 nation on earth that is one of the things prompting those comments but so is its leadership of the G20 this year and the many difficult tactical diplomatic questions it has in steering its way through that and the membership of the G20 and at home as we know and as we're about to hear there are many questions as well from climate change and food insecurity to intercommunal divisions and inequality Rahul Gandhi needs very little introduction he comes from one of India's preeminent political families he's been a member of parliament since 2004 he was the president of the Indian National Congress the main opposition party from 2017 to 2019 he comes to the UK having recently completed a 4,000 kilometer walk across India to listen to the concerns of voters in the world's biggest democracy very glad to have you here today thank you thanks thanks Bronwyn and thanks mr. Gandhi for joining us today and thank you all for arriving so promptly just a reminder before we get going that we are in Chatham house but this event is on the record it's not being held under the Chatham house rule and it is being live streamed as well if you're watching on zoom and you want to ask a question please put it in the Q&A box and I will save plenty of time in the room as well to take your questions later on but for now let's just get straight on with the Q&A mr. Gandhi and maybe we can start with your walk across India I think it was called the Bharat Jodhoyatra right is that the Unite India March or yeah that the correct translation you walked 4,000 kilometers through 14 states I think 146 days you only finished in January so why don't you start by telling us why you did this walk and what you learned well thank you thank you for having me here it's an honor for me to be here thank you for coming when I joined politics 2004 the democratic contest in India used to be between political parties and I had never imagined at that time that the nature of the contest would change completely it was it was I mean if you had even told me at that time I would have I would have said that it was a ridiculous thing to say but the nature of the democratic contest in India has completely changed and the reason has changed is because one organization called the RSS fundamentalist fascist organization has basically captured pretty much all of Indian India's institutions and maybe for those who don't know you can you explain what the RSS is RSS RSS is a you can call it a secret society it it's built along the lines of the Muslim Brotherhood and the idea is to use the democratic contest to come to power and then subvert the democratic contest afterwards and it shocked me at how successful they've been at capturing the different institutions of our country the press the judiciary parliament election commission all the institutions are under pressure under threat and controlled in one way or the other so the so the conversation the voice that was free flowing the debates those of all stopped you know some of the biggest decisions taken demonetization which is demonetization of the Indian currency we were not allowed to debate in parliament right the farmers bills where large numbers of farmers were out on the street we were not allowed a conversation in parliament the GST we were not allowed when Chinese troops entered our territory we were not allowed to have a conversation in parliament so that stifling made us ask ourselves a fundamental question how do we communicate with the people of India when the media is biased when the institutions are captured and the answer we came up with in the Congress party was this walk across the country which has a tradition the word is yatra its journey but it's not simply a journey it's it's a it's a Indian idea of walking of persevering of listening and of questioning oneself and so we we decided to do this it was 4,000 kilometers and it was quite an experience to the fun experience painful at times but we all learned a lot and it placed on the table a different narrative of India right not an angry aggressive violent narrative which is currently deployed by the BJP but a peace-loving gun almost Gandhian nonviolent open accepting narrative and I think that was the biggest success of the yatra that it clearly placed on the on the table a different vision of the country and what did you learn while you were sort of traversing you know the many diverse states of India mob by people at different stages along the way learned many many things were the first thing I learned was that listening especially listening to people large numbers of people is something very powerful and I realized that as a politician before my walk I was not actually listening properly right as politicians we always we start by telling you what we think and we have a narrative in our mind and you know whenever somebody says something that narrative is shaping our conversation maybe we want to impress a little bit and say we understand you know what you're trying to get at so that instinct went silent it went silent because frankly I had no choice one I had a knee problem so my mind was like trying to calm my knee down and second the number of people was so big that it was no point so I after some time I just went silent and I started listening properly and it was very powerful experience for me taught me patience and there was huge pressure I mean to give you an idea six people died in the walk many people broke their legs arms because there's huge pressure of people there were thousands at times fifty hundred thousand people walking so the physical experience the other thing I learned is it no amount of exercise makes you lose weight it's like a completely I mean at the end of this thing 4,000 kilometers I go on the scale and I put on a kilo okay so it's it's totally diet it's nothing to do with exercise that's the other thing I learned yeah and how how has the the walk been received politically I mean obviously you did it for the reasons you said but you're also a politician