 Well, ladies and gentlemen, it's an enormous pleasure to welcome you all to LSE for this very special evening. I'm Shirley Peirce. I'm the chair of council and I know we have an extraordinarily distinguished audience both here in person, which is wonderful, but also internationally online. I hope you all find this evening extraordinarily interesting. I know that you will. LSE is very proud of its strong links and long-term strong links with India. We have a great history of learning from and welcoming students from India. Indeed, our first non-European president of the Students' Union was an Indian, Nandal Mazunda, in 1912. That goes back away. We have academics who work with India and are Indian and with whom we work very closely to strengthen teaching and research links. We have over 75 academics working on South Asia specialists across all of our departments. From this strong deep interest and concern to work closely with India, it is an enormous pleasure to welcome you, Mr Rahul Gandhi. Mr Gandhi is very well known to you all as president of the Congress party in India. We are enormously grateful to you for being part of this evening and for being part of an open conversation which is something we value greatly. Thank you. This event tonight is hosted by the LSE South Asia Centre and the National Indian Student and Alumni Union, NISAU. I am grateful to Malika Banerjee and Jusannam Arora for the work they have done to make this evening possible. The Asia Centre is a relatively new starting in 2015, but a very important centre in bringing together the expertise that we have across the university in South Asia. They have hosted a number of very important and high-profile events. At LSE, we have a very long and strong tradition of fostering open debate. We want to create environments where people can talk about difficult things in a sensible and mature and challenging but constructive fashion. And at a time when the world is facing uncertainty and change and complexity and technological advances and undermining of what might be truth or not truth, it is increasingly important that we have these opportunities to meet in person and talk about, in conversation, some of the difficult issues. So we are enormously pleased to have you here, Mr Gandhi, for an event of that nature tonight. I am going to hand over to Sanam Arora, who is chair of the National Indian Student and Alumni Union and part of organising tonight. She is also an LSE alumna, and when she was here, she was head of the LSE India Society. So we owe you a great deal, and please do come and say a few words. Thank you. Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, friends, good evening. My name is Sanam Arora, I am the chairperson, as Dame Pierce said, of the National Indian Students and Alumni Union UK. We are the national bodies set up six years ago now, almost six years ago, representing students, alumni and young professionals born and brought up in India or elsewhere in the world who are people of Indian origin in the UK. We are non-partisan and non-religious. It's a great honour to be addressing this August gathering and welcoming Mr Rahul Gandhi, President of the Indian National Congress to the LSE and to the UK today. Can I please have a round of applause? Today is a very special day for us at the NISU, because we are launching our annual India-focused town hall, the very first of its kind in the UK, called Perspective. We live in interesting times where access to information has become very, very easy, but in the same way, access to misinformation and falsifications has also become, if not equally, but perhaps even more readily available. We are very quick these days to form rather strong opinions and pass online judgments on Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn and all that stuff, but we have stopped listening. We have stopped listening to a range of opinions and reaching a balanced, well-informed decision. We have forgotten that democracy can only survive where there is healthy debate and discussion. Governments of the day, in my own opinion, are service providers. We, the citizens, elect them on promises they make to provide us with the best development front for our nation. Yet today we seem to have forgotten as citizens that our primary duty is to question and ask for answers and hold our elected officials to account. Instead, we're busy calling each other names whenever one tries to express an opinion. If I present a view that is ideologically right of centre, I'm a bhakt. If I press a view that is ideologically left of centre, I'm a libtard or an aftard or a prostitute or whatever those maligning terms are. The truth is that I'm just an Indian. We are just Indian who want to engage with everyone, reach a consensus and have a balanced view that's best for our nation. But our ability and desire to make informed decisions is being actively shut down and we have no one but ourselves to blame for it because we are the ones who are shutting it down. We have become intolerant to voices that don't sound like ours, to thoughts that don't mirror ours and clouding ourselves in our own bubble of thoughts is a vicious bubble that is removing us from the realities around us and it distances us from humanity. Sitting in the world's oldest democracy and talking about the world's largest democracy where we belong from, the least we can do is to hold a healthy discussion debate and dissent and meaningful conversation about it now. Perspective is designed to be an apolitical platform for young people in Britain to engage with India in the same way in a meaningful and constructive fashion. At our last perspective event we hosted 13 cross-party student politicians including ABVP, NSUI and many regional parties. On International Yoga Day we hosted Swami Ramdev and today a bit late but we were only able to get these days to celebrate India's independence day. We are here and delighted to have Mr Gandhi inaugurate our annual India perspective down hold. After all, debate is the highest form of patriotism as a dissent. Mr Gandhi, you'll be pleased to know that students have travelled the length and breadth of the UK to join us tonight including from Oxford, Cambridge, Warwick, Manchester, Nottingham, Sussex and all the London universities. We leave you now in the most appropriate hands of Dr Mukulika Banerjee. Dr Banerjee is the inaugural director of the South Asia Centre with the LSE and associate professor in social anthropology. She joined LSE in 2009 prior to which she taught at the UCL in Oxford where she also completed her PhD. Her books include the Patana Naamd on the Anti-Colonial Nonviolent Movement