 Today we are gathered to welcome Rahul Gandhi, the new president of the Indian National Congress. The Indian National Congress is arguably one of the greatest political movements in the history of mankind. It not only won freedom for India in 1947, but it paved the way for decolonization in the rest of the world. It's a landmark organization and therefore today Rahul Gandhi bears an onerous responsibility. Legendary figures have held the post that he's holding today. Somebody told me as I was coming here that isn't he very young to be president of Indian National Congress? My answer, I thought about it for a minute, and my answer was that if I remember correctly, Jawaharlal Nehru was 40 when he became president of the Congress. Subhash Bosch was 41 when he became president of the Congress. So therefore at 47, Rahul Gandhi is no spring chicken. And with those words, I will now join him in a conversation and thereafter we will have questions from my fellow journalists. To begin with, could I ask you, after you finished your master's degree at Cambridge, worked in London for a couple of years, went back to India, was your mind already made up about joining politics or did it happen after you reached India? The general idea, the germ of the idea was much older probably when my father died. I had a sense that my father was cut short in what he was trying to do. So the germ of the idea was there and the operationalization I guess was in 2004. But it was always, we are quite a political family, so to say. When we used to sit with my grandmother, when we were small, the discussion on the table was always about what was going on in different Indian states, what different states were saying, what the politics was. So it was almost in our everyday life, the conversation and the idea. So certain things started to disturb me, started to get disturbed by the trajectory of India on certain parameters. And that also was a trigger in fact. What were these factors which were disturbing you? A division. The division I could see developing which is now crystallized and which I consider to be a threat to India. You went through two very traumatic experiences. One, the assassination of your grandmother when you were about 13 or 14 and your father's unspeakable death when you were around 20, did they leave a scar on you? In life one views things often as events. Your grandmother got assassinated, your father got assassinated and the outside world sees them as two events that took place. But actually the period before my father's assassination was almost more traumatic. The processes that were in play there were almost more traumatic than my father's actual assassination. So I did live for a long time under the shadow of violence. It was visible everywhere, my sister and me were impacted by it. And it hurt us both. But I think both of us have done quite a good job of overcoming it. So I don't see a scar. Frankly, now if I look back I see learning. It's the opposite of a scar. It was very difficult to deal with at the time. But it has shaped me in some ways that I value tremendously. It's allowed me to see the futility of violence. It's allowed me to see violence from the other side. You know, when I was saying in my talk in LSE yesterday, the only people who talk and glorify violence are the people who've never had it done to them. Somehow there's a feeling among a lot of people that violence is like the movies. But that's not what violence is like. Violence hurts every single person. It hurts the person who is being, against whom violence is being carried out. But frankly, it hurts the person who's carrying out the violence much more. So it's given me some very powerful tools that I'm very proud of. It was tough. I mean, it was tough to see someone you love very much being killed. So today, when your critics say that you are a man with a privileged background coming from the family that you do and that the Congress Party, a great movement is today effectively run by a family, what's your answer to that? I mean, first thing, my family has not been in power since my father was Prime Minister. This is somehow something that is forgotten. We've had Mr. Rao, we've had Mr. Manmohan Singh for 10 years. So the idea that my family is in power is where members of my family who are Prime Minister, that's 30 years ago. That's one aspect. Second aspect is that yes, I am born in a family. Listen to what I'm saying. Talk to me about issues. Talk to me about foreign policy. Talk to me about economics. Talk to me about Indian development. Talk to me about agriculture openly, freely. Come at me with whatever questions you want and then judge what I am. It's interesting to me that the Prime Minister of India struggles to have this type of a conversation. He can't sit here. He's never done it. And he can't sit here. And a large part of it, frankly, is understanding of issues. I've worked now for 14 years, 15 years, in the political system. I've taken a beating. I've learned a lot. I'm a person who listens. I'm a person who respects other