you're seeking to win public support there are national elections coming up in India what's your sense in terms of how it's been received in terms of your own political position and Congress's position in India it's it's it's transformational it's transformational certainly for the party because it gave tremendous energy energy to our party workers but it's also it was also transformational for a lot of the people who are coming and the powerful thing about it was the physical contact and the scale of the physical contact and it was something you know I've been to thousands of meetings public meetings conversations like this it's a completely different thing because when you're when you're walking when you're walking with say a farmer you're walking with with a young woman there's a struggle going on particularly if you're walking 25 30 kilometers a day there's a struggle going on and you sort of a jointly going through that thing right so it's a completely different conversation that happens the other thing I did which I think helped a lot was right in the beginning I got the guys I work with and I said look what is my responsibility here you know what is mine and your responsibility here we are walking 4,000 kilometers and that's all fine but what is it that we will not accept in this walk and I told them that look what I want and there was a rope there so I don't know if you saw did you see the video you didn't there's rope there and there's quite a lot of security around the rope so I told the guys that look whoever comes into this area to talk to us and there were 125 of us walking so it wasn't just me I was in front but there was a 125 when these conversations are going on with everybody and I said look whoever comes in he doesn't matter who he is who she is that person's got to feel at home right and the feeling I want us to generate is that when they leave this place they feel that they've left home so in my mind it was not a political exercise in my mind it was a personal exercise where I was well-being welcoming people like into this room and giving them a space to feel comfortable and talk and also making it a personal talk not a political talk and we were successful at doing that because there was a lot of pressure security people pushing and pulling and so we created this sort of cocoon there where anybody came in felt comfortable and then some magic started to happen because the moment they started to see this that there's this connection in the 21st century where you know we're not going through the WhatsApp or we're not going through Facebook and all that and there's this gentleman who's come here and these people who've come here and they're talking to us then it the nature of the conversation changed completely and most shocking conversations started to happen like the most personal things suddenly people were discussing with a stranger really you know so it became almost like a like a either a friend or a brother you know that that was a type of conversation so a lot of stuff came up and you've talked a lot and previously about the attacks on democracy in India at a time when I guess there's a sense that globally democracy is under pressure I mean do you see any linkages there do you think there is some sort of global shift against democracy that's affecting or partly driving what's been happening in India or do you see the challenges in India as being pretty endogenous to India's particular political environment they're linked for sure but each country has its own history its own philosophy its own way of thinking about these things so definitely there are two sort of visions of the planet emerging I mean that to me is clear there's a sort of free democratic open open space idea and then there's a sort of more controlled coercive idea and that that that is visible India has there are some nuances to it in India right first of all it's not a it's not a battle between political parties anymore it's it's a battle between two old ideas of India and philosophical ideas of India which are diametrically opposed different and the BJP represents one and we we represent the other in India also there's the matter of caste right which is which doesn't exist for example in England or the United States a particular aspect of society so it's it's it plays out differently but it's sort of informed by what's going on in the rest of the world and I mean obviously you know your your politician you've pinned a lot of the blame for what's happening on BJP and Narendra Modi's government but would you other bottom-up drivers do you think in India as well I don't it's not that I pin the blame on them it's that I feel they operationalize it right so they they are the mechanism through which it's happening but I said in my in my Cambridge talk that I think the problem well when we walked with we we heard basically three things well four things unemployment price rise inequality and violence against women those are the broad themes that came out but the real the real problem is the unemployment problem right and that's generating a lot of anger a lot of fear and I think the unemployment problem is happening because earlier if you look at the 50s 60s 70s 80s there was a concept of production in the democratic environment right countries like Britain countries like India America they produce things and there was there was manufacturing there was production going on and then for whatever reason that was puzzled out to China right and today we live in a world where there is a production model in the course coercive environment but there is no production model in the democratic environment so the result is that it becomes very difficult for democratic countries to give their youngsters employment I don't believe that a country like India can employ all its people with services I just I just don't believe it it doesn't work right it doesn't it doesn't have the connectivity doesn't have the structure that can deliver you those jobs so to me the question