among Pashtuns. She has also authored the Sari, an edited volume, Muslim Portrait on Ordinary Muslim Lives in India. Her most recent book quite interestingly is Why India Votes which explores why India has such consistently high voter turnouts. She is currently completing another monograph called Cultivating Democracy to deepen our understanding of how ideas about popular participation and an ethics of civility and citizenship, which are key ideas associated with a democratic ethic, take root in India. She has a wide-angled interest in the cultural meanings of democracy in South Asia, especially India, and is the most appropriate person to speak to Mr Gandhi this evening. Finally, we're requesting all Indians and Indian students, everyone here really, to spare as little as £2 for our friends and family in Kerala. The National Indian Students and Alumni Union is fundraising. Our friends and family need us. So even if every single Indian student was to donate as little as £2, there'll be a lot of help back home. Have a good evening. Thank you. Good evening everybody. I have a difficult task because we have a departure time, but our start time is slightly delayed. So we're going to all be very quick and precise in our questions, but only Mr Gandhi is exempt and your answers can be as long as you want. I should also say a welcome to everybody in this room, but also to many, many people watching the live stream of this program in India and elsewhere. Of course, and it's very late in India, but I know people are watching, so welcome to everybody. Hym hindi mai nei bwlinge, lekin yng Nghreidzi me agar anwad hoswcte hynny. Yn cwyl pwytter pe safal hyn, to aab ziwrwt ki jeydda. So Mr Rahul Gandhi. Can I just say it towards? Yeah, sure of course. So I want to start by apologising. We got a little late, so sorry for that. It's an honour for me to come here. It's a pleasure for me to have a chat, have a conversation with you. And I agree with you that the conversation back home and on the rest of the planet is very acrimonious. And I've been saying that it's okay to challenge someone, it's okay to take someone on, it's okay to disagree with someone. But hating them is a choice that we make. And it's not necessary to hate people. And I think the main thing that as youngsters you must look at and you must work on is that you're going to meet many people in your life who disagree with you. And they disagree with you because they come from a different place that you come from, a different perspective that you come from. A different set of ideas surround them than surround you. And the starting point, a very good starting point is to try and look at the world from their perspective. Very often, and when I was your age, my starting point was how I viewed the world. And as far as I was concerned, I understood the world and everybody else didn't quite get it like we did. And then when you work, when you go into details you find that actually perspectives that you might not agree with are valuable. They exist because of certain circumstances the other person is undergoing. And there is always a conversation possible. And I think that's something that has to be done in the 21st century. We can't afford to have the type of wars that we had 50, 60, 70 years ago, 100 years ago, because we would basically destroy the planet. So there are certain trajectories that are building up. You can see in the foreign affairs space you can see the United States, you can see Western Europe, you can see a rising China. And you can see the foundations of a potential conflict. And it's playing out everywhere. If you look carefully, that conflict is already operating. And I think India, with our nonviolent ideas, with our complexity, with our ability to show compassion to people we don't agree with, which is embedded in our culture, in our history, I think we have a role to play. And I said today at one of my earlier lectures, somebody asked me, you know, is India on this side or on that side? And I said, no, India is much too big, much too intelligent, much too refined to be either on this side or on that side. India has a vision of its own for the world. And we are going to certainly work with others, but we also have a perspective which is important. So I'd like to end there, and I'm happy to listen to your comments and your questions. So thank you, Mr Gandhi. I think what we are going to do is I'll put out a few questions to start with to get us going, and then we'll open it up to Q&A. So the first thing I wanted to say, really not on my behalf, but on behalf of, I know many people here, your critics, there is a held view that you've had a very long probation in politics. You've taken your time and you have finally been elected president of the Indian National Congress. What do you bring to the job along with a family name? I think a couple of things. One is that I've been through a certain degree of violence. I've seen violence up close. I've had family members killed, and I understand how violence works and why violence is destructive. It's a small thing to say, but I think those experiences have made me a compassionate person, a person who understands that violence hurts people. So I have a tendency to reach out and listen, and I think that's, in my work, it's a very useful thing. It helps one build coalitions, it helps one listen, it helps one actually move things forward. That's one thing I certainly think. The other thing is that, frankly, 15 years in politics is a serious amount of experience. I've taken the share of shots to the chin, I've taken that, and I've understood how to deal with it. I've borne the brunt of massive attacks and I think I've learnt a lot from them. The final thing is I love my country, and I have, I love my country and I feel deeply for people in my country who are weak, who are bullied, who are beaten up. I feel deeply, for example, for people from the lower costs, tribal communities, farmers, women who are in a difficult situation. And I really want to help them. And I think that there is a genuineness that I feel. So let's take three areas, social justice, which have already begun to talk about secularism and economic policy. What is your vision for these? What are your policy recommendations? What is your vision for India on these three things? First of all, we like to divide these things as if they have come in nice buckets, you know, economics, sociology, politics. It doesn't work like that. I like to view it much more in terms of the processes that are taking place. And what I see is a transformation of 1.3 billion people, a transformation that started over 100 years ago, a modernising