 what he has to say because one day he could be speaking for more than 1.5 billion Indians. Please join me in welcoming Professor Deepesh Chakraborty and Mr. Rahul Gandhi. Rahul, a very good evening to you in Rajasthan. Good evening. And a good morning from Chicago. It's wonderful to have you here and we're delighted to have this opportunity to talk to you. So you and I will have a conversation where I'll be asked mainly asking you questions and then students and others will join in with their questions. So I thought the starting point was provided by Devlina's last remark in her introduction about your family, which has made sacrifices and sometimes the sacrifices have been almost tragic. I mean, tragic in the sense that you've directly lost your father and your grandmother to political assassination. So I thought that in the interest of listeners getting a sense of you as a human being, I was going to ask you, why didn't that deter you from joining politics? I mean, your father, everybody was told we grew up hearing with an unwilling entrant into politics. Are you in, were you an unwilling entrant into politics? We defend a certain political idea and philosophy. We believe in a certain sense of India. And that's what we defend. Elements of that you can see in the freedom struggle, but they're older than that. These are philosophical central themes in the Indian civilization, our history. And we defend those ideas. Yes, my grandmother and my father got killed. I'm proud that they got killed standing for something, defending something. It's something that helps me understand them and helps me understand my place and what I should be doing. So no, there are no regrets. And as I've gone further in this journey, those ideas are crystallizing more and more. So if you were to ask me 15 years ago why I joined politics or 20 years ago, why I would think of joining politics, my answer would have been very different than it is today. And as I go further and frankly, there is a battle of ideas going on. And as the other idea attacks me, it helps me refine myself. You mentioned trolls. And you were like, oh, trolls are difficult to deal with. No, for me, trolls sharpen my sense of what I have to do. They're almost to me a guide. They tell me exactly where I have to go and exactly what I have to stand for. So it's an appointment, it's an evolution. So they strengthened your resolve to be a certain kind of person and a certain kind of person engaged in politics. Yeah, it's, you know, it's a, I mean, I don't want to get into the philosophy, but it's more than resolve. It's why you exist. Right, okay. It's the reason for your existence. Okay, great. For me, I simply cannot sit there. And it's not just Indian people. I simply cannot sit there and see some injustice being done to someone. I just can't do it. But it irritates me, it keeps me up at night. I'm like, this just isn't right. Right. And so strangely, the idea that attacks me invigorates me. It gives me life, which is something I would have never understood. Right, ten years of namaste. Yeah. You know, so my idea, my sense is, bring it on, please, more and more of you, come. Because you're teaching me. In our Indian tradition, you are my guru. I honor you and I respect you. Now come, give me more. So I can, so I can further refine my understanding. Okay. So actually, again, going back to your family's involvement and it goes back to the days of Matilal Nehru in freedom struggle. But I was thinking of Panditji and his generation who made the decision, which I think was a world historic decision to give the vote to every adult Indian. And their generation had grown up reading John Stuart Mill, people like John Stuart Mill. And people like John Stuart Mill argued very clearly that you can't have universal adult franchise before you have universal adult education. And India defied that wisdom, Indian leaders, our leaders. They had faith in the masses. And therefore it was a kind of world historical experiment that they began in terms of world history. This had never been seen before. So, and now, you know, the Democratic Republic will be 75 soon. And when you think of Indian democracy, how do you think it's fair? What are its strengths and what are its weaknesses in your view? It's strength is the core foundational values that the Indian civilization and other civilization have, which is compassion and empathy. You know, you say it's an experiment. I would use a different word. I would use the word process. It's a process that has been ongoing. And it ebbs and flows. If you look at, you know, Emperor Ashok, some of the ideas that you see in the freedom struggle were there in those days. I mean, the, the, the index of Ashok, they're basically saying similar stuff to what is being said in 1947. I think, I don't think democracy is only a Western idea. I think it is as much a Western idea as an Indian idea. And I think it just operates in slightly different ways. The sense of the individual is different. The sense of time is different. The sense of space is different. And so obviously the way your democracy plays out is different. And also, it ebbs and flows. So you go through, you go through a sort of process where you get the democratic impulse and then you get a counter to that impulse and then you get a democratic impulse again. So I'm pretty confident that this is just one of those sort of ebbs and we'll, we'll move