 What a day ? What a day, my friends ? Dear Member of Parliament, Diraul Gandhi, Madame la ministre, Cher Brune Poirçon, Monsieur le ministre, Cher Hubert Védrine, Monsieur le ministre, Cher Brise-la-Londe, Your Excellencies, Dear Ambassadors, Dear Dean of PSIA, Cher Arancha, Dear Professeur Christophe Jafrello, Dear Guests, Dear Professors, Dear Students, Mr Gandhi, This is a special day for us. This is a special day in your university. Welcome to Sciences Po and thank you so much for your presence in Paris on our campus. You are just arriving from Brussels. I think that tomorrow you will be in Rotterdam and we are very, very happy to have you with us today at Sciences Po. It's a great honor for me to welcome you to our university for this unique opportunity for a dialogue with all students and faculty. Il n'y a pas besoin de dire qu'un leader indien important, et je dois dire que vous êtes un leader mondial, et que rôle vous avez joué pour presque 20 ans dans l'arène public. Vous êtes maintenant un membre du parlement indien de Kerala et vous êtes used à servir comme président de la Parti fédérale aujourd'hui, la partie principale de la Parti en Power. Vous êtes l'un des voices les plus importants dans l'arène public et vous avez émergé comme un voie fort sur la scope internationale. Et, je dois dire, je dois admettre que je suis aussi très impressionné par votre followers de 25 millions sur X formerly Twitter. Merci d'être venu à Sciences Po à ce moment très spécifique. Nous sommes très heureux de tout ce que vous avez passé dans l'année dernière. Vous êtes aussi visite dans l'air des summits G20 hostés dans la DELI alors que les Brics ont juste étendu leur réseau à six nouveaux pays. Le rôle important de l'Indien s'étend tous les jours et nous sommes heureux d'offrir à tous les étudiants une unique opportunité pour vous écouter et d'exchanger avec vous, avec professeur Jafrello et Dean Gonzales. Mes amis, encore une fois, Mr. Gandhi, merci d'avoir choisi Sciences Po pendant votre visite à France. Nous nous regardons tous pour ces 90 minutes avec vous. Merci beaucoup, Tani Yavad. Merci. Ok, merci. Merci beaucoup, Mathias. C'était un très bon moyen de commencer ce que nous espérions être un grand dialogue. Donc, nous avons suivi votre barrette yodo-yatra à l'Indien. Nous avons vu les kilomètres que vous avez fait sur 137 jours. Nous sommes vraiment heureux que vous étiez en tour pour venir à Paris. Et la première question que j'ai pour vous c'est... Nous regardons l'Indien et nous voyons un pays qui, l'économie, est en train de s'éloigner. Un pays qui crée une technologie innovante mais aussi un pays avec des millions de gens qui sont encore en extrémité. Donc, qu'est-ce qu'il faut faire pour faire sure que tous ces citoyens ne sont pas là-bas. Ils aiment aussi les bénéfices de ces progrès globales. C'est une question très compliquée. Merci d'avoir moi ici. C'est un honneur d'être ici. J'aimerais être là, franchement, mais je n'ai pas la chance d'y aller. Merci pour votre temps. L'Indien dans notre constitution est décédé comme l'Indien, c'est l'Indien-Bharat, une union des États. Donc, ces États ont été formés ensemble et ont formé l'Indien ou l'Bharat. Et la chose importante est que l'ennemi de tous les gens qui sont inclus dans ces États sont écoutés et écoutés. Et il n'y a pas d'ennemi qui ont été frappés et intimidés. Parce que je crois que l'Indien a une visite inhérentale, que l'Indien a une très longue histoire, une longue tradition. Et mon expérience a été que, à part les gens qui sont pauvres ou riches, ils ont un sens de ce que l'Indien devrait faire et d'où il devrait aller. Donc, pour moi, la première étape est de protéger cette voix et d'assurer que les institutions, les structures qui protègent cette voix sont en train de travailler et de défendre. C'est là où tout le monde commence. Et je dis ça parce que quand on dit, quand on utilise des mots comme la démocratie, ce qu'on parle en fait est la voix des gens. Et en écoutant effectivement cette voix, en permettant que l'expression de la voix soit centrale à tout le succès, et nous avons expérimé tout ce que nous avons acheté. En tant que notre économie, notre capacité d'acheter nos différences, le bédroc de cette idée est de protéger la voix des gens. Et notre leader, Mahatma Gandhi, a dit le meilleur quand il a dit que la voix la plus importante est la dernière en ligne. C'est la voix la plus difficile à protéger et que la nation qui fait ça va réussir. Wow. Je suis assez impressionnée par cette réponse et le lien que vous faites à la démocratie. Il y a à un moment un grand gathering international en Indie. C'est le G20. Donc, à quel point est-il l'Indie dans les relations internationales ? À la fin du jour, c'est aussi un endroit où nous étudions les affairs internationales. Donc, à quel point est-il l'Indie ? Il y avait un leader en Indie qui s'est dit qu'on s'est demandé à quel point est-il vous ? Est-ce que vous êtes à gauche ou à la droite ? Et elle a dit, non, on s'est étudiés en milieu. Donc, quand vous êtes en train de faire un pays au niveau de l'Indie, nous devons avoir des relations avec plusieurs pays différents. Et je pense que c'est une simplification de dire, qui est-ce que vous êtes à gauche ? La réponse de l'indépendance est que nous sommes à notre propre côté. Et, comme une nation, nous actons dans notre intérêt. Et nous faisons ce que nous souhaitons avec respect à notre intérêt. Je ne pense pas que c'est si noir et noir, que vous êtes à côté de cette personne ou que vous êtes à côté de cette personne. Pour un pays large comme ours, c'est très difficile de s'entraîner avec une réponse à cela. Mais, on a un très fort vis-à-vis que la voix