impulse in India, impulse to reach out to the world, impulse to leave the Indian village to break the shackles of caste. And so I view my job as working with that impulse and helping that impulse expand further and reach out further. I'm also the type of person who understands that my view, or what I think, is not what should drive the future of 1.3 billion people. My view is my view, and yes, I have certain opinions, but really what is interesting to me is what is the view of the Indian farmer. He understands agriculture much better than I do. Who am I to tell him that this is my vision for you? My job is to go to him and say, what do you need? How can we help you? What is your vision for agriculture? How would you like to help empower your country? How would you like to ensure that the food you're growing, the rice you're growing or the wheat you're growing reaches these young kids? And the surprising thing to me is, which is something that I find people underestimate, you can go to people and you might think, they're not educated, they don't have a good experience, they don't understand the world, you're wrong. I have met many, many policy experts on agriculture and I can tell you, your average farmer sitting in an Indian farm will take on that person and teach him about agriculture. So to me it's much more about reaching out to students, that's why I have a conversation with you. Sometimes you get into a situation where you ask us some difficult questions, okay, big deal, no problem. No, it happens, it happens, no problem, we'll deal with it. And I like to reach out to communities and ask them what you want to do. And how can we organise everybody? How can we make, how can we negotiate something between the farmers and the workers who work on their farms and the people who sell the product? What does that compromise look like? So that's how I think about it. If you were to ask me what is my vision, personal vision on economics, for example. I would say the central problem we are faced with and frankly the United States is faced with it, Western Europe is faced with it, we are unable to produce the number of jobs we need. We have released hundreds of millions of youngsters from our villages and they've come to the cities and they're saying to us, guys, we need jobs. And the Indian state is saying to them, sorry, we're not going to give you jobs, we actually can't give you jobs, so we're going to have a conversation about irrelevant stuff. We're going to have a conversation about, you know, how we can divide the nation or we're going to have a conversation about, you know, what this cricketer looks like or we're going to have a conversation about what this actress says. The thing to understand is youngsters, there's a crisis in India. There's a full blown crisis in India and it's called the job crisis and the Indian state and the Indian government is not accepting it. It is simply saying it doesn't exist. I'll give you a little bit of an idea. 50,000 jobs every 24 hours in China, 450 jobs in 24 hours in India. That's a catastrophe. So how are you going to develop these jobs? These jobs are going to come from a couple of places. They're going to come from small and medium businesses. They're going to come from revitalising, re-energising agriculture, connecting the farm to the table or to your dining rooms. They're going to come from infrastructure, construction of low-cost houses. That's where they're going to come from. But you have to organise people to say, okay, the first thing you've got to do is you've got to explain to people there's a problem. In the 60s and 70s, there was a problem in India. It was called food security and India said, okay, there is a problem. You've got to solve it. And then the attention of India moved to solving that problem and then it got solved. And I'm very confident that this job problem can be solved. But India has to first accept that there is a problem. On stuff like social justice, I think pushing democracy further, protecting our institutions, making sure that people's voice guides institutions, making sure that women can come into all our institutions. Those are the type of things that I would push forward. But again, I'm much more interested, frankly, in what the stakeholders of India are interested in. And I see myself, you use the word enabler, service provider. I view government as enablers. India has a tremendous amount of energy. Our job is to put that energy together and make it productive. Sorry, that was normal. No, that's fine. On agriculture, can I, I mean the UPA government commissioned and got the MS Swaminathan report in January 2007. Would you implement it? I mean, that was listening to the farmers. It's there on the table. It's available. The farmers want it. There are a couple things about the agricultural sector. One, pretty much anybody will tell you that your average Indian farmer simply doesn't make enough money. So there is a economic problem in the Indian farm. That problem requires two or three things. It requires support. So it requires, in the crudest terms, it requires MSP. It requires a minimum support price. It requires a sensitive touch when there's a flood or when it rains too little, or when there's a hail storm, the government reaches out and says, listen, we're going to protect you. It requires sometimes farm loan waiver. When you have drought after drought, your farmers in debt, you might need to help them out. So there is a support element that is very important. And then there is also a productivity element that is important. How do we change habits? How do we inject technology into the farm? And yes, a lot of these things are in the report. And I think it would be our endeavor to support the farmer as much as possible. See, at the end of it is a very simple thing. If you go to the Indian farmer today and say, listen, do you feel supported by the Indian government? The answer is no. Hindi mae niad chi baeth hwt. Aga niad saaf hwtiaf hwt, samajataeth. Sorry, do Hindi. Aga niad saaf hwtiaf hwtiaf hwt, samajataeth. If the intention is right, if the feeling is right, the person understands. So a lot of politics is about that. Do you actually believe that Indian agriculture is something that supports India, builds India, projects Indian power? Or do you believe that Indian agriculture is a drain? The current government believes that Indian agriculture can be replaced. When you speak to them, their conversation is, well, you know what, if we, if our farmer can't grow the wheat, we can buy the wheat from elsewhere. But that's not the only role of the Indian farmer. The Indian farmer is integrated in our society. He