out of it. We also have a strong, a very strong foundation given to us in the modern age by our founding fathers. In the ancient age, of course, you have, you know, Buddha, you have Kabir, you have a whole series of people who have been putting down these ideas. But in the modern age, of course, you, it's Mahatma Gandhi, it's Ambedkar, it's Jawaharlal Nehru, it's Azad Subhad. These people who sort of gave the sense of what a democratic India should be designed like. But the ebbs that you're talking about, I mean, one is, we've been noticing certain changes globally, right? I mean, globally, they've been sort of rise of strong, or strong leaders as they've thought about who don't necessarily dispense with elections but who project themselves as strong leaders as deliverers of certain goods. Why, and so, do you have a sense of why that's been happening globally? Is what, do you think what's happening in India is part of a global trend towards a certain kind of democracy that you were describing as an ebb in the flow of democratic ideals? I think there's a couple of elements to it. If you look at the world today, essentially, manufacturing is controlled by the Chinese and by certain countries in Asia. West is no longer part of it. And India is also no longer part of it. The thing is, if you wanna give people jobs at scale, the only routes through is manufacturing. You cannot, you simply cannot give people jobs at scale, at least in a country like India and a country like the United States with the idea of servicing. It's an element, it's a part of it, but without manufacturing, you cannot do it. And put very bluntly the Chinese because of their structure, their authoritarian system, the PLA, the Communist Party, have successfully carried out this so-called manufacturing. To me, they were helped by large Western Indian capitalists who wanted to actually just parcel out the problem, the social problem of a factory to someone else because realize that when you have large factories in a democratic country, they mobilize themselves and then they contest the power. So then you have a strong contest for power and the large capital in the West in India didn't want that. They didn't want to go through the political contest that large-scale manufacturing would create. So they parceled it out to China. Now the factory's changed. So the Western capitalists and Indian capitalists thought that what we're parceling out is not really that valuable. It's a concrete structure with some simple processes inside, what they didn't calculate. Was the internet. That would suddenly give that concrete structure a nervous system. And so now you have a completely different sense of manufacturing. Manufacturing has suddenly changed. Services and manufacturing may have fused. So when you look at this phone, you can't answer the question where services end and manufacturing begins, right? Whereas with a Ford motor car 50 years ago, you could clearly answer. You could say, here's where manufacturing ends and here's where the service begins. The idea of services and manufacturing has merged. So now you've got populations in India and in the West who simply cannot get a job and they don't see a future. And that's where the strong man comes in and he says, okay, nothing is working. And the anger that is generated inside those people, he uses that anger and he inflames the situation. The problem is that he doesn't give a solution. So that anger just fester, it's divisive, but you don't get a solution. And then eventually, you have to get a solution. And then that's where people like us come in. And what do we do? We bring people together and we try to actually solve the problem which is give people jobs. But Rahul, from that, if I may ask you two follow up questions. One is that, you know, when Trump was, when Trump got elected in the US and many of my colleagues, myself included, you're all surprised by it and living in a democratic state like Chicago and living within the bubble of university. It was very hard to tell that somebody like Trump would actually get elected. My colleagues started teaching courses about Trump but they're all wise after the event because we didn't expect it. But the usual explanation given was that people who felt deprived because of globalization, people who felt they'd been left behind by force of globalization, Trump was kind of a, Trump gave their resentment and their anger a sort of face. Whereas in India, if you think of BJP and their success over the last more than half a decade, it's, they're riding not just on the resentment of the unemployed or the masses of young people. I mean, they are there as a factor but a lot of support are actually coming from educated money to people, established people. I'm personally surprised, you know, I went to one of the IAMs for my post graduate degree and I'm a product of narrowed age, you know, scholarship generation, cheap subsidized education. That's what we grew up on. And then most of many of my friends actually made money becoming going to IAM and became rich. But there's a profound rejection of the barriers in them. There's a deep, I don't, I'm not profound, it's not the right word, but it's a visceral reaction. So what interests me in understanding about the Indian situation and maybe you believe yourself shed some light on it is that why is a bulk of the educated consumer classes, middle classes, upper middle classes