people's ideas. And the most important thing to me about myself is that I see through hate, I can. And I really think it's, I'm proud of that. But at the end it's your choice. Do you condemn me for the family I come from or do you judge me based on my capability? That's your choice. It's up to you, not up to me. So 14 years as a member of parliament, how would you say your political ideology has evolved? What is your political ideology? The real evolution of my political ideology has happened over the last four years. So to me, the BJP and the RSS have given me a tremendous gift. And I say that they've given me by relentlessly attacking me and by attacking me on every front again and again and again and again. They've actually developed it. So I have to thank them for doing that. My political ideology is, it's a very old idea in India. And it's been fighting the RSS idea for thousands of years. And it's not new. Congress is a political manifestation of it in the 20th century and the 21st century. But it's by no means new. Many different people have had the same idea. It's basically the idea of respecting all points of view. Accepting the fact that I might sit here with you, completely disagreeing with you, fight you on every step, but still respect you and still be gentle with you and still not hate you. That's the Congress. And that frankly is India. That is the thing that India gives to the world. And it's sad that many people in our country don't value it because that is really India's power. India's power is not beating up Dalits or beating up tribals or beating up minorities. That's not India's power. India's power is compassion. India's power is its ability to work with 1.3 billion people, transform 1.3 billion people. Similar to the Chinese without practically no violence. This is a beautiful thing. And it's something that Indian people should be proud of. But in the politics of today, you discredit it. You say that, oh, you know, what has India achieved before Mr. Modi got here? Well, I'm delighted you've joined us in this open conversation live on television and social media worldwide. Have you invited Mr. Modi? That's a good question. No, have you? I don't think Mr. Modi accepts invitations from associations like us. He won't. You see, this is the thing. People talk about dynasty. He won't be able to sit here. He will not be able to answer your questions. I'm sitting here and I'm saying to you, throw whatever you want at me. I might make some mistakes. I might go wrong. I'm okay with it. I'm not perfect. I'll learn the next time you ask me the same question, I'll come up with something better. But I at least have the guts to sit here. Being a politician, sitting here with so many journalists, live streaming is risky. I take the risk because I value this conversation. I think this conversation is more important than the risk that it imposes on me. That's not how the Prime Minister thinks. And I would be very happy to have a conversation like this with the Prime Minister sitting here. In front of you, discussing corruption, discussing Raphael, discussing agriculture, discussing foreign policy, but he won't do it. Now you've got to try and figure out why he won't do it. It is of course true that in the past year Arun Jaitley and Nitin Gadkari have been with us, but we haven't had the pleasure of Mr Modi's company yet. Having said that, I think you got a rapturous reception at the London School of Economics yesterday and in the morning as and here bilateral relations between India and Britain has pretty much collapsed. Trade is down sharply. There's serious friction on issues of immigration, if not others. How would you repair a relationship which has gone down the tube in this manner? I think the entire world is in a flux. There are underlying reasons for why this is happening. I said in both my interactions yesterday, the central question as to how, sorry. On that note, please switch off all mobile phones. Apologize. So the world is in flux, the central question that India is asking, Europe is asking and the United States is asking is how do we get our youngsters jobs in the 21st century? And frankly, we in the Congress Party have a sense of how that can be done for India. It's not being done currently and it's a huge challenge. So everybody is in flux and everybody is in a sense running for cover. Everybody is trying to protect their space. Everybody is trying to look inwards. And that is why some of these relationships are running through rough weather. I wouldn't use such a strong word as, you know, the relationship is destroyed. I don't think so. I think the United Kingdom and India have a historic relationship. It's much deeper than Brexit or one or two years of instability. I think there's a lot of foundational stuff that we can do. I think we are tied together by time, by history, and you can't just bypass that. So the way forward, of course, is to talk, to listen, to understand what exactly it is that the United Kingdom needs for them to understand what exactly we need. There are