does much more than just grow wheat. He is a deep element of our society and it's our duty to help him and protect him. Thank you. You didn't talk about secularism, but I'm sure it'll come up in questions later. I can if you want. Let's do it. You're the boss. What would you like me to say about that? Well, your vision on that issue and it is... You know, again, there are two big transitions of massive scale taking place on this planet. There's the movement of Chinese people from their villages into their urban areas and the transformation of the Chinese system. And then there's the transformation of the Indian system. And it's been done in two completely different ways. So they've organized it. They've got a central control. They have the Communist Party. We have a less organized, more chaotic, more organic structure. But the important thing to understand from the Indian perspective is that whatever we've achieved so far has been achieved on the back of all of India's people. It hasn't been done by a few people. The whole of India has sacrificed to get us where we have arrived. And so to me, it goes without saying that if the whole of India has sacrificed to bring us where we are, the whole of India has to benefit from what we have become. And you cannot now say that, sorry, we are not going to give benefits from this great transformation to tribals. We are going to exclude minorities. We are going to exclude Dalits. We are going to exclude farmers. And oh, by the way, we'll also exclude women. You can't do that. So India is 1.3 billion different perspectives. Every Indian person has a particular view, and I respect every single one of them. So the term secularism encompasses only the religious aspect. I say that there shouldn't be a single Indian person, regardless of religion, caste, community, state, gender, anything. Anything. Who should not feel that my voice is not heard in this country, and who should not feel that, you know what, we've come so far. And everybody agrees. President Obama says that the real challenge to the United States is coming from India and China. So we have been successful. So I don't feel anybody in India should say, I am not getting a part of what I have built. Thank you. That gives us some clarity of your personal vision where you stand on these issues. Let's talk about the Congress party. So if you were to do a SWAT analysis, strength, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, to translate this vision on the ground, communicate it, deal with the opposition as it stands, which is a very well-oiled, hard-working machinery in India, how does the Congress, what is your assessment as president of your political party on these four? Would you say, are you talking in the short term, or are you talking on a grander, longer term perspective? Well, I know most of this audience is thinking of the next eight months in particular. Next election is going to be pretty straightforward. Next election is going to be a BJP on one side and the entire opposition on the other side. That is what the next election is going to be. And the reason for that is that almost everybody in the opposition and also members of the BJP alliance feel that the encroachment that is taking place on Indian institutions, the systematic attack that is taking place on Indian institutions. You saw for the Justice of the Supreme Court come out and say, we are not allowed to do our work. You saw recently a journalist who was sacked because he did a program about farmers in Chhattisgar. So there is a feeling in the opposition that for the first time a organization is challenging the very conception of India. And this has not happened in the last 70 years before. And so there is this mood that we need to defend the Indian institutions. We need to defend the idea of one man, one vote. We need to defend the sort of inclusive idea of India. And so you are going to have a clear cut election where pretty much everybody is going to be on this side and the RSS BJP is going to be on the other side. And once that math starts to come into play and you can look at the UP and Bihar alliances as a sort of central focus area, it becomes very difficult for the BJP to win an election. The Congress is an idea that is actually very old. It is not a new idea in India. Similar to the RSS, which is also a very old idea in India. And these ideas, if you read Indian philosophy, if you read our history, these ideas have been in combat for thousands of years. They are different visions on how to organize society. The RSS vision of how to organize a society is a top to bottom hierarchy where knowledge is centralized. And the Congress vision of organizing India is a decentralized structure where knowledge is available with everybody and you try to reduce the hierarchy. That's the basic fight. So the Congress has this idea embedded very deep inside it. When you talk to Congress workers, when you talk to Congress leaders and you scratch the surface, you find this idea. You find non-violence inside them. They struggle in the environment. They struggle to bring it out because the environment is aggressive and there's a lot of pushback. But that idea is deep inside Congress workers, Congress leaders. So that's a huge strength. Weakness is that the Congress is not able to express that idea effectively to people. So when people outside the Congress look at the Congress, they struggle to see that idea clearly. See when you look at the BJP or even I look at the BJP in the RSS, it's very clear what they're saying. There's no confusion. And that's because the RSS has spent a certain amount of time working on that idea. Gandhiji used to do that for us. The big leaders of the freedom struggle used to do that for us. And that's where the Congress party has not sort of kept pace. But the good news is that the idea is in the Congress. And the idea is in many, many, many, many Indians. And the idea manifests. So for example, when you see a strong person beating up a small person, a weak person, a woman on the street, something comes out inside you. You feel the sense of protection. You feel I want to do something about this. That's the Congress. That is the idea of the Congress. And you will feel it in you. So the weakness of the organization is that it is not able to reach out to you and say, actually, that idea that you're feeling. That's us. And the second thing is that the Congress has over time closed itself. And the Congress needs to start opening itself. It needs to start saying, OK, you guys need to come in. You guys need to help us run this system. You guys need to work with us. So the Congress needs to expand out. And the