shifted towards BJP? Because realize that in a country like India where you have millions and millions of poor people who you have released from the village into urban India. So this is a, it's a huge, huge powerful force. And now suddenly they feel that the dream that was sold, the Bollywood dream, the Luxo dream, it's not working out. They can't get a job. There's tremendous anger over there. And that anger is going to turn potentially on your friends. That's why it's going to go. So you've got to distract that anger. You've got to take it somewhere else because otherwise you've got a real problem. So it is a sense in the elite in India that Nehruvism has unleashed this mass of poor people who didn't ask questions, didn't really bother us, but who now suddenly are on the loose. I mean, I was in Uttar Pradesh. I'll tell you a story. I was in Uttar Pradesh during one of the elections and I walked into a house and started to talk to the gentleman. In the conversation, I said to him, you know, how are you feeling? And he said, well, you know, I'm doing well. So I said, you know, this was UPA time. I was like, oh, and I said, you know, you've got a scooter in front of your house and you told me your daughter is sort of a lawyer. So you've done well. So then he looks at me and he says, you know, it's all your fault. So I was a bit taken aback because I was campaigning, right? So I was like, oh, so I was like, what do you mean? He's like, you know, 20 years ago, when I used to walk out of my house, society used to look at me and say, pandit ji jaare hain. Meaning here is a knowledgeable upper class person going. He says, today I get out of my house. I have money, but I don't have that place in society that I used to have. And this is, in his words, Jawaharlal Nehru's fault. Because he unleashed these forces. He unleashed these forces now. My point is, and the Congress point is, this is India's power. If we don't unleash this, what do we unleash? If we don't challenge this social structure, what do we challenge? If we don't question the right of someone just because he happens to come from a place in society, what are we doing? So that's the conflict. And Mr. Modi actually sells that dream that you can put this genie back in the box, that you can just shut this thing down and all these people who've come out who are asking for their rights, who are demanding Manrega, who are demanding all these things, they'll just go back home. They won't. No way. And it's something that is the nation we have to deal with. We have to embrace it. And I realized something in that conversation. Which for me was a very profound political insight. That it's not good enough for me to just push that process. I also have to take care of this gentleman who has felt tremendous pain because of that process. It's not good enough for me to say, sorry, we will just look at this part and we will unleash this force. I got to, as a congressman, have compassion even for the person who's being harmed by this challenge. And embrace him and say, okay, listen, we're going to try and make this as smooth as possible. But then Rahul, another question comes up as a follow-up and you've kindly given me permission to ask you critical questions. Which is the question is, why couldn't the Congress capitalize on these aspirations? I mean, on the empathy. So let me just put it. So the usual answer is given. One is, of course, as you know, the UPA too had to bear this huge charge of corruption and scandals. That got a certain kind of media time. And the second point that's often made about the failure of the Congress or the decline of the Congress, the political power is the whole question that's raised and you might consider it a boogie, but it's raised of the dynasty. That Congress is a family dependent party. It's a dynasty department party. That's what the opposition says and get some traction out of it. How do you, as somebody who belongs to the so-called dynasty who is seen as dynastic, how do you relate to these things? It's interesting to me because the last time a member of my family was Prime Minister was, I don't know, 30 plus years ago. The UPA government, no member of my family was in the government. Now, I do have an ideological view. I fight for certain ideas. Now, if you want to say to me, just because your father was Rajiv Gandhi, you're not allowed to fight for those ideas, I'm going to say, sorry, I don't care who my father was. I don't care who my grandfather was, great grandfather was. These are the ideas I consider valuable. I'm going to fight for them. So that's one element of it. Going to the first part of your question, what did the UPA, where did the UPA run out of steam, so to speak? Look, when you're looking at big systems like India, you provide a vision for a certain period of time. We gave the nation a vision in the first part of the century, independence. We gave the nation a vision, green revolution. We gave the nation a vision, liberalization. And in 2004, we gave a particular vision to the country. It was a version of the 1990s vision, tweaked version of the 1990s vision, and it was designed to pull large numbers of people out of poverty. And we ran that vision. And in 2012, we figured out that we have now come to the edge of that vision. The architecture that we constructed, which is what all political parties, political architectures look like, you don't build them forever. You