some issues, you know, issues with students. We'd like our students to be allowed here. They have their issues. But these are not, these are not things that break a relationship like our relationship. They are things that can irritate a little bit, but you have to have a longer term view and perspective. Since you're a member of the External Affairs Parliamentary Select Committee, I take it that you keep a close tab on what's going on. And a little over a year ago, if I'm not mistaken, the International Institute for Strategic Studies, they said that in the past three, four years, India has either hostile neighbors or neighbors that cannot be relied upon other than Bangladesh and Bhutan. And if you take that a little wider, I suppose, Afghanistan, why has this happened? What is this, in international relations, what does this term relied upon mean? It means that it is a friendship which is not close enough. Right. So you can't rely on them? Yes. But in that context, the reference... But in international relations, it is broadly a power relationship. So it's a give and take relationship. So if I'm managing that relationship, I should be able to make you reliable. And you should be able to make me reliable. The problem is not reliability. The problem is the complete lack of strategy on foreign affairs in the Indian government. Absolute, complete and total. So you have gone to Nepal, made a particular statement in Nepal, and then a couple months later done a U-turn. You've not been able to handle the relationship with Sri Lanka. You've not been able to handle the relationship with Afghanistan. You've not been able to handle the relationship with China. And then we use words like reliable. No. I don't think reliable is the right word. I think if you do foreign policy properly, if you do foreign policy with a strategy, you make partnerships. That's the problem here. But there were partnerships which have broken down? Of course. Because you do not have a strategy. You have ad hocism. Small example. A subtle example, small example, and actually a devastating example. Prime Minister went to Afghanistan. And then on the way back from Afghanistan, he went straight to Pakistan for a wedding. Completely the wrong message went to Afghanistan. He didn't even understand it. He didn't even understand the message that was going to Afghanistan. The Afghans were up in arms saying, what's going on? Prime Minister Clueless. He views this stuff. He's seen these images of leaders talking to each other. And he views this as events. These are not events. These are nations talking to each other. Institutional machines that are talking to each other. And if you don't respect those institutional machines, there's no conversation possible. So if you look at all these things, the Prime Minister is not taking feedback from the Foreign Ministry. Small question. Why is the Foreign Minister spending her time working on visas? Why is this? Why is it that we've never seen a Foreign Minister before who spends most of her time or his time working on visas? And in India we think we're very proud of it. That's not the job of the Foreign Minister. That's the job of somebody in an embassy. The job of the Foreign Minister is to make foreign policy, have discussions on strategy. Sushma Swaraj is not allowed to have those discussions. She's an extremely capable woman. I know her. I've served on committees with her. I have issues with her, with her style, but she's a capable woman. But the government has no use for her at all. She's humiliated on every count. She's not taken with the Prime Minister on trips. You never see her in photographs with the Prime Minister. And then you say India's got a foreign policy problem. Of course it has. What would you do to solve the problem with Pakistan and China? Now that's, sorry, I mean that's, to be blunt, that's a naive question. But why? That's a legitimate question. No, it's not because you don't solve these problems. You work on these problems. You evolve solutions to these problems. But it's not like a switch that you go in and say, okay, I'm going to do this bang and it's on. These things have to be developed. They settle. You can say, okay, these are the type of directions I will take. The problem with Pakistan is a deep-seated problem. Does it have a solution in a month or two months or three months? I don't think so. What's the problem with Pakistan? The problem with Pakistan is that you don't know how to speak to it. If India was to sign something with Pakistan, you sign something with the Prime Minister of Pakistan, we don't know how long he lasts. We don't even know if the signature has the support of all the institutions of the Pakistani state. So these are not simple things that we are going to solve. But you can certainly have a strategy. You can certainly use your structures, which, by the way, I know these people. They are capable people. And the only thing I hear, frankly, from our contacts in the foreign ministry, is, we don't hear anything. The exact catchphrase is, the Prime Minister