is can a democratic production model be rebuilt and what does it look like right and I think that's at the center of what is creating the problem and the problem is manifesting in different places differently in India it's it's manifesting along caste lines along religious lines I think we might we might come back to that economic question later if we have time on economic models but obviously you know the BJP would say to you that you're just you're you're looking for excuses for why Congress hasn't been able to cut through you know so you blame the kind of the playing field being unfair and I guess there's certainly a point there that Congress and its coalition partners have struggled to cut through given what you're saying about the scale of the problems that the people are facing so what why do you think that's been that you've struggled on the national stage to get that cut through and how do you think you might be able to change that you know leading up to the next national election to put it in perspective right if you look at if you look at the time from independence to now the Congress party has been in power for majority of the time right so it's not that it's not that the BJP has been in power before the BJP was in power for 10 years we were in power for 10 years right and so it's not it's not I mean the BJP likes to believe that they've come to power in India and they're going to be in power eternally you know that's not the case right but there was there is a there is a set of changes that are taking place in India and the Congress party and the UPA in its time were caught by those changes right the biggest the biggest changes that India is moving from a rural country rural yeah country to an urban country right and that changes the nature of the political discourse that changes the nature of the structure and we were focusing a lot on the rural space and we missed the ball in the beginning on the urban space that's a fact right so those things are there but to say that now the BJP is in power and you know the Congress is gone I mean that that's actually ridiculous ridiculous idea and as far as the coercion the violence that is concerned it's not the Congress that's saying it Congress is saying it but you just got to travel in India and see it I mean you can see what's being done to the Dalit community or you can see what's being done to the tribal community you can see what's being done to the minorities it's not it's not that the Congress is saying it and objectively it's not being seen there are articles all across in in the foreign press all the time that there is a serious problem with Indian democracy right it's also it's also the way the the BJP responds right the it's not interested in a conversation they've decided that they know what's going on nobody else in the country understands what's going on and that's it and this is visible I mean you can ask any opposition party you can see for example how the agencies are used you can ask any opposition leader about how the agencies are used my phone had Pegasus on it that simply was not happening when we were in power so there are things that are very obvious and apparent to everybody and when we go beyond the next election or the election after that and think a bit bigger about India's future I think you described India really nicely as sort of ongoing negotiation between different states and and peoples and obviously the inter-communal tensions are not a new phenomenon in India but how how does India move beyond that to the kind of a better more peaceful smoother negotiation in the next decades yeah so I mean one way of looking at India is that is a country and another way of looking at it is that it is a negotiation between 1.4 billion people right and that negotiation if you imagine India in terms of numbers it's probably three times Europe three times the United States it's probably got as many languages as Europe does it's certainly got as many histories as Europe does and that negotiation is a complex negotiation and that negotiation happens it doesn't happen out on the streets it happens through institutions it happens through the parliament it happens through assemblies it happens through the courts it happens through the election Commission right and my worry is that the architecture of that negotiation is being attacked and broken right and you can see you can see sort of the symptoms right the Prime Minister one day turns around and demonetizes the entire currency right the Reserve Bank doesn't know about it and he's everything has been bypassed on something as fundamental as the currency of the country that's an example and it's the same way the GST was worked out right so you can see that that the reliance on those institutions is reducing and that to me is very very dangerous right so certainly there's a repair work that needs to be done right on on the idea of freedom on the idea of independent institutions there's a whole bunch of repair work that needs to be done and then I think fundamental to a successful India is the decentralization of power so what is happening what you see the trend you see is massive concentration of wealth and power and that if you really look at the BJP and see what's the one big thing that they have done it's huge concentration of power in the Prime Minister's office and then huge concentration of wealth in the hands of two or three people right and that to me a country the size of India simply cannot be run like that right so that to me the decentralization supporting small and medium businesses starting or reimagination reimagining production manufacturing in a modern way in a decentralized way in a technological way and I think their linkages between the West and India are critical I want to pivot a bit here to foreign policy and start with India and China and I know you're a keen follower of China and obviously in the last few years we've seen these flare-ups at the border seemingly driven by China there was a trajectory