deeply understand a particular ideology. I have spent a lot of time fighting for it. It's the ideology of Mahatma Gandhi. It's the ideology of Buddha. It's the ideology of Guru Nanak. It's the ideology of voice. And I fight for it. Whether I become the leader or don't become the leader, these are secondary questions. In today's India, I feel that we're in an ideological struggle. And we're in an ideological struggle for the future of our country. And I think it's the responsibility of all of us to defend our position. And that's what I do. I enjoy that. It's difficult. I get hurt every now and then. But I brush myself, get up and go back to work. You could have been a businessman or you could have been something quiet, right? You know, I'm an academic. That's very nice. One of my best friends, when I was sort of getting my jail sentence, he called me up and he says, you know, I've known you now 20 years. You're always trying to get yourself into trouble. Right? Right. Okay. So that's a habit. I don't like unfairness. I don't like it when people bully other people, when people frighten other people, and I tend to like to stand up for them. Okay. Very good. This is my nature. It irritates me when I see power being misused. And it's not a mental thing. It's not a mental thing. It's like a, it's a hard thing. It just disturbs me. It doesn't matter who they are. If they're being pushed around, if they're feeling, you know, pressured because of power, somebody is being, even if an animal is being mistreated, it disturbs me deeply. I miss your beard. You had such a wonderful beard after the walk. It looked so impressive. People have different views on that. Okay. I mean, some people miss it. Some people don't like it. Other people want it short. Right. Some people want it shaved in a particular way, but that's part of the territory. Right. Right. It does vary though. Yeah. I noticed. I noticed. A bit longer now. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it looks good. It looks good. Yes. So, but, but returning to the question of, of your political part of the Congress, I mean, I spent quite some time in West Bengal and, and Congress hasn't been in power for since 1977 in West Bengal, but it's still there. It's like everywhere. Right. So in every village, you have Congress Wallace in every neighborhood in the city, they're everywhere. And, and even during election campaigns, non-elections, you'll find these flags and, and the chapter and so, so the Congress is a bit everywhere, but it's also a bit sort of, it's a bit the establishment. It's not, but not the political establishment, but it's the old people. They're well established. They're sort of doing their own stuff. So, so the question is, you know, that appeal to the young voters. How are you going to contribute that appeal to the young voters and to really re-energize Congress into that sort of that fighting force that you need? So there's, there's two ways to look at the Congress. There's what you're describing, the Congress organization. That's a political organization. And that's weak in Bengal. And it's strong in Karnataka. Yeah. It's strong in Maharashtra. It's strong in some parts and it's weak in other parts. The other way to describe the Congress is as an idea. Right. And as one of the central visions for India's people. Hmm. Right. And that is not weak at all. That is very strong. Now, sometimes there's a mismatch between the idea and the ability of the organization to pick up the heart of the idea. Right. And you can see that the Congress party goes through that transition. That's what we are in the process of doing today. We are redefining the Congress organization and bringing it closer to the Congress idea. The Congress idea is a revolutionary idea. To give you a sense, we fought the British. We fought them non-violently and we defeated them. We didn't kill them. We didn't threaten them. Affectionately, we defeated a superpower. That's the Congress idea. And that's very strong in the Indian heart and in the Indian mind. That idea is under attack right now by the RSS idea. Violent, male chauvinistic idea. So, how do we strengthen the Congress? By making it defend the Congress idea all across the country. By making sure that wherever the Congress idea is being attacked, the Congress organization is doing the defense of that idea. And when we do that, we naturally find the Congress organization grows. Opening the doors of the Congress. Congress has been in power for a long time. It has a traditional hierarchy and it's very important that those doors open and younger people come in. We've been very successful in some states. Not so successful in other states. But that's how one builds the Congress organization. There are millions and millions of people who believe strongly in the Congress idea, not necessarily in the Congress organization. And that's the gap that we have to bridge. We have to open the doors of the Congress organization to bring all those people in. Which of course also a second strategy is your big alliance is called Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance. It's not a name that comes easily to but there's an acronym. It's a good acronym. It's a very good acronym. I mean it's supposed to be complicated so you use the acronym. Good point. We're quite clever. But of course the Prime Minister went ahead and changed the name of the country. You can see. I don't think there's been any other political formation who by choosing their name has made the incumbent change the name of the country. I think that's a world record. And the funny thing is the next part of this story because if and when he does change the name we will also change the name. And then he will have to change the name again. So there's no reason we can't fit those ideas into the acronym Bharat. But it tells you a little bit about the panic in the mind of the BJP and the RSS. You said you know they're so strong and they're so powerful and they're so big I deal with them, I fight with them. They're actually not that powerful. They're not actually that strong. They have a lot of resources. They have capture of the Indian state. But the moment the large mass of Indian people start to stitch together you will not find the BJP and the RSS will be able to contest that. So let's move on to this question of the there is the alliance and it's very many partners. I can't remember exactly the figure, the number of political parties in it. Some of them are quite large and it's also growing. It's also growing, right. But you run into all sorts of problems, don't you? Because it's a lot of these partners are also rivals such as West Bengal, you have what? You have Congress, you have Trinamul, you have CPIM, you have CPI. They're all sort of fighting one another and then you're asking them to or the activists to change their minds and start collaborating with people they previously fought against. So this must be a bit of a challenge, isn't it to keep this alliance going and to make it into an alternative? If you ask the Indian students here they'll tell you that Indian people know how to deal with complexity. You guys have first course, second course dessert. We have a thali with 20 different things on it. And then we don't stop there. Then what do we do? We take all those kattoris and we