knows his mind. Now, in a country of 1.3 billion people, it's okay for one man to know his mind. But he's not interested in knowing the mind of anybody who works in any of the institutions. That's the problem. You take demonetization. Pretty much every economist in the world says this is a crazy idea. And it is. But the real problem with demonetization is that institutions like the RBI, who have defended our economy, built our economy, institutions like the Finance Ministry, people like the Chief Economic Advisor, the Finance Minister, are just ignored. You lock your cabinet in a room. You lock the elected power of India in a room. You don't ask them. You don't even ask them, listen to what you think. That's the voice of India. Those are just not cabinet ministers. That's the voice of India. You lock the voice of India in a room and you demonetize. What is that? So there is a complete disrespect for the tremendous talent that are Indian institutions. I've come here because I respect your institution. I've come here because your institution does an extremely valuable job. And I've actually come here with my head bowed. I'm not bluntly saying it, but with my head bowed to say, thank you for what you do. And I'd like to listen to what you have to say because it might help me. So there are two completely different ideas here. India has reached where it has. Not because of one man or one party or one group of people. India has reached where it is because 1.3 billion people have brought it here. And those 1.3 billion people are reflected by institutions, election commission, supreme court, high courts, Vidhan Sabha, Lok Sabha. And that's the voice of our people. It has to be heard. You hear it, you'll start to solve some of these problems. So I'm passionate about this. Maybe I was a bit... So you should be. So you should be. That's what politics is about. It's about passion. Eight months from now, there's likely to be a general election in India. What's the alternative you would offer to the present dispensation? The first thing, and I've said this many times, you can't solve a problem if you don't accept it. And the first problem that India has to accept is that there is a devastating job crisis in India. The second problem that India has to accept is that Indian agriculture needs support. And these two are linked. The job crisis and agriculture are linked. You can't look at them and ignore one or the other. The first thing we will do is we will make it very clear that our focus, single-minded focus, is on solving this problem so that we reduce the anger, reduce the pressure in society. How do you do that? You do that by supporting small and medium businesses, by linking them to banks? Small question. Twelve and a half lakh crore NPAs. How many small businesses are part of that NPA? How many medium businesses are part of that NPA? It's the top 15, 20 guys that the entire support goes to. I don't have a problem with flagship large businesses. I think they're required. I think they're required to project India internationally. And I think they've done a good job. I've got a problem when you completely ignore small and medium, which are actually the job creators. You look at China and the difference is that they take their small and medium businesses and make them big. We don't do that. There are practically no small and medium businesses that become big in India. So that's the first thing. The second thing is realize that agriculture is an asset. It's a strategic asset. People just keep saying, oh, you know, the farmers produce food. No, that's not all they do. The farmers are a linchpin of our society. They provide food to us and they provide stability and power to the Indian state. And we've got to respect them for what they've done and what they're going to do. We have to ensure that technology comes into their farms. We have to ensure that we help them with modern practices. We have to ensure that we put food processing plants next to their farms and that we make it easy for their produce to come to the table, to come to your table here. That would be one and two. You would need infrastructure to link the country, to connect the country, and there's a very powerful strategic play in connecting the country's airports in scaling up our travel infrastructure. And again, where I get disturbed is where we dumb down the conversation and say, you know, the solution to all India's railway problems is a bullet train. And then we don't talk about the rail issues. You just make them realize that we're not doing charity here for you. You're our strength. We believe in you. Now go and do your work. We're with you all the way. Generally when I meet farmers, that's what they say to me. We don't need anything from you. Just stand with us and see what we do. That's the spirit. Finally, we have to look at our education system and our healthcare system. You can't have an urbanized country where old people, youngsters simply cannot afford healthcare. And you cannot have a country where you have the world's best education