previously where Xi Jinping and Modi seem to be getting on well they had that sort of team eating in Wuhan why do you think in the last few years Beijing has decided to antagonize India because it seems to have really pushed India towards the West. Intagonize is sort of a benign word I mean they're sitting on 2,000 square kilometers of our territory right I mean I don't know that antagonize doesn't quite capture it right no I mean yeah it doesn't quite capture it and and the interesting thing is that when they did it our Prime Minister said in a meeting with the opposition where I was there that not a single inch of Indian territory has been taken right now what message does that send to the Chinese right the Chinese know they're sitting on 2,000 square kilometers of our territory our military knows it and our Prime Minister says well they're not there so it encourages them right so that's that's one aspect of the problem as a as a country our ethos and our DNA is democratic right I mean you there's the book the argumentative Indian by Mr. Murthy I said we just like to talk and you know spend a lot of time talking and discussing things and that's the way we build consensus because it's very complex and so we in the Congress are pretty clear that whatever is going to be built whatever is going to happen has to be in a in a democratic in a open structure and that of course that's not China right so so we are much more comfortable with the democratic idea that open idea of course at the same time there they're our neighbor and we're in competition with them and frankly if we're going to talk about production right we are the biggest game in town and so they see us as a problem so my approach is they are offering a vision of product of productivity of prosperity well we should have a vision of prosperity too and that includes the West and India but that's missing right so to me that's that's where the work needs to be done it seems to me that as someone who's lived a long time in Asia and watched the politics about it's going to be very hard to have a successful productive Asian century if India and China are at loggerheads so how can you foresee a rapprochement between India and China and how how might that happen how could that happen I mean I don't know about a rapprochement but I do think that we have to have a vision for production right and I don't think it's going to look like the Chinese one it can't structurally we can't do that right so it's got to be a decentralized one and and I think you are going to have a level of competition between the the two countries there is going to be on the margins there's going to be a little bit of tension a little bit of hostility but I think it's very important that the lines are clear I mean they're sitting on two thousand square kilometers of our territory right that's the fact so what would a Congress government do about that well I mean we'd have to we'll have to see when we're when we're there in power but but I think I think making things clear and certainly certainly not denying that they're sitting in your territory to start with and so you spoke earlier about sort of different visions of the world and I guess a US-led vision you're implying and maybe a China-led one but what's what would an India-led world look like is it is it very similar to the sort of Western democratic ideas is something very different I don't know if it's I don't know if I don't quite like the word led right I think it's a joint effort right and I think there are components that the United States has their components that Britain has their components that India has and they're valuable right so I think I don't I don't like the idea that that's being led by that person this being led by that person I I like the idea of a bridge so how can we imagine a bridge a bridge of prosperity between these systems and these ideas where we have a role to play we bring a lot to the table you bring a lot to the table right and let's have a conversation about what those things are and how we can put it into practice yeah I think I think the world is in the 21st century is is connected enough where you know the word led is problematic then that you're envisioning some sort of more multipolar order where the United States is more powerful right so one cannot deny that the United States is powerful but but everybody is required you can't you can't in the 21st century say you know we're going to exclude you that that's not a possibility so now what would an indie what would the Indian elements of that bridge look like a successful in my view it would it would invoke the ideas of Mahatma Gandhi it would be nonviolent it would be sensitive it would stand for some of those values which India is very good at at doing it would respect other cultures it would not be aggressive it would try to listen to other perspectives we go to doing that I mean we have in our in our philosophical structure we have these ideas you know we have this idea called shunita right zero non-existence so that can absorb everything so so those are the type of ideas that I would say that India brings to the table and I want to ask about Ukraine because it's obviously a massive issue in Europe I think by large Congress has supported if I'm if I'm writing this the the Modi government's position of neutrality at the UN when it comes to the war in in Ukraine I mean how do you think that stands with an India's position as a democracy and wanting to provide democratic leadership and upholding you know the ideals of freedom and sovereignty I mean I would agree with the the foreign policy on that on that issue and there's there's also an element of national interest there are there are you know there are interests we have to look after our interests so so they're there but I'm against any type of war I'm against any type of violence and the sooner it ends the better it is and as far as 21st century is concerned a war like Ukraine with the potential for unlimited escalation