Congress needs to be precise about what it actually stands for. So that's strength weaknesses. And opportunities, opportunity to me is bringing in millions and millions of Indian youngsters who deeply buy the Congress idea and delivering them an organization that really can work with them, can empower them to transform India. Threat in the Congress, arrogance. How are you going to bring these millions of young? Are you going to have membership drives? Is eight months enough or is this a longer term? Is this something that has to be done patiently and quietly? You see, these are transitions. And there is a past that are senior leaders with experience, with understanding and that there are a lot of youngsters who are developing. You can't break the past because there is a lot of value in some of the senior people. So you have to, in a sense, the present has to be a merger of the future and the past. And that's really why the Congress ran into trouble in 2014 because we found that there was an internal fight taking place between the older generation and the younger generation. And a lot of the work that we've done now is to try and bring them together successfully. So you can see, for example, in Rajasthan, a Sachin pilot working with Mr Ashok Gelot. Or you can see in Madhya Pradesh or in Maharashtra. You can see this taking shape. But see, I don't view the Congress as purely an organization. To me, the Congress is, it's yours. Gandhiji used to use the word trusteeship. I like that word. This is your organization. And the tragedy is that you can't easily come into this organization. And I spend a lot of my time and I get a lot of beating for it, pain for it, in trying to bridge this gap. But realize that this is your instrument. It is the most powerful instrument. Today I went to the House of the Parliament. And in one of the speeches, the gentleman said, it hit me. I hadn't really thought of it like that. The gentleman said, you know, this is the room in the British Parliament from where India used to be run. I frankly was speechless. I had never conceptualized that. That my country could be run from a room in another country. How can that be? But that's the reality. And the organization and the idea that fought the superpower and beat them. And allowed me today to go to that room and say, actually, it's quite interesting that there are 10, 12 Indian MPs who are helping run Britain from the very same room. With no disrespect, this is a magical thing. And by the way, I didn't say, you know, there was no acrimony. I fully accepted that there is a relationship between the British and us. I fully accepted that I'm speaking to youngsters here today who are studying in the LSE. And I'm speaking to them in English. This is not our language. This is the language of the British. So when you draw boundaries and you say this is us and that's them, it doesn't work. It's convenient when you want to beat up somebody or when you want something. But it doesn't work. And that's how I want you to think. I want you to realize that this institution took on a superpower and defeated it. And this is your institution and my job is frankly to hand this thing to you, to open the space for you so that you can use this instrument to transform our great country. On a completely different note, can I ask you what you had for dinner at Subway last night? That was million. People are very worried that you had a Subway sandwich. No, no, no. I didn't actually. I had a nightmare flight last night. I mean, you have no idea what happened, but we went through. I think the flight, we had these talks. And then the flight was, what, 10.30 million? It was 10.30. They told us 10.45. 11. 11.30. 12. 12.30. 1. 132. 233. I just went on and on and on. We arrived at the hotel room at, what, five o'clock this morning and then we were off again at nine o'clock. So we had a bad time and we didn't eat much last night. Good. That lays to rest a lot of concerns that have been expressed out of here. Can I ask you a very serious question now about 1984? We've heard Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's statement. We know this. Can I take this opportunity, Rahul Gandhi, to ask you how you feel about the riots, the anti-sig riots? I think when Mr Manmohan Singh spoke, he spoke for all of us. And as I said earlier, I'm a victim of violence and I understand what it feels like. So I am against any sort of violence against anybody. Even anybody on this planet, I am against violence. Even I get disturbed when I see anybody being hurt. So I condemn that 100% and I am 100% for punishment of people who are involved in any violence against anybody. And that's crystal clear. I saw people who haven't had violence done to them think that violence is what you see in movies. That's not what it is. I've seen people who I loved very much being killed. I've also seen the person who killed my father being killed. And I can say that when I saw Mr Prabhakaran lying on the beaches in Jaffna, and when I saw him being humiliated the way he was being humiliated, because that's what was happening, I felt sorry for him because I saw my father in his place. And I felt sorry for him because I saw his children in my place. So when you've been hit by violence and when you understand it, it has a completely different impact on you. Most people don't actually understand violence. Your average person doesn't understand violence, it's a horrible thing. It's an absolutely horrible thing and I don't wish it on anybody. I think the critical thing that people will want to know is that your personal vision, which is very important and you've been very good at explaining it, then becomes part of how Congress manages it on the streets, in riots, where it stands on the communal question, where it has been complicit in the past. It doesn't have a spotless record and that's what basically, if I'm reading you correct, you're saying under your trusteeship, your stewardship of the Congress, you cannot be president of a political party that will be party to that kind of violence? I mean, no question, absolutely not. There's no question at all because the essence of my party, the essence of our ideology is non-violent. Final question for me, 2019, because I know again it's on everyone's minds. Have you thought through a criteria of how a candidate for the Prime Minister's job will be chosen in this coalition that you described earlier if the Congress doesn't win a majority and if it does. Are there criteria? Have you given it some thought? What we're defending is the onslaught on the Indian constitution. What we see is an onslaught on the Indian constitution and Indian