et la démocratie sont importantes. Je suis sûr que beaucoup de mes amis de l'Indie vont comprendre cela. Cette notion de clairement noir et noir, ce n'est pas une notion indienne. Les gens indiens, leur base d'architecture est décédée de plus en plus de complexité et de plus en plus de nuance. Je n'ai pas nécessairement que vous êtes à côté de cette personne ou que vous êtes à côté de cette personne. Mais je peux voir clairement qu'il y a un problème. Et ce problème a besoin d'une solution. C'est un problème global. C'est plus que un problème global. C'est un problème pour l'Indie. C'est un problème pour l'Europe et pour les États-Unis. Et franchement, c'est un problème pour tous. Vous devez avoir un problème. Et le problème est qu'on a un planète aujourd'hui où la production bulk, la production bulk, la édition de valeur est faite en Chine. Je ne vais pas commenter si c'est une bonne ou une mauvaise chose. Les Chineuses ont réussi à nous confier et ont acheté ça. Il y a un problème avec, dans mon avis, un problème avec la façon dont ils le font. Ils produisent. Ils produisent très bien. Ils produisent le téléphone dans mon pocket. Ils produisent la caméra. Mais ils le font dans les conditions et le problème est que pour nous, nous devons penser à la production dans un environnement démocratique et dans un environnement non coercif. Et nous devons être capables d'y être. C'est-à-dire qu'ils n'ont pas besoin de donner leur population de la liberté politique. Ils peuvent juste donner leur liberté économique et puis devenir le centre de production global. Nous devons produire et combattre avec eux. Et nous devons donner à nos gens de la liberté politique et de la liberté économique. C'est vraiment le problème. Je ne le vois pas comme une confrontation avec la Chine. La Chine est placée sur le table une façon de travailler. Une façon de production. Et je pense que c'est important pour les États-Unis, pour l'Indien, pour l'Europe de placer un autre système et une autre méthode sur le table. Et je pense que nous devons certainement aller à notre population et je pense que la France et les Européens vont aller à leur population. Parce que nous ne devons pas pouvoir nous ne devons pas pouvoir manager nos pays. Nous ne devons pas pouvoir donner à nos étudiants de travail en faisant ça. Pour moi, c'est une opportunité pour dire, peut-on produire des structures in-democratiques dans les frameworks in-democratiques? Hi, can you hear me? My name is Lydia Jaikumar. I want to ask about the violence against minorities in India. In particular because this is close to my heart violence, caste atrocities in India. Everyday we hear people from the Dalit community killed or violence against them because they went to a wedding, because they went to the school, things that are our rights, just because we're accessing it, there's violence against people in the Dalit community. What do you think needs to be done because it's societal but it's also institutional and it seems like there is no answer to it and there is no help from it. I think it needs to be combatted. I think it requires a political imagination and I think it is very important that it is done. What the BJP and the RSS are trying to do, the heart of what they're trying to do is trying to stop the expression, the participation of lower castes, other backward castes, tribals and minority communities and for me, in India, where a Dalit person or a Muslim person tries to stop a tribal person, apocas person, anybody is being mistreated, is being attacked, is not the India I want. So I think it's very important that this question is taken head on, but I don't think that the type of political imagination that is required is currently there. It ebbs and flows. You have these movements, you have this expression and then they ebber away and I think we're at one of those points where they've ebbed away and we need to reconstruct the political imagination that will solve the problem you're talking about. For me, this is the central problem in India. This is bigger than any other problem. Thank you. Gentleman over there. I guess I had a question related to a term you used earlier on in the speech, Bharat, and there is a lot of discussion going around social media right now with a potential renaming, rebranding, whatever you might call it. But what is, does this kind of change of a more popular name? We all know India has been named Bharat since its inception, but is there a point de value to be derived in changing this name in the international perspective, in the way we can print the discussions, to be on our own side as you speak? Well, the constitution actually uses both names. So the line in the constitution is the line I started with. India, that is, Bharat, is a union of states. So I don't really see a problem there. Both words are perfectly acceptable. But I think maybe we irritated the government a little bit because we named our coalition, India, so that got them all heated up. And now they've decided to change the name of the country. I mean, you know how these things are. I mean, we could always give our coalition a second name as well. So I don't think it'll solve the purpose. But people act in strange ways. What do you think about it? I personally believe it might not be the best thing to focus on right now, especially given that the country is at the lens, at the focus of this big summit that's taking place, where leaders are there to discuss so many different issues. Personally, I found that it could have been something that could be tabled for a later moment that was necessary and I don't know, focus about issues inside and other issues. You're right. But there is something deeper