is just downright dangerous and we should be very careful that it's playing out in Europe and everybody should try and do their bit to stop it and could you see a time when India does start to move away from Russia obviously that's one of the reasons why India is wary of criticizing Russia because it relies on Russia for a large part of its military equipment and technology but obviously at the same time the West has been courting India in part because of the issues that you have with China and we see the existential threat from China so could you foresee this shift happening over time? Look self-interest is important and then you know you're saying courting I don't know how well are you courting? It depends that's up to you you know how well how well you court India yeah so and could you could you ever envisage in India that does move away from multi-alignment or non-alignment to kind of hard alliances? I don't know I don't I don't think about it like that I think what is it that we're trying to achieve right start from there what is our problem? Our problem is we've got a huge population and we need to give them jobs we need to give them livelihood we need to give them an imagination and that's our primary job now we will do whatever it takes to make that happen and the best route to make it happen is what we'll be doing we're not going to do anything that will damage the aspirations of our own people we're not going to do something that is going to you know damage their employment prospects so every country looks at itself looks at the problems it's trying to solve and then works from there right? I'm gonna come to audience questions in a minute just a couple more I mean firstly on the economy I mean it seems to me that the the model of industrialization and manufacturing export led growth that you know was very successful for Japan, Korea, Singapore in driving them to rich country status doesn't really work anymore because of changes in the rise of automation potentially because of the fracturing of global value chains and some sort of shaving away of the benefits of globalization so for India as well which is such a big country such a big domestic market and big challenges to employ its young people as well what is the model do you see going forward for India to achieve the sort of rapid growth but also more equitable growth that that your country needs? In my in my walk I walked I walked past a town called Bellary in Karnataka and I literally walked past it and some people over there said look this is a genes producing center okay and please come and see what we're doing so I spent half a day walking around Bellary and looking at this genes production that they were doing it used to employ five lakh people so five lakh is half a million right today it employs 40,000 people it's essentially a network of skill right whenever you walk in there there are people who have huge amount of skill sitting there and they're doing nothing right and then make that accessible to people right and those centers exist all across India there's Bellary Muradabad everywhere that almost almost every district in India has a skill base that is profound right but then what do we do or what is happening today huge concentration of wealth huge concentration complete control of the banking system by three or four large industrialists and the skills just lying there wasting wasting away those four and a half lakh people today are unemployed right that that that Bellary itself if it's aligned properly if the banking system is made accessible to them if you inject technology into into that skill skill space that thing you'll be able to produce a million jobs there right so I don't agree that manufacturing per se is dead right I look at it by saying okay here is the skill what do we need now to make sure that the skill translates into jobs right and then there's that there are different areas I'm not saying that there is no space for large business absolutely there is space for large business but the level of monopolization that is taking place today is seriously problematic it's problematic if you want to transform if you want to give Indian people jobs it's problematic if you want to have a productive vision for the country right so also there's a huge scope for agriculture right building a cold chain modernizing the agricultural structure system it's huge potential it's wasted right now so those are the type of things that one would look at last question I had before I go to the question to the floor and online you talked a lot on this trip and probably before as well about listening and I agree the listening is an underrated quality in politics and diplomacy where most people prefer talking so given we've got you here and we're all keen to listen and you've been in the UK I think for a week or so now what do you think we in the UK get most wrong about India what don't we see that we should know to better understand India now I'm going to give you away the secret no it's like it's like the quote I saw in your room right the Gorbachev quote the Gorbachev quote was to the to the effect of we're at a very important time in history and there are two options one option is this one and the other option is this one that's just not how the Indian mind sees the world right the Indian mind just does not see the world in a binary way so for the Indian person number one we are not at a critical point in history right and number two there's thousands of options standing right in front of us right that's just that's just how the Indian mind works and it translates if you look at if you just go to Delhi and you look at the street and you look at the lane lanes you'll see Indian drivers making their way through this thing right they'll go this way they'll go that way now that's that looks like chaos right but in the 21st century that chaos is a powerful but that chaos has to be managed effectively thanks that's very good answer okay if you can if you can if you can this