build them for a particular circumstance, and then they deplete out. And then you're going to come out with a new one. And what we found was that in 2012, we hit the envelope. And the sort of vision did its job. And now the time came for a new vision. Ten years of government in India is a long time. And a certain amount of anger had built up, made mistakes, sure. We also got hit by the worst economic disaster, 2008, banks collapsing. So that came into it. And we lost the election in 2014. And the prime minister came with a new vision. And you can see the result of that vision. It's a disaster. It's obvious to everybody. Our job now is to construct the vision going forward from here. And it's pretty clear what it looks like. But taking a vision from concept to operation is an act of negotiation. It's an act of bringing people in. And that act takes time. We're working on it. So Rahul, if I could... Sorry, go ahead. No, I mean, just on the basis of what you've been saying and going back to the lovely UP story that you told about the Pandit, right? One of the things that often struck me is that how... Even in documentaries, when you look at Indian politics at the grassroots level, people are bothered about real issues. People are bothered about wages, unemployment, food, oppression of caste or gender, water scarcity. Real life issues are actually the stuff of politics at the grassroots level. But somehow, when it comes to the national level, we get more sort of dramatic issues like personalities, Pakistan, national pride. So what I'm asking you is, like real issues like, let's say, environment, which is often in a bad way in India, cities are so polluted. Why don't those issues become political issues in election times? As distinct from what you might consider theatrical issues. See, they look like theatrical issues. But if you unpeel the issue and you look behind the issue and you sort of start to look at the thing in a little more depth, you will see that behind the issue is a political force. And the political forces during trying to do something and the issues and excuse to do that, right? And the political forces, the political forces for most relatively sort of non-political, superficial people, superficial observers, they are not visible, they're hidden. And so it's like looking at a river and you go for a swim and you're like, oh, that's interesting. At the surface, there's no current. And then you take your head down, you go down five feet and suddenly you see through the current. That's what's actually going on. And a lot of the currents, the media doesn't talk about them, doesn't want to talk about them first. And second of all, one thing to understand about the nature of power, and this is universal everywhere. Power likes to hide itself. Power does not like to manifest its true nature. It likes to hide. So as an observer, as a political observer, you have to subtly look for where power is hiding and what exactly it's doing. Once you start to do that, then the drama starts to suddenly make sense. The Maya sort of thing, right? It cracks and you're like, oh, okay, I get it. This is what's happening here. Right, so sorry. Now coming back to the environment, right? The environment in a country like India, in a city like Delhi, it's a real problem. And people are feeling it. People are responding to it, et cetera. But at the larger India level, right? They would say that, listen, our problem is feeding us. Our problem is educating our children. And, you know, we got to do this first. So it is, I think, the duty of the leadership to bring in the idea and say, guys, true. But if you don't look at this, you're going to have a real problem. In the long term. Like seven, 10 years down the line. So the sort of moving the attention of the people to the future is a skill, is a political skill. And it's difficult to do in poor countries. It's much easier to do in America. And so, so that is something that we have to work on and we have to develop. So if I may ask you, if I may ask you on that question, how do you think poverty makes a negative difference here? I mean, so the environment, the real life issues. I mean, the reason why I asked this question was, you know, when I left India, I went to Australia for my PhD and I was quite struck by how in Australia there's something that political observers called the hip pocket nerve, which meant, you know, every government, incoming party, incoming government or competing political party, election time actually told you how much your income tax would be affected by every week. I mean, what's the amount of money you would actually bring back home every week? And I was amazed coming from India that this is an election election issue because it's never been in my time in India, right? And then, you know, so then I came to US and here, of course, you know, the issues are different. But these real questions of economy and things are actually discussed in the debate. That's why I was asking, where does poverty make a difference and how? So the environmental fight in India, right, is happening at a massive scale, but it's decentralized. So it is being, the problem has been attacked in a decentralized way. Right. Right? You've got a problem in a local, in a city, politically, it's being attacked, it's being challenged and the local, local fight is about that. Moving that problem to the higher level, that's, the battle