that is going on, which is that people who want to change the name of anything are basically trying to deny history. Right? The fact of the matter is whether we like it or we don't like it, we have a history. We were ruled by the British. We fought the British. We defeated the British. Right? I'm sure the English don't like it. But English is spoken by more Indians than English people. It's our language, more than theirs. Right? And we speak it in our own way. We twist it and we turn it. Maybe in ways they don't like. So the English that is spoken in India is actually a different expression. Right? That is spoken in England. Embedded in that English is a huge history. Lot of pain. Lot of happiness. Imagination, struggle, those things are embedded. And the people who want to change the name they raise that. They don't want that the history of our country is known to our future generation. It disturbs them. Right? I believe that we should accept our history. If we were ruled by the British for 100 to 100 years, okay. We dealt with it. And let's move on. Thank you. We're going to go up there. Hello. My name is Lydia Bilali. I am a student here at Sciences Po. And for the past three months I've been interning as a research intern at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies on a project that focuses on the weaponisation of anti-fake news laws in South and Southeast Asia. And I've been researching a lot of dozens and dozens of cases of journalists in India that have been targeted and silenced and punished by using the Indian Penal Code. So with this consideration, my question is double. So firstly, how can we continue justifying and saying that India is the largest and biggest democracy in the world? And two, what is the opposition doing to help these civil society members? Thank you. I mean, we are... We've talked across the country 4,000 kilometres to raise some of these issues. What you're saying is absolutely correct. There is a tendency now to intimidate, to threaten not just members of civil society. I have 24 cases on me. I've got a criminal defamation judgment against me. The first time in Indian history that somebody has been given the maximum sentence for criminal defamation. Very convenient that I needed the exact number of days that they gave me to be disqualified. So we're dealing with this issue. The democratic expression is deeply embedded in India. And the fight to keep the democratic structure of India alive is ongoing and very vibrant. We are part of that fight. Now, when that fight is over, if that fight is over and the other side wins, then I would agree with you. But that has not happened yet and I do not think it's going to happen. We are going through a process. We are going through turbulence in our democratic structure. And there are millions of people, I'm sure many youngsters in this room who really believe in that democratic structure and are going to defend it with everything that they've got. It's a fight and I think it's also an opportunity to rethink and to reimagine our country. There are many things that can do with improvement. And I think this is an opportunity, this is a test that many countries go through. And I think we'll come out just fine in this test. Hi there, yes. So I am a master in social policy here at Sciences Po. While I might not quite look it, I'm actually also part Indian. And over this past few years, it's been particularly scary to see many of my friends and family members back in India become radicalized by Hindu nationalist rhetoric. My question to you is, if your coalition gets elected, where exactly do you see yourself placing the role of Hinduism in a post-BJP India? And how concretely do you propose dismantling or perhaps even transforming the legacy of a religious zeitgeist which has captured the hearts and minds of so many Indians today? Look, I've read, I've read the Gita. I've read a number of the Upanishads. I've read many Hindu books. There's nothing Hindu about what the BJP does. There's absolutely nothing, nothing Hindu about it. I have not read anywhere, in no Hindu book, from no learned Hindu person, have I ever heard that you should terrorize, harm people who are weaker than you. I've never read this. So this idea, this word, Hindu nationalists, this is the wrong word, they are not Hindu nationalists. They are nothing to do with Hinduism. They are out to get power at any cost and they will do anything to get power and they will do anything to ensure that the Indian caste structure, the social structure of my country, is not threatened. They want dominance of a few people and that is what they are about. There is nothing Hindu about them. Thank you, very clear, gentlemen. Hi, thank you for being here. My name is Zed Wahidi, I'm a lawyer based in Paris. My question is about the opposition's narrative for the next election. I saw that Mr Sonia Gandhi wrote a letter identifying nine points to the Prime Minister. Is that the opposition's pitch? Because as a minority, of course, it's important for me to have the store of love and the market of hatred. But is there another issue or are there certain issues that you have identified that will perhaps build more consensus with even the majority community and get you where you want to be in 2024? You know, when you see the people on the stage in the India coalition, you must realise that more people from the majority community vote for us than vote for the BJP. 60% of India votes for us. 40% of India votes for them. So this idea that the majority community is voting for the BJP, this is the wrong idea. The majority community actually votes more for us than they vote for them. They do polarise society. They