is a concept that's difficult and I'll try it broadly there are two philosophies in India one believes in infinity right that says you will live forever right and the other that says you don't exist concept of Sunyata or Anata in Buddhism right and India India operates between these two right the idea of non-existence or Anata is in Buddhism is the essence of listening so if I'm sitting here talking to you and I don't exist right that is absolutely the perfect way to listen to you what do I mean by I don't exist it means my aspirations don't exist it means my fears don't exist it means you know I am sitting almost in silence almost as if I'm dead and I'm listening to you that's something Indian people can do we're very powerful thing right and if you look at our so to speak the grand masters people like Gandhi that's actually what they're doing and that's a it's a philosophical thing but it's the it's the power of the Indian civilization it's why it's where you know the West got zero from right and then that and then that no you're laughing but then then when that zero arrives in the West it completely transforms and does something that it can't do in India right because when it comes into contact with your philosophy the sum of both those things is much bigger than either of them so to me that's how I see it I think I mean I used to sit on a table when I was small and my grandmother and my mother's father used to sit there at lunchtime and they used to speak to each other and I would just look at them and there were two different words right my grandmother would be speaking something else saying something meaning something else and my grandfather be understanding something else but the conversation is going on and that to me is is is the essence of the thing which is that I look at you and I say he has ideas that are actually powerful and useful for me and in turn I have ideas that might be powerful and useful for him I think that's the that's what's important in the 21st century yeah I totally agree listening is is great as a final thing sorry as a final thing I I am a practitioner and I I I'm sort of in the ideal in power right and I can tell you that and this is something it's a bit hard to grasp listening is much more powerful than speaking there's no comparison between the two but for some reason people are convinced that speaking is more powerful right even if you're speaking to me and I'm listening to you I understand what you're going to do right I can predict what you're going to do if I listen carefully yeah so many questions that the gentleman at the front if you can tell us who you are in any affiliation and yeah the mic's coming to you and please keep it to a question not a statement thank you thank you very much any ideal for my advice of British Parliament British government the question I'm going to come to the question I just want to make one point okay it's contextual okay Rahulji thank you very much for your very sobering analysis clearly the comparison between the RSS and the Muslim Brotherhood is an interesting one the fact is the BJP have captured the narrative and the institutions in a way that most people would have thought that they could not have so clearly listening all the things you're doing are great but in terms of a clinical approach what would be your short to medium term plan in terms of projecting what you stand for what your party stands for what you want to achieve with the grassroots and because you're taking on somebody who is a populist who clearly has support who's captured the whole state effectively that's my question thank you I think I think the walk that we did in the last four and a half months is a is a powerful model and I think it it brings in a lot of the ingredients of a response to what you're talking about and I think it works for most of the opposition in India it's acceptable to most of the opposition in India so reaching out to the people in interesting ways and making sure that you having a direct connect with people and and building a new imagination I think is is central to fighting the BJP also don't underestimate the resistance you know authoritarian people like to like to demonstrate how powerful they are and how strong they are the resistance in India is also very strong and very powerful and and can do wonders and the lady in the cream jumper just but you know what if we step back from the BJP Congress conversation what India is what's actually happening is a huge transition in India right huge migration of people and India is now searching for a new model with which to engage with his people and the rest of the world right and what's pretty clear is that the BJP model is not it because it's creating much too much turbulence much too much resistance so the real challenge that people like me and other leaders in the opposition have is what does that thing look like mr. Gandhi thank you for your candor and your plane speaking you spoken about democracy and trouble you spoke about it just now you spoke about it yesterday and you expressed some surprise that the fact that Western European countries don't seem to have noticed that large chunks of democracy were falling away so here's my question to part of one what are you you the Congress party but you also the opposition planning to do about this and part two what would you like London Paris Berlin all the other capitals the governments and the people to do about this no look first of all this is it's our problem right it's an internal problem it's an Indian problem and the solution is going to come from inside it's not going to come from outside however the scale of Indian democracy means that democracy in India is a global public good right it impacts way further than our boundaries if if India if Indian democracy collapses in my view democracy on the planet suffers a very serious possibly fatal blow so it's important for you to it's not just important for us we'll deal with our problem but you must be aware that this