institutions. And me and the entire opposition sees it as defending the nature of the Indian state. So we have agreed that our first priority is to defeat the BJP and stop this encroachment on the institutional space of India. Stop the poison that is being spread. Stop the division that is taking place. Once the election is over, all those conversations can be had. But we are not going to have those conversations until we have done the first stage, to remove the BJP from power. That is the nature of the conversation. And you are going to agree to a common minimum program? We are actually constructing a manifesto within the Congress at the state level and at the national level where we are looking into a lot of the ideas we discussed. Meeting many people, talking to stakeholders, farmers, others. We are also talking to the allies on what that framework would look like. Potentially we would have a structure that we go to the Indian people with. A common minimum structure. The other thing is that there are some parties that are not now aligned with the BJP. They were earlier aligned with the BJP and they are not now aligned with the BJP. That is another thing I want to make clear. I see this as an ideological battle. We are not going to make alliances with anybody who is ideologically not on our platform. We will work with people who are ideologically on our platform, but we will not work with somebody who is not ideologically on our platform. Thank you very much for that. I will take questions from the floor. It will be only students who can ask questions. Stewards will come to you with a microphone. Please introduce yourself and your university. Please keep your questions brief. Let's conduct this in a civilized fashion. Let's start with the lady at the back. In glasses, third row from the back. Thank you. My name is Lavina Joshi and I study at University of Warwick. My question is why agricultural sector, why so much of focus on agricultural sector when India has so many skilled resources to focus upon? Why not bring technology? Why not bring industries at this moment? Great. Thank you very much. Let me quickly answer. You are not saying that you are going to exclude industry or exclude technology. You are saying that one has to take into consideration the entire Indian structure and move the system forward. So it's not an either or. You can do all three things. That's the first point. Second point is when you actually look at it in depth, you can't make these type of segregation. Agriculture is deeply linked to many other things in the country. Weak agriculture has an impact on things way beyond the farm. It has an impact on the price of the food you eat. It has an impact on the diseases you get. So the vision that we can separate these things and say this is technology, this is industry, this is agriculture, that's not precise. Second thing is, a small example, the fastest growth in India and some economists came to me shocked. The fastest growth in India came in the rural areas. In the UP period when you are growing in 9%, the growth was in the rural areas. The growth was in the rural areas because one rega, which is the guaranteed employment scheme, and the farmer loan waiver fired off the economy in the rural areas. When the economy in the rural areas fired off, whole sets of people started selling stuff to them and started to make money. So it fired off the entire economy. So you have to view it in a connected way. It's like me telling you, why do you do liberal arts? What's the point of studying philosophy? What's the point of studying biology? The whole thing comes together. When you add all the things together, the value is much more. That's why we focus on all areas. We focus especially on agriculture because it is struggling and it's weak. Thank you Mr Gandhi. My name is Tom Wilkinson. I'm a PhD student here at the LSE. I wanted to ask you. Do you mind standing up? Can I have a walk around a bit? Sure, of course. Hello there. Do we have a hand mic? A spare microphone? My question is, as somebody who is from a great political family and now finds himself in the position that you find yourself leading the Indian National Congress, how do you understand dynastic politics in India? How do you make sense of dynastic politics in India? And could you answer specifically with regards to your vice, the top? And my second question is... No, you're not allowed a second question. Okay, no second question. Okay, that's fine. Thank you. Thank you. I think the important thing is that I operate in a democracy and I work with people. I get attacked by the opposition, I take the punches, I learn, I react. And I think if you listen to me, you will get a sense that I have thought about some of these things in detail and that I have learnt quite a lot from my experience over the last 15 years about the type of things that need to be done in our country. So I think the most important thing is what you actually bring to the table, how you listen, how you think about things and that's a judgement that you have to make after listening to me. There's a question here. Good evening, Rohuji. My name is Mohdman Sethi and I do politics and economics at the LSE. Across India we see... Do you study politics or do you do politics? Well, I do a bit of politics as well, let's just say that. Across India we see growing intolerance. We see actresses getting threatened to have their nose chopped off. We see 4 million people from the minority becoming stateless overnight. My question to you is, do you think all those years ago Mr Mohdman Dali Juna was correct to stress a nation for the minority to get away from the turning of the majority? I don't think so. I think in fact India has proved exactly the opposite. If you look at our history over the last 70 years we've had more Muslim people than Pakistan and frankly we've had a more democratic country, a more open country, a country that listens and embraces its people more effectively. So I don't agree with that. I also say that I can understand why Pakistan is struggling and I can understand some of the issues that they're dealing with. But the negotiation that India has been able to carry out between its people has been much more effective than the one Pakistan has been able to do. So that's something we're very proud of. However, over the last four years a attack is taking place on Indian institutions. But there is a massive fight back against that attack. And I'm telling you in this room that the idea of India, the original idea of India is going to win 100% without a doubt. Mr Gandhi? Ah, okay, I'm sorry. I sit down again. Sorry, I know it's sort of... But you