institutions, and then everything below them is disastrous. So that would be the type of stuff we would focus on. But the emphasis would be on coalition building, on understanding what stakeholders need and what they want, and building alliances between stakeholders. I'll give you a beautiful example. Some economists came to me surprised a couple of years back and they said, you know, we've done the numbers. And what we realized is that a huge part of the economic growth that came in the UPA1 and UPA2 was because of NAREGA, was because of the guaranteed work program. The guaranteed work program basically fired the rural economy. And our support to the farmer and our support to the worker on his field actually fired off the Indian economy, which is by the way a huge part of the problem that is taking place today. Mr. Narendra Modi sees NAREGA as a handout to poor people. NAREGA is not a handout to anybody. NAREGA is the creation of a minimum wage in India. And NAREGA was economic strategy. And I'm shocked that the Prime Minister doesn't understand it. So those would be the type of things. But the emphasis would be on listening, on accepting mistakes when we make them, on being humble, and on trying to carry people together and say listen, we're one country. Everybody has brought us to this place. We're going to carry everybody. We're not going to leave you because you were a blue suit, or because you were a red suit, or because you have a particular religion or a particular community. This is everybody's. And we've got serious challenges in front. We've got a challenge coming from Chinese organization and Chinese, the manufacturing parts of China. And that's what we really should focus on and deal with. You mentioned alliances, and that could be crucial to your strategy. My mother lives in Kolkata. And therefore, I'd like to ask you, in West Bengal, who would you go with? The CPIM or Trinamur-Panggis? Now you're asking me strategic questions. Look, we are working out a broad coalition. In Bengal, we have an organization. And I tend towards asking my unit in Bengal and letting them decide. We are having those conversations, so it's not really decided one way or the other. But the emphasis is, and this is a consensus among pretty much all leaders of the opposition, that the RSS is threatening the institutional order of India. They're systematically attacking organizations and putting their people into them. Four justices of the Supreme Court have come out and said it, that we are not allowed to work because of, and they named the Loya case, very specific for Supreme Court judges to say that. So we are defending that line. And nothing is going to come between us in defending that line. Conversations of leadership, who's going to lead, are going to happen after the election, after we have pushed the BJP and the RSS back. So nine months from now, do you see yourself as Prime Minister? I don't have these visions. I don't see myself. My job right now, I view myself as fighting an ideological battle. And this is really the change that has come in me between after 2014. I realized after 2014 that there is a risk to the Indian state, to the Indian way of doing things. And I'm defending that. I don't see myself in this way or that way. I just get up in the morning and I say, okay, how do I defend the Indian institutional structure? How do I make sure that the country I love works together? Raul Gandhi, thank you very much indeed. Thank you. We will now open the conversation to journalists. So please raise your hands, identify the organization you belong to, and then ask your question. I will try and accommodate as many as possible, starting with Sanjay Suri. But we do have a time issue. Yes, and within a certain... Is it possible for me to use one of those mics and walk around here? Yes. When they're asking, so it's more... No, okay. I won't do it. I won't do it. Mr. Gandhi, this is Sanjay Suri from CNN News 18 Television. May I first assure you, sir, that contrary to a statement put out by a party, any concern raised over 1984 is not hostile or planted. The Congress party seems to have locked itself into a knee-jerk denial over this. You yourself have made that statement yesterday. If I may complete my question. The fact is that the denial seems to have become a big part of the problem, because this kind of denial is leading to a denial of justice that is wrong in itself. It is also creating a huge problem politically in India and outside. As the new president of the Congress, a lot of people would look up to you to perhaps find a way of breaking out of this kind of knee-jerk denial. I don't know what knee-jerk denial you're talking about. I'm very straightforward. There is no confusion in my mind. If violence has been done against somebody, there is a legal process that legal process must go on, and the people who have carried out violence against somebody must be punished according to the law. And I will support that 100%. I said in the earlier part of my speech that I'm a person who understands violence. I