divide society. They spread hatred in society. And that is their mechanism. They also happen to have very good relationships with the most powerful richest crony capitalists in the land who finance them, support them, help them do what they do. And so this is the architecture that stands behind the BJP. The idea that Mr. Narendra Modi is orchestrating this thing is a gross simplification. Mr. Narendra Modi is an instrument of the architecture. And I'm pretty confident that the RSS can get rid of Narendra Modi in five minutes if they want to. It is a structure that is doing this. And that structure is now a threat to Indian democracy. So we are committed to fighting that structure. What are the broader elements? The first thing is the gross inequality that is taking place in India. Few business people who are billionaires, the third richest person on the planet was Indian and 90% of India going back into poverty. So that's the first thing. The second thing is we have to solve what I was talking about earlier. We keep talking about economic growth. You read the newspapers about economic growth, right? Have you ever read in the newspaper next to the economic growth question, the employment question? Has anybody in the newspaper said, wait a minute, we are growing at 7%, 8%, but we have the highest unemployment rate in 40 years? That's a much more interesting question to me because we can grow at 9% and give none of you jobs, right? That's what's happening. So that's the second big question. And the third question that is very close to my heart is the large mass, the real power of India is in the lower castes, the other backward castes, these communities and they are not given any space in the governance of India. They are not given any space in corporate India. They are not given any space anywhere. And that to me is a crime. So that, those would be the central thrusts of how we would think about it. The final thing I would say is that one way to look at India is that it is making a transition from rural to urban and the largest migration of people from rural to urban in human history ever is taking place in India and China, right? And if we are going to be making this transition, this is a frightening transition for a lot of people, so we need to give them the basic minimum architecture to make this transition safely. What does that mean? That we spend a serious amount of money on education. We spend a serious amount of money on healthcare. That government does not abrogate responsibility for healthcare and education. And that we provide a minimum floor where India commits to all its people that no matter what happens, you can simply not go below that floor. We will give you a minimum income below which, no matter what happens, you're not going to go. But, you know, when I talk to students, especially the Indian students here and the students who are not from India, the injustice that the caste system in India does, the pain and trauma that the caste system in India causes is beyond anything I know anywhere else in the world. And so I see my politics as challenging the idea that there should be this caste order in India, that there should be this permanent hierarchy in India and that some people, you know, should have access to all the institutions, all the structures and other people should just live a life of poverty and misery. So this would be the framework that the Indian coalition would be talking about and thinking about. Thank you, gentlemen over there. Thank you, ma'am. And by the way, when I said minimum floor, I didn't only mean financial floor. So I think the idea that 200 million people can feel uncomfortable in India today or Sikhs can feel uncomfortable in India today, I think that is a matter of shame for us. And I think that needs to be corrected. And there are minorities who feel that way. There are lower caste people who feel that way. There are women who feel that way. And so we are very strongly committed to this. Good evening, Mr. Gandhi. My name is Prati Bhatt and I'm a master's student from Social Policy and Social Innovation. As you already have answered partly my questions, I would try to keep it short. The place in Delhi which is being, where people are being mobilized in lieu of G20 is Badarpur. Where you plan to go. The slum. G20. Yeah, okay. Where they have been, the slum. Yeah, you plan to go there, so I'm just letting you know the name of the place. They'll be very annoyed with you by the way. It's okay. It's okay. In all honesty and humility, I wish to ask you if there is a defined secularism or a future of defined secularism in the country. If the party comes to power in the next elections, how do you specifically counter the heat and the chest thumping that has happened in the past few years regarding religion and education? And you can choose to answer whichever. You know the, literally, if the prime minister tomorrow morning was to decide there would be no chest thumping and no violence in India, it would stop. It is the direction that the leadership of the country gives. The imagination that the leadership of a country gives that shapes people. The feeling right now is that you can do whatever you want and nothing is going to happen to you. Right? The moment the feeling becomes that there are going to be consequences to attacking someone, consequences to beating up someone, that behavior will change instantly. I guarantee you, right? That doesn't resolve the earlier question about institutions, which is this sort of disease that has now entered the Indian institutional framework, where the neutrality of those institutions has gone out of the window. And I think there, frankly, we