can't stretch your legs with that. No, no, I didn't realise that, I'm sorry. You can walk when they're asking the question and sit down. Okay, I can walk while they're asking the question. Hi, I'm Dhruva Mathur from the LSE. My question to you is that in a lot of democracies independent regulators such as the Election Commission, the Central Bank Governor, they're all appointed by the Parliament. In fact, LK Advaniji in 2012 has suggested a similar system for India for the Chief Election Commissioner. What is your party's stand on this? And would you consider having it as part of your 2019 agenda? Thank you. Sorry. See, what is happening? Have you noticed the level of debate in the Indian Parliament? Are you proud of it? You can answer, don't feel shy. How many of you in this room are proud of the debate in the Indian Parliament? You see? Now, why is the debate in the Indian Parliament of such low quality? Why do you think you have hundreds of experienced politicians, very capable people and then you look at the Parliament and the level of debate, the level of conversation isn't what you expect. There's a lot of shouting and then notice another thing. If you look to the same Parliament in the 50s and you read the quality of the debate in the 50s and the 60s, you look and you say, my God, what's going on? What has happened? So why this puzzle? What do you think? Anybody? No, no, no. The real reason is that today members of Parliament do not have power. They do not have power to make laws. Today laws are made by the Prime Minister's office, by the ministers and by a set of bureaucrats. No, it means that we need to make our members of Parliament actually powerful. We need to actually turn around and say the fact that you're sitting in this house means that you will have lawmaking power. The moment you give them lawmaking power, you will see the quality of the debate will climb immediately. I'll give you an interesting anecdote. One day I was talking to one of the members of Parliament from Rajasthan and he said, you know, I made a huge mistake. So he said, why? What happened? He said, you know, many years ago in the late 60s, I was a district magistrate. I was a bureaucrat and every day a member of Parliament or an MLA would come to my room and when they'd come I'd stand up because the member of Parliament had power. So he said, I thought, you know what, I thought I'll resign my job as a bureaucrat and I'll become a member of Parliament. So he resigned his job as a bureaucrat, became a member of Parliament. And he says to my horror, when I became a member of Parliament and I went to the bureaucrat to the DM's office, the guy refused to get up now. So if I take this room and I say to you that what you say is going to be translated into policy, for example, you will have a solid debate on it. If I say to you, listen, have whatever debate you want, you're not going to be the people who are going to translate it into policy. The bureaucrats sitting in that room and the Prime Minister's office and the Chief Minister's offices are going to decide that you'll after some time say what's the point here. And that's actually what has happened to the Indian Parliament. The member, I spend a huge amount of time doing the job of a Pradhan. I am involved in building, helping conceptualize roads in my constituency. But the actual job of a member of Parliament is to make laws. And Indian members of Parliament today are not involved, actively involved in the process of law making. That's why you don't see a discussion. So coming back to your point, you can do what you said, but it means nothing unless you empower the MPs and the MLA sitting inside the Houses of Parliament and the Houses of Legislative Assembly. So that's really the challenge. Your team says, Milan says five minutes. We can take a couple more questions. So can I take two together please? And the lady here first and then the gentleman at the back. Can I just say that I have no idea, I can't tell you off-aces from here. If I pick LSE students over others, it's entirely coincidental. So please, I have no idea. Please go ahead. Good evening Mr Rahul. My name is Nusrat Lashkar and I'm a management student at LSE. My question to you today is, if you are given a chance to become the Prime Minister of India, what will be your plans in terms of empowering youth? Empowering women. Empowering the youth. The youth? Yeah. Okay, let's take another question at the back. Good evening Mr Gandhi. My name is Sairam Natarajan and in the spirit of full transparency, I'm not a student, but I am from Nisau. I'm from Nisau, sorry. Very quick question. What is your take on transparency in political funding? And if you believe that there should be something about that, what would you do if you come to power? I take it very simple and at the more transparency the better. Thank you. Do you oppose electoral bonds? I mean the way they're designed currently. They're completely opaque. Yeah. So electoral bonds today are basically designed to... ...and attack opposition. While we are at it... Sorry, do you want me to just... Yeah, the lady here. Empowering the youth? Empowering youngsters. The instrument to empower youngsters is the political system. And they're simply not enough talented, capable youngsters in the political system. And I think that's where a lot of work needs to be done. And that's where I spend a lot of my energy working. And if you're interested in working in that area, we would happily, happily recruit you and get you to do some work. Thank you. I think, Millyn, we are going to have a lot of very, very disappointed students. So please maybe have another five minutes. Yeah. Can we do that, please? Okay, so let me see. Let's take just next to you on the left. Hi, my name is Rohan Sankla. I'm a student at LSE as well. There's definitely a bias going on here. I don't recognize these guys. I must say, I can still ask my question. Can I finish my question though? That's fair. Let's not stop Rohan mid-sentence. Yeah, go ahead. Quick to go. Yeah, my question is related to the first question Dr Banerjee asked, which is to do with your own personal experiences. And it also connects to you saying that you want to be an interpreter and an enabler. I want to ask, in your journey when you've been listening and translating the visions of common Indian citizens, farmers as you've said so many times, have you ever been wrong in your judgment? We are often wrong. I mean, you learn. You don't learn by being right. You learn by being wrong. Because if you're right, you just keep doing it. So I think absolutely I've been wrong many, many times. Example, I mean, in what