do not believe in violence against anybody, regardless of religion, regardless of community, anybody. And that's very, very clear. Yes, Naomi. Bank default. I want to know what your view of how the Indian government is handling his case, and also the CBI has just sent a video of the prison that he might be held in where he extradited. Do you think Indian prisons are up to scratch? Indian prisons are up to scratch. Indian prisons are difficult places. Before leaving, Mr. Malia met some of the senior BJP leaders. That's documented. I won't name who, but he didn't meet them. So they're pretty lenient with these people. Mr. Nirav Modi took 35,000 crores. Mr. Mehul Choksi, they took off. And strangely, when the government of the country where they were sent a notice to the Indian government, the Indian government didn't really respond to the notice. There are relationships between Mr. Nirav Modi, Mr. Mehul Choksi, and the Prime Minister. And these relationships come in the middle of justice. But the real question is, when we talk about job creation, Indian banks gave 35,000 crores to Mr. Nirav Modi. Mr. Narendra Modi let him run away from India. How many jobs did Mr. Nirav Modi create? That's the real question. On what basis was he given 35,000 crores? What are the foundations of his business? And then once you've done it, why aren't you trying to get him back? And that's the same exact thing for Mr. Malia. I think Indian prisons are pretty decent places for Mr. Malia's concern. You see, justice should not be the same for Indian people. It shouldn't be just because you're Mr. Malia and have 9,000 crore rupees in the bank that you require a different jail than other people like you in India. We believe in equality. Yes, Sraboni. Sraboni is with Anand Bajar Putrika. My question is, you just mentioned that prime ministerial candidates will be decided after the election is over. If your party does win with its coalition partners, is this a problem? Because what if all the regional leaders, then you have Maya Vati, Mamata, all wanting to be prime ministers, do you see a potential problem in this situation? All of the opposition in our conversations are very clear that the first and most important challenge is to stop the RSS BJP from attacking and destroying the Indian state and its institutions. That is the first and most important point. And there is absolute acceptance unity on that point. And they've also decided that we're not going to get into conversations that distract us from that goal. And the press likes to do that, the press likes to keep starting these sort of conversations, but we're not going to fall for that trap. Yeah, the lady there in that table. Can't take as many questions as possible, keep them short. Is there a threat to freedom of speech in India? And would your party ban a book such as The Satanic Verses, as Rajiv Gandhi's government did, to be sure BBC News? I'm quite liberal myself. So I don't believe in banning books and things like that, unless there is absolute clear risks of violence erupting. But my default position is I like to allow people to make judgments on information. I don't want to be the person telling somebody that that's not something that you should be interested in. I respect individuals, I believe in them, and I think that they have the ability to make that judgment. So I'm not for banning books. I also think that in today's world, banning a book really doesn't mean anything because you will always be able to find it on the internet somewhere. So it might have worked 20, 30 years ago. Today it's a non-event and you'd probably get people looking for that book by banning it. You'd actually probably increase its sales. There is a systematic assault on freedoms in India. There is an attempt to impose one ideology on our country, ideology coming straight out of Nagpur, and frankly there is an attempt to centralize power and control the Indian state through one organization, the RSS. Yesterday I said that the RSS is a lot like the Muslim Brotherhood and there's a storm and a teacup I believe in back home. So let me just make it clear. Both organizations were founded in the 20s. Both organizations believe in institutional capture. Both organizations view the electoral process as a means of capturing institutions. Muslim Brotherhood was banned after Anwar Sadat's assassination. RSS was banned after Mahatma Gandhi's assassination. So there are tremendous similarities. Oh by the way, the last one and the most interesting one. Women are not allowed in either of these organizations. So let's talk facts. They're similar. They're trying to do the same thing. And what they're trying to do is they're trying to capture institutions so democratic voice is thought of. Yeah, journalists only. Questions from journalists. Yes. Good morning Mr. Gandhi. I had the pleasure of listening to you in Hamburg. My name is Manu Pillai. I write a newspaper column for Mint. Your message seems to be one of sobriety and saying let's take a step back and do this properly. But we're living in a