will have to make examples of people. We'll have to make sure that some of the people who have done what they have done pay a significant price for what they have done. So that anybody who is thinking about doing it again understands that they will also pay the price for attacking the soul of India. Because that is how I see it. This is an attack on the soul of India and the people doing this should pay a price for it. Thank you. And the last question goes to the gentleman. Hi. My name is Arman. Can you hear me? Yeah, okay. So my question, I mean, so I attended one of your speeches at the Bharat Jorayatra. And I remember when you mentioned crony capitalism, the crowd went wild. They were all like Adani. And so there's this feeling clearly on the ground that this this kind of top-down development is happening in India, economic development, where there is crony capitalism like you said. And my question is, if we are to decentralise power where the state is less involved in all affairs, economic affairs, etc., how would your coalition ensure that the concentration of wealth does not take place in a few corporations? By the way, just because you have decentralisation of power doesn't mean the state is less involved. The state is just involved at a different level, right? But the state is still involved. The centre is not involved. So for example, if you go to Kerala, I'll give you an example. I'm the member of parliament of Kerala. If I want to take any decision in my constituency, I have to speak to the local body people. I can't just as a member of parliament suddenly say, I now am deciding to do this. They'll come to me and say, how did you do that? You have to have a conversation with us. So it roots you very quickly because they can charge me a price. They can send me the bill, right? So decentralisation does not mean that the state is walking away. The state is just coming at a different level, right? So, what was the second part of your question? So how would you ensure that monopolies don't happen in India? Look, what you're having in India today with Mr Adhani is so blatant and it's completely so over the top, right? I don't think there's any other place where this is going on. The gentleman is in, you know, pretty much every single business, right? As people know, he's manipulating, he's sending money out of India. He's manipulating his stock price. He's using that money to buy Indian assets. It's a big circle, you know? And part of the reason the Prime Minister suddenly got so excited about this Bharat issue is because of the Adhani story. Everybody knows it, we know it, that there are very close linkages between the Prime Minister and Mr Adhani. The documentation is available, right? And he's not going to get away with it. Eventually, he's going to be held accountable for it. So it is so over the top that it's completely ridiculous. However, you can have policy structures that seriously affect how you distribute income. I'll give you an example. The GST, right, is a tax on small and medium businesses. Small and medium business has to hire an accountant, has to go through a whole process which costs him relatively much more than it costs Mr Adhani. Right, demonetisation isn't assault on small businesses. Demonetisation wasn't about black money. It was about breaking the back of small and medium businesses in India to pave the way for an Adhani. So how you define policy and how you think about policy, where you put money, fundamentally determines how you distribute it, right? So those things are not difficult to do. Manrega, do you think Manrega distributes wealth? Hugely, right to food distributes wealth. Supporting small and medium businesses distributes wealth. Developing skills distributes wealth. Destroying small and medium businesses concentrates wealth. GST applied the way it is concentrates wealth. What you did during COVID concentrates wealth. Giving a free pass to every large business guy and forgiving their loans and not forgiving the loans of farmers concentrates wealth. So what you do is very clear. It's not complicated. And we have a history of doing it, you know? So as we are coming to an end, I wanted to see if you had a recommendation or a parting message for these students. At the end of the day you're the chairman. This is quite an unfair process here because I've been asked, I don't know, how many questions and I'm not allowed to ask even one question. But that's the nature of the game. So I would quite like to know from the students here. I mean, I didn't study in Paris. I studied in the US and in England. What is it like to study here? No, but I'm going for dinner this evening, I believe. You can come with us for dinner this evening. I would really ask you now to give a huge applause to our guest speaker. So should I conclude? Do you want to know about rights? I think we have concluded, yes. I'll just say two words. So just to finish and not to drag it on too long, I see a lot of Indian students here and I also see a lot of French students, European students and students from all over the world. I think it's very important that we build a bridge between India and your countries. And I would like to invite as many of you as possible to come to India. Of course, the Indian people come all the time, but the people who are not Indian, to come to India, take a look at what is going on and seize a lot of the opportunities that a democratic, productive India can bring to the world. Thank you. It's a chaotic and fun place. So do come. And if there's anything we can help you with, especially the Indian students, please let us know. I'm happy to come and try your restaurant with you if you want. Thank you.