problem is going to play out at a global scale it's not just going to play out in India right and and what you do about it is of course up to you but you must be aware that in what is happening in India the idea of a democratic model is being attacked and threatened I asked an online question quite a pointed one from Said Badrul Hassan and who says would Mr. Gandhi agree that dynastic politics has by and large impeded the growth of democracy in South Asia in India Pakistan and Bangladesh I mean I think impeded the growth of politics of democracy democracy in South Asia no I think I think the structures that are that are playing out and are impeding democracy are much more structural and and way beyond dynastic politics I mean okay I'm just one of the front here thank you I had a question around China you are sorry sorry my name is Bharat I'm from Rio Tinto and the quick but the question I had was around China I think you're on record saying that you know this government doesn't quite understand the nature of the risk that China poses and I'm just curious to understand what in your estimation is exactly the nature of that risk and fundamentally what are these guys not getting thank you if you look at what has happened in Ukraine right the basic principle of Ukraine the basic principle that has been applied in Ukraine is that the Russians have told the Ukrainians that we do not accept the relationship you have with Europe and America and if you do not change this relationship we will change your territory we will we will we will challenge your territorial integrity right in my view that is what is happening on the borders of my country what China is threatening China does not want us to have a relationship with the United States and it is threatening us by saying if you continue to have this relationship with the United States we will take action and that's why they've got troops in Ladakh and that's why they were troops in Arunachal Pradesh so in my view the basic idea behind the troops in Arunachal in Ladakh is similar to what is happening in Ukraine I mentioned this to the foreign minister he completely disagrees with me and he thinks this is a ludicrous idea it's fine we have a difference opinion yeah the lady in the third row in brown jumper thank you very much yes no it's me thank you very much my name is Marla Nimera and I run an international parliamentary organization the works on climate change but my question is raised with to you as a citizen of India there are many of us in the international diaspora there are something more than 20 million Indians in the international dire diaspora you spoke about the need for India to address these issues by itself not within its own borders because you have the international diaspora and many people like myself no longer which issues the environmental issues no the issues facing India the democratic despair that the country is in so here is my question and I ask it as someone who is one of possibly millions who no longer recognizes the country that they were born and raised in and we would like to know what your message is that is that a bad thing or a good thing what do you think no I'm asking you why am I here I don't know I'm here because I am feeling wretched about the states of my country absolutely wretched my father was an RSS man proudly so he would not recognize the country blesses so so for those of us who are outside of India how can we engage how can we re-empower our democracy 20 years ago I worked with Professor Amartya Sen and Amartya didn't let go of his passport I'm not getting rid of my passport and I want to know what can we do to re-animate our democratic institutions well I like I like your your energy no I it's very important it's very important and it's it goes to the point of the resistance you see the resistance is sitting here no I I meant that the battle the battle for the democratic institutions of India is frankly India's responsibility and no one else's right and it's something that we are doing but you of course are Indian so it's your responsibility as well and you're part of that discussion I think when you express yourself I think what you said about your father being in the RSS and about him not recognizing our country in this conversation itself is a very powerful thing because for me to say it people might feel ah he's fighting the RSS he's fighting the BJP he might be biased right but for you to say it it has a totally different impact so you're already you're by expressing yourself and by making your position clear you're already helping in a big way right I think by telling people the values that you stand for the values that are Indian and that you protect by telling everybody in the rest of the world that India needs to go back to those values you're doing the service so thank you right at the back the gentleman in the corner in the glasses just behind the door thank you now I'm gonna come to this side next my name is Shoaib I'm just a keen follower of the Indian politics first overall thank you very much for giving someone else opportunity to become the president in your party and the second question is do you think in yes to implement your philosophy and your vision of the Indian politics probably you need to win the elections and for to win that elections you need to defeat BJP but do you think with Mr. Harje in the party president you are well equipped to defeat BJP in the next elections look Mr. Karge was elected as president in a in an election that took place in the Congress party and he is the president of the Congress party we're all working together to fight the BJP and I'm extremely confident in Mr. Karge's capabilities and his expertise I don't know I don't know if you know his history do you do you know his history I mean he's been he was a Congress worker he's been a Congress worker for many many years and he's come up the ranks and he's an extremely capable dynamic person so I'm very confident in his leadership I'm gonna come over here