make one big mess in the middle and then we eat, right? So we understand complexity and the thing to do when you're dealing with large complexity is to make one or two simple rules that can manage that complexity. So what are the rules? First rule is that every single person on that alliance regardless of which party is agreed that we are not going to tolerate the murder of Indian democracy. We're not going to accept it. Second every single person over there is of the view is of the view that we are not going to let SS capture our institutional framework. So that's the first point of agreement. Second point of agreement is everybody there agrees that the level of inequality that is being generated in India is not acceptable. Two or three business houses control the entire infrastructure the agencies are used to help them knock out other business people that 200 plus million people have gone into poverty over the last nine years this is not acceptable to any of our partners that we face continuous price rise not acceptable. So those are the two broad frameworks the third I could add would be all of them agree that government needs to spend much more money on healthcare and education and needs to be involved in that. That's the agreement now where is the disagreement the disagreement is in a number of states right where as you said we are competitors so there are some states where that is a simple equation state like Kerala we fight the left we ensure that BJP doesn't win a single seat there and we have a full scale fight with the left. We don't agree with them ideologically let's see who wins but whoever wins the BJP is not there that's pretty simple there are other states where it's slightly more complicated Bengal is slightly more complicated UP is slightly more complicated and there it's a negotiation it's pretty clear in Bengal that it would be beneficial for everybody to stand together against the BJP can we achieve that probably what would it look like I can't tell you right now so you see how in India we take the massive amount of complexity like all those kathoris we put them together and then we can eat okay okay so we've been instructed to move on to the Q&A part of this because there isn't a whole lot of time but I have one last question for you first and that is now you know imagine that there is a change of government next year you're in power you're likely Prime Minister Karanad that's not entirely so but there is a change of government India Alliance wins and there's a new government so what so the question is what will you do so one year let down the line two years down the line five years down the line what will be your priorities what is it that BJP has done that you will keep what will you try to reform what are sort of your list of priorities here and what is your vision for India okay on the leadership front on the election what we've agreed in the alliance is that we're not going to talk about leadership until we've won the election right after we've won the election we can have that discussion but having that discussion before we win the election only helps the BJP and creates confusion so that's that's something that has also been taken you know cleared what will we do what will the alliance do when we come to power number one we will reclaim the democratic tradition in India and we will go back to institutions that are neutral we will go back to institutions that do not belong to a particular party or a particular ideology but we'll go back to institutions that belong to the people of India how do you do that we do that by making sure that they are not pressurized that people who run these institutions are not threatened that they are not attacked and that they are allowed to do their job right the institutions belong to the people of India and institutions are there to be neutral they're not they don't belong to a political party so the moment we stop trying to shape the behavior of the institutions like the RSS and BJP do they'll go back to work right so that's that's one piece of it the second part which is a challenge in some ways for Europe and the United States as well as India is the fact that if we look at the planet today we look at this this microphone we look at my phone we look at this computer we see that they are mostly made in China and clearly without any doubt the Chinese have proven to the entire planet that they can produce successfully they can manufacture better than anybody else but they do they do so in a non-democratic environment they have proven to everybody they have essentially dismantled the production networks of the United States the production networks of Europe and also to a great extent the production networks of India by successfully doing this for us to not manufacture to not produce a country of 1.4 billion people is not an option we will have such massive levels of unemployment and anger that as a nation we will not be sustainable so China has placed a vision on the table it is called the Belt and Road the heart of that vision is production dominance of global production we are asking the question can we place an alternative vision on the table a vision where India, the United States, Europe work together to produce not in a coercive environment not in an environment where you do not give political freedom to your people but in an environment where you give political freedom economic freedom, social freedom to your people so this to me is the central challenge facing India, Europe the United States I think it will impact all the students in this room if we are unsuccessful I think the students in this room will find that their future will not be as bright as it should be so that would be the center piece of the type of work that we would want to do now that has a number of components it requires infrastructure it requires a different type of education system it requires protection for our people so that would be the central piece and then you would have structures that would support that the final thing that I personally think is very important is that there are very very large groups large parts of India that are not included in the growth and the success of India when you look at India from outside as a western person you see tremendous success, tremendous growth but when you look at it from inside India you see that people from lower caste communities people from tribal communities people from minority communities are not part of that they are simply excluded from that growth and that is something that India will never ever be successful without solving so much greater inclusion inclusion not only in terms of economic growth in terms of wealth but in terms of social respect in terms of protection so that would be overall how we would think about it what would we keep that the BJP has done what would we not differ with them on probably some of the work that they have done in infrastructure I think that would be the mainstay of it we do not agree with what they have done to the education system they have tried to erase history so I cannot say that we agree with them on that some of the work they have done in healthcare probably we would agree with the broad direction of our economy the broad direction of our relationship with the United States relationship with Europe