country of very many young people where the sexy bullet train is somehow a better, a sharper message than improving the old rail car. How is the Congress going to communicate to a restless young audience? You're saying take a step backwards. I'm not saying I'm saying take a step forwards. Also by the way, the bullet train isn't moving. It's stuck because the farmers on the track are not allowing it to move. So yes, you can have a fancy poster saying bullet train. But the cost of a ticket on that bullet train is more than an indigo flight. Will be more than indigo flight. And what it's about one lakh crores for a couple thousand people a day. That's a bad investment. By the way, we were offered the same thing by the Japanese. You know what our response was? Our response was give us the money and help us strengthen Indian railway infrastructure. Give us one lakh crores. We'll gladly take the money. But what we'll do is we will strengthen railway infrastructure, increase the speed of the railways, of the entire railways, not by 300 kilometers but by 30 kilometers an hour or 40 kilometers an hour. We'll make it much safer and you will see the GDP need to do that. So when you go into details, the solutions are there. But you kill the solutions because you don't want to go through the rigor of actually developing the solution. Mr. Modi himself said it. I mean you might have seen the video, he himself said it. Look, the bullet train is not important. You see, the world has to see that we can make a bullet train. It's all about seeing. It's not about the truth. But that stuff doesn't work. And there's a lot of truth that we can do that's very powerful. We can revolutionize healthcare in India. We're sitting, you know, your press guys make fun of me. But we are sitting on a healthcare goldmine. Our population, our medical processes, the fact that Indian doctors are there in pretty much every country, healthcare itself can create a strategic transformation of our country. But there's no conversation. And when I say the future of medicine lies in connectivity, lies in connecting the processes, medical processes, the press laughs at me. It's fun, but they're wrong. It's the same thing I used to hear when I was a kid. And leaders of the BJP were giving speeches saying very senior leaders who went on to become very, very senior, won't name them, were saying that Rajiv Gandhi's gone mad. What you saw, computers. This man doesn't understand India. This man doesn't understand that computers have nothing to do with India. And then the same person going 15 years later and giving a speech on how brilliant computers are. Fascinating. Yeah, the gentleman at the back there, yes. Is that Faisal? Yes. Faisal Islam from Sky News. Mr. Gandhi, I just wondered. I was very struck a couple of years ago that there was a quote from Steve Bannon, the chief advisor, formative advisor to President Trump, obviously. And he said that Modi's election in 2014 was the beginning of a global revolt across democracies, part of the convulsions that we've seen, obviously, the Trump's election, maybe with Brexit too, another part of Eastern Europe. And I presume from that he's talking about the connection of nationalist policies with the Internet and Facebook. I wonder what your reflection on Mr. Bannon's comments about Modi are and how do you think that your democracy, obviously the biggest democracy in the world, has been impacted by Facebook and digital intermediation, just intermediation of the media? The people who support Mr. Trump, who support Mr. Modi, who support some of the other leaders, more populist leaders are doing so because they're angry. And they're angry because they don't have a job. And Mr. Modi, instead of calming this anger, instead of telling our country that, listen, yes, we have a problem, it's called the job problem, and we're going to work together to fix it, Mr. Modi does something very unpatriotic. He takes that anger and he utilizes it for himself. And he damages our country. There is a foundational problem, which I stated in the beginning. Neither the western world nor India is able to solve its job crisis for the blue collar part of society. And that is leading to anger and that is what Mr. Modi writes on. The crime he commits is that he damages his country when he uses that anger for himself. The honorable thing to do would be to go to his country and say, you know what, yes, there is a problem, yes, you are angry, I'm your leader, I'm going to bring you together and we're going to kill this problem, we're going to solve the problem. And those type of leaders will follow Mr. Trump, Mr. Modi and these populists because Mr. Modi is not going to give you a solution. Because at the end of the day, the Indian youngsters need a job. And they've created a tremendous amount of damage, but a new breed of person will have to repair this damage and actually solve that problem. And there are people who are looking to do that. I've got five minutes, I can't satisfy everyone, but I will do my best. Let's take three questions