maybe the gentleman at the front in the hoodie hi I'm Shriram I'm from I'm a Chatham House member I just wanted to ask you sir like is there any type of new policy like how Javahalla Nehruji introduced the non-alignment movement policy like is there any changes that you want to introduce in the Indian foreign policy as I said the principle the principle of foreign policy is unfortunately self-interest right and any Indian government would pay attention to that so in answering the question the first step is what is important to us as a country and what are we trying what are we trying to do and what we're trying to do is we were a rural country and we are making a transition into an urban country and this this transition is has a huge amount of energy right potential for violence but also potential for prosperity potential for transformation and we're trying to manage this energy as it's as it's moving right if you look at our policies there or the up a policies they were all about trying to manage this transition from a rural to an urban connected country right so our foreign policy will follow that idea right our foreign policy will reflect that right what what is what are what would we what would we like to do we would like to build a society that's productive a society that allows our people to have an imagination to live happily to be educated to have a certain amount of health care those are things that we would that's what our imagination is and our foreign policy will align with that I've got a question online about climate change from Arita Segal who says what is your vision on decarbonizing India when China controls so much of the supply chain I guess for renewable energy see I mean on the on the climate change issue interesting thing I noticed in the walk was that pretty much everywhere we went they were speaking about climate change but they were speaking about it locally so they were saying look you know it's terribly polluted the water is very bad you know it's got fluoride in it but they were not making the connection between their local problem and the global problem right so I was thinking that it's important in India that we start to push that idea that this local problem is connected to the global problem so that's that's one for one one aspect of the Yatra that came up on you know what is the vision for carbon these things are not things that one person visualizes and suddenly says you know this is my vision for carbon I mean that would be insanity right the way to do it is you have a conversation with people you have a conversation with stakeholders and you say okay so what is the best way forward and that's an evolving conversation a lot of people sort of they think that leadership is about you know sitting there and just coming up with these ideas and it doesn't work like that it's about it's about talking to people understanding you know what the best most optimal outcome is and then heading slowly in that direction gentlemen here in the glasses the third row in the middle what thank you my name is Ed Haroon and I'm just a member here but I wanted to ask you was I know there's lots of conversations about the narrative being taken over by BJP and RSS views and we spoke about the challenges India China has brings about but I wanted to ask you how does what your views or Congress views differ from BJP's on Pakistan and if there's any difference I mean my personal view is that it's important that we have good relations with everybody around us right but that also depends on the actions of the Pakistanis now the Pakistanis are promoting terrorism in India that becomes very difficult to do right and that that does happen and we've got time for one more question I think the lady here in the fourth row in the this block here last question hi my name is Varsha Vargas I recently graduated from Savas University of London and I come from Kerala so my question is during the Bharat Jodo Yatra you mentioned you listen to many people and as much as I value the importance of listening when people come to you they look as someone who's who has a possibility of changing their lives or improving their lives so as someone who has a possibility of like becoming the future Prime Minister of India what do you think what actionable plans would you undertake I mean that's okay that's a very wide canvas you've given me in what space I could possibly improve or this is something that I should do if if there is an incident that has touched you or anything in the Yatra yeah in the walk a lot of women came up to me and quite a few of the women spoke about violence that had been done to them and in one of the cases well actually many of the cases but in one particular case I won't go into the details but in one of the cases I asked the girl listen she'd been attacked she had been molested and I asked her listen should we call the police and she said no don't call the police I don't want you to call the police and I said why don't you want me to call the police you've come here you've told me this and now you don't want me to call the police and she says yeah I don't want to call you to call the police because then I will be shamed right so to me that was a very striking thing that here's this young girl who suffered this violence against her and now she cannot act on that violence because she's scared that she'll be shamed so I was thinking to myself this poor girl is now going to live the rest of her life never telling anybody this and it's going to multiply the pain of what happened to her so that is something I think I would like to change that the violence the level of violence against women reduces and particularly this idea that of shame which is completely a ridiculous idea is changed thank you everyone for joining us today thank you Mr. Gandhi for your time and taking all all the questions I also knew my best in future to not exist in the right kind of way and listen better but please join me again in giving another round of applause to