area? Just in policy or? I'll give you an example. I thought, I used to think that simply improving the economic position of a person, simply transforming India economically, will result in a reduction of caste thinking. I don't hold that view anymore. It won't. And I can give you multiple examples. See, whenever you look at something in depth and you actually study it, you will find that your viewpoint has certain, you're making certain mistakes. And so it's a process of saying, okay, does that work? Yes, it does. No, it doesn't. Okay, then what works? So it's a constant process that you're doing. And if you are taking away, or if I take away the fact that I can never be wrong, then basically what I'm saying is that I'm not human, because it is human to be wrong. So absolutely we do that all the time. I'm sure. Do you do that? Okay, let's take two final questions. I'll tell you another thing. Sorry. I'll tell you another very strong example that they taught me about violence. One gentleman came to see me and he sat down in my room when we started to talk and then after some time he said to me, you know, Mr Gandhi, I can't believe I'm sitting here. So I said why? He said because he was an MLA from Punjab. He said because 25 years ago I would have killed you. But today I'm sitting here talking to you. He was in Punjab, he was involved in militancy. And I realized that day that the power of a conversation, most times you hate somebody and most times somebody hates you, they're misunderstanding you. And if you go deep enough, you'll find that. There is, people are genuinely nice. That's what I believe. I don't believe people are evil. And so the extent of it sometimes surprises me. How much power a conversation actually has in turning a perspective. Okay, final question I think. Okay, brilliant. Thank you, Mr Gandhi. Over here. Hi, my name is Ranjith Rathor and I'm the president at Brunel Students Union. So I became the first international student to ever become the president of Brunel Students Union. Thank you. You're not a politician then? A couple of months ago I was the youngest Indian to win the Bharat Gaurava Award. That is my introduction. And my question is, since you talked about Rajasthan a lot, I come from Rajasthan and my question is, in a couple of months' time there is election in Rajasthan. So what is Congress Party's strategy vision moving forward for Rajasthan? Thank you. You'll have to ask that to Sachin and Mr Ashok Eilor for the details. But there are some interesting ideas that we had done carried out in Rajasthan on healthcare when we were in government on providing free medicines and constructing a healthcare system that effectively reaches poor people. So that's something that we are looking at in a comprehensive way. And I think that's something that is interesting for the whole country. And I think India healthcare is something that can be the next revolution in India. We're also looking at small and medium industries in Rajasthan and how we can empower them and start to create jobs. There is now that corridor that is being constructed. So we are thinking along, supporting small and medium industries, developing the healthcare system, making it slightly easier for the young, urban Rajasthani from a healthcare perspective, from an education perspective. There's a student that his arm is going to fall off. If I don't... Okay, thank you. Maybe this is why when you ask students the concerns are different. Maybe they want to ask about other things. No, I can answer that if you want. If you like, I can answer that. No problem? I answer everybody. I don't like it. I'm not scared. No, tomorrow you get a chance tomorrow. The single biggest instrument against corruption is the right to information. The right to information is like a arrow that goes right into the heart of the Indian bureaucratic machine, bureaucratic political machine. And that's something that we developed. And unfortunately, that's something that has been weakened and destroyed. It's interesting that it took three years for the Lokpal to be put in place. That's also an institution that we conceptualized and we put in place. The third really powerful thing you can do to fight corruption is decentralization. And the idea of Panchayati Raj, the idea of bringing governance closer to people, that's a very powerful thing. Finally, the real question for me, and I'd like to stand up while I'm talking about it, but I don't have the mic, but the real question to me that is in my mind is the question of Raphael. And that's a really interesting question because HL has been building aircraft for 70 years. HL has built the MiG, 21, 23, 27, 29, the Sukhoi, the Jaguar, the Hawk, whole set of planes. HL has no debt. HL has by far the best experience in building aircraft in the last 70 years. Our government signed a contract with the salt and gave the contract to HL. The price we were paying, approximately 520 crores of planes. Then something happened. Prime Minister Modi went to France, changed the contract from 126 planes to 36 planes, changed the pricing structure from 520 crores to 1600 crores, and magically Mr Anil Ambani was given the contract. Mr Anil Ambani is 45,000 crores in debt. Mr Anil Ambani has never made a plane in his life, and the company that got the contract, the biggest defence contract, one of the biggest defence contracts in the world, was formed one week before the contract was signed. Now to me this is absolutely amazing. The absolutely amazing thing about this is that the media in India just won't pick it up. They will not pick it up. So that's an interesting question about corruption. Okay. I think we're running into this. Okay, we'll take the students. You're not an LSE student, are you? Oh good. Then I'll let you ask... He is only... You're a student? I'm a student. Where are you a student? King's. Okay. Good evening Mr Gandhi. I'm Shauria Wigg. In London or in Cambridge? London. So I'm the vice president at King's College London Students' Union and I'm also the first Indian international to be in this position. So my question to you was, we know that Congress doesn't agree to a lot of policies and initiatives of BJP, but are there any initiatives, policies or ideologies to which the Congress agrees to that belong to the BJP? I sent a message to the Prime Minister saying that the day he wants to sign the women's reservation bill into law, every single Congress member of parliament will support it without conditions. I also told the Prime Minister when the discussion about GST was on that we are happy to cooperate with you on developing a GST that works. And the response we got frankly was we know