together very, very quickly. Okay, one here, Poonam. Can I ask? Yes, at the end of it, you have. I have one. Right. Well, two, three. Hello, Mr. Gandhi, I'm Poonam Joshi from A&I. I heard your talk at the LSE and I have been hearing you talk quite passionately about women empowerment. And yet, you have stonewalled the issue of triple talak in the court as well as the parliament, crushing the hopes of millions of Muslim women. What would you like to say about that? We haven't stalled anything. We have an issue with the criminalization issue, but we've not stalled on anything. Our issue with it is on the criminalization aspect of it. The lady at the back. How can I miss you with your colorful dress? Hi, I'm Poonam Tanaja from BBC News. You mentioned the political situation in Pakistan. What will your relationship with Imran Khan be if you get the top job? My relationship with everybody is nice. I'm a nice person, but the real question I have is what is the relationship of the institutions that represent the Pakistani state going to be with India? And there are certain institutions within the Pakistani state like the ISI that carry out violence against our people. So that's the real issue. The real issue is not the relationship between Mr. Imran Khan and the person who leads India. The relationship is really between the institutional structures of these two countries. No, not Kashmir, not only Kashmir. The idea that you can export violence into India, and it's more than Kashmir, and that's something we simply will not tolerate. So, Lavina and then Radhika. I'm Lavina from Ajatak, India today. Mr. Gandhi, you were part of the Parliamentary Committee for External Affairs on the Oklahoma and also had a conversation with the Foreign Secretary. Would you still not have enough information to throw light on what would be your stance on it? And also, will you ban RSS since you have spoken so much about the connection between RSS and Muslim Brotherhood? Thank you. As I said earlier, I don't believe in banning things. I don't think banning things solved anything. But we are involved in a fight with the RSS, a political fight. And again, I don't have personal animosity towards any of these people, but I have an ideological difference with them. The other question, now that's a really tricky question. You know why that's tricky? Because I can't say. Because I am bound by parliamentary privilege. And I cannot say what was in that report. But I can say that we had a conversation with the Foreign Secretary and the Defense Secretary on Dho Klam. And what was said in that room cannot be said outside. So you can infer from my statement. Radhika. By the way, on a unrelated to that committee meeting but related to the issue of Dho Klam, you do realize the Chinese troops are still in Dho Klam. You don't know that. And you do realize that the Chinese have built massive infrastructure in Dho Klam. And the Prime Minister went recently to China and didn't discuss Dho Klam with them, didn't discuss the infrastructure they built, didn't discuss that incursion, had what was called a conversation without agenda, non-agenda conversation. That's interesting. Somebody comes in, slaps you across the face, and you have a non-agenda conversation. I wonder why the press doesn't pick this up. Now can I ask my question? Okay. Now I got, that's one question. Why doesn't the press pick up the fact that Chinese troops are still in Dho Klam? But the second question, the more interesting one for me, is this business of Raphael that I keep talking about. And that is now gaining traction in India. And is a question that is beginning to be raised among young people. And all the young people listening to this, I want you to hear this carefully. ACHL has built military aircraft in India for 70 years. The best Indian engineers worked in that company, made the MiG, Jaguar, Mirage, all sorts of aircrafts they make. They were given, they were going to be given the Raphael contract. And they were going to build those planes in Bangalore. Price of those planes at that point was 526 crores a plane. Mr. Modi goes to France. On that delegation with him is Mr. Anil Ambani. Youngsters, listen to this again. On that delegation with him is Mr. Anil Ambani. He personally changes the contract. The price of the plane goes from 526 crores to 1600 crores. ACHL has built planes for 70 years. Mr. Anil Ambani has never built a military aircraft. In fact, never done any military work at scale. The company that got the contract was formed 10 days before. One of the biggest military contracts in history. And the company that got it was formed 10 days before the contract. Small footnote, Mr. Anil Ambani is 45,000 crores in debt. ACHL has no debt. Prime Minister bypasses the defence minister. Doesn't hold the meeting of cabinet committee on security. And the Indian press. And the foreign press doesn't say a word. This to me is fascinating. And my question to you is, why don't you say a word? I assure you that members of the IJ will give you a fair treatment. Okay, thank you.