probably agree with similar including war in Ukraine stands we would agree with their stance on the war in Ukraine yes you do not want to come over to our side on the thing is it is not come over to your side or come over to their side we are completely against the violence and the pain that is being felt by the Ukrainian people and by the Russians who are dying in Ukraine and we think it should stop as fast as possible and we understand that in the 21st century having a war in the middle of Europe is a good idea, is dangerous for Europe is dangerous for us, is dangerous for everybody but as a large country we have relationships with multiple people we cannot ignore the fact that we have a relationship with the United States we have a relationship with Europe we have a relationship with Russia we have a relationship with Iran these are things that large countries by their very nature have to have and you can shape them but you are also limited by them good so moving on to questions and answers there are three questions that have been sent by my colleague you have answered some of them already I think I will just sort of quickly recap them for you so you can sort of decide if you want to elaborate one deals with public health that has been largely sidelined by Indian politics for a very long time and it is under funded second question is strategies sorry you have answered that should I just take the first question quickly okay yes quickly when you look at India one frame is you look at the whole of India and the other frame is you look at different states in the union so some of the most cutting edge work in healthcare is being done in Rajasthan and those are some of the principles that we are going to use for us Rajasthan is a pilot and if we do come to power we will use some of those principles and spread them across the country it's true that both healthcare and education have not received the type of funding they should get and we are pretty firm on the idea that the government needs to be aggressively involved in education and in healthcare and should spend much more money in both these areas very good excellent so last two questions so one is also from the audience I'll read it because it was sort of very interesting one and our eyes are enjoying religious freedom abroad but they don't want religious freedom in India what will you tell them what will we tell them that that no not allowing religious freedom in India fundamentally weakens India and if you think and if you think that India should be weakened we don't agree with you so for us it is very important that all people from India are allowed to follow their religion are allowed to express themselves minorities lower caste Dalits, tribals everybody is a part of India and everybody should be allowed to thrive to have an imagination and if you subvert anybody if you crush anybody's imagination you're damaging the country and we don't appreciate people who damage the country last question what two questions actually we don't have all that much time so I just spent a few days in the thing is you don't have the liberty to do this with the prime minister of India you can't you can't say 2, 3, 4 you can't even say 1 okay but I'll have an interesting question for you possibly because I just spent a few days in Sweden and part of a TV debate there the question was raised is India still a democracy and with three in the panel two said yes one said no so it's like I don't know what is your take on that is India still a democracy or is it turning into something else that's one question and you can mull on that while I ask my second question which is very short why Norway this is why why are you spending time with us this is a tiny little country it's smaller than the Bourbon district so I was you know there is Uttar Pradesh in India hundreds of millions of people and then there are states like Meghalaya in India not many people but both the voices are equally important to us so so the nature of it is that it doesn't matter how many people live in Norway and that you are a small population you might have some very innovative ideas you might have some very interesting things coming out of a small population so why should we forego that and second I think at least from my perspective there is a lot we can learn from you I really appreciate the way you manage your resources I would like to understand better how you've done such a tremendous job how you've built your sovereign fund you've done some excellent work in mobility I'd like to get a sense of what that is and I'd also like to get help you understand some of the difficulties that we are facing some of the interesting things that we are thinking about so conversations are always a good thing and you have good food here a lot of salmon is India still a democracy India's democracy is under severe assault and attack India is also defending its democracy it's a difficult job but it's doing so when that defense stops if it stops then I will say India is not a democracy anymore but there are still many many people who are contesting the attack on the democratic struggle so I cannot say the fight is over I think we are going to win the fight I view this as a transition both India and China have or are trying to manage the largest migration of people from rural areas to urban areas in history it's the biggest migration ever now so to think that this is going to happen without any turbulence without any pressure that's naive so a lot of these pressures turbulences, structural problems are coming because of this massive transition we are going through and it's expected what will come out at the end of it will we be able to give India a democratic plural vision will we be able to hold the structure together will we be able to thrive that's really the question we are very clear that India's diversity the different languages the different states different cultures will simply not absorb what the RSS is trying to place on top of it we do not think that India can survive a centralization of power the way the BJP is doing and that's why we are defending it and we also understand that India has an important role because of its size because of its scale internationally and it has certain responsibilities Indian democracy in my view is a global public good it doesn't just belong to India it is something that will affect the entire planet imagine if three Europe suddenly went autocratic that's the scale of India it's important that we defend it it's our responsibility we are doing it but it's important that the rest of the world knows what's going on back home we are running out of time actually we are past whatever our time limit was set so anyway thank you so much it was a pleasure Rahul Gandhi ladies and gentlemen Rahul Gandhi I like thank you can I say two words one of the things that I have to say here one is I love the format you've used I've never used this format before and I think it's a wonderful format standing and chatting like this and the second thing I've noticed which says a lot about Norway is that I've not met a Norwegian woman who doesn't shake hands firmly which tells me which tells me that they're doing very well and they're playing a very important role in society and they're emancipated so that's a very nice feeling thank you thank you