hasn't reached there yet. That's one thing. Second thing is the West has the luxury of looking backwards. If you and me had gone to Manchester 100 years ago, we could ask the same question. Why are you not discussing the most important issue here? Most relevant issue is environment, right? So that's also embedded. Now, this is not to say that environment is not important. It is absolutely important and we've got to, we've got to bring the attention there, right? I mean pollution in Delhi over the last five, seven years is becoming a major issue. It's becoming a political issue. Right? So the threshold is high. And in contrast, you see certain things do become national issues. The farmers movement did become a national issue. So, and why did that become a national issue? I mean, you've been involved in the debate. So just in very briefly, what is the problem? What are the questions in the farmers movement? And why are they of national importance? I said it in a speech today. Agriculture is the biggest business in India. 40% of India is involved. 40 lakh crores. Now, what is that in dollars? 40 lakh crores. I mean, huge business. One of the biggest businesses in the world. Today, that business is owned and operated by 40% of India. The government is now attacking that ownership and saying, sorry, 40% of India is not going to own this anymore. Four or five people are going to own it. And that 40% is reacting. And the 40% is saying, wait a minute, we don't accept it. And the torch into the darkness is being shown by the farmer. But right behind him is the laborer. Right in this side is the small trader. Right next to him is the small businessman. They're all there. They're waiting. And I keep telling the government, I keep telling the government that you really need to back down on this thing because this thing is going to spread. And it shouldn't spread because it will be disruptive if it spreads and negotiate this thing. Don't try and force it through. Have a conversation. Absolutely agricultural reform is required. 100%. But the destruction of the agricultural system is not acceptable. So let's start a conversation on it. Put the bills aside, bring them back into the house. Let's discuss reform of the agricultural system. And let's do it. But not like this. Sorry for interrupting. No, not at all. This was my last question and then we should open up to have students ask their question. Wouldn't the government be worried alienating electorally the votes of this 40% in doing this? The problem is that the prime minister depends on media control to send his message. And the people who he's doing this for are the people who control the media. So his calculation is I would rather control the media and put my message through than worry about this. But I think it's a miscalculation. Okay, then I'll ask you two more questions, quick questions, and then we'll open up. One is that one of the things we haven't talked about is the population size. In my lifetime, Indian population has grown more than four times. I mean, I'm just one year younger than independence. You don't look at it at all. No, thank you, but I am. And the cities are huge now. They're all mega cities, right? What, how does population affect Indian democracy? Is that a factor at all? The central question is? The central question is? Is the population productive? Is it productive or is it not productive? Is it adding value? Is it working or is it not? You can have a country with a billion people working, being productive, no problem. You have a country of 10 million people, not productive, not working. You got a social problem in your hands. Last question. I think it's just right. But become a weakness very quickly. No, I get your point. I mean, it's the demographic dividend that we used to talk about before. And the last question is from Amity, you've moved to Wynard. You moved from North India to South India. You're a Hindi speaker, an English speaker, you're not a Malayalam speaker, but you're now located in the Southeast, your constituency. And you look at India, you know, looking up, right? From that, some peninsula part. How does India look? What does India look like from the South? And is the South different politically, culturally, from the North? It looks beautiful from the South. The South is beautiful. And Kerala is so pretty. Looking up, it looks beautiful. For me, it's been a real eye-opener. Because India is actually both. And India is the mix of both. It's much easier to talk policy in Kerala. I mean, I love it because you go there and it's okay. You know, this is what we want, one, two, three. This is how we could, you know, this is what you need to do. Thank you very much. And that's it. Simple, straightforward. Extremely solid political mobilization at the grassroots level. The system responds very quickly. In UP, it's caste war. Complete break between communities. No conversation between communities. Much more complex negotiations. You know, much harder to get things done. Many more fights. But potential is huge. So when you get it going, it's massive. So it's interesting. I love going to my constituents. I just love going there. I don't know. I mean, you know, it's not a political word, but I just love it. I go there and it's like, wow, this is just, I feel happy. I feel I've come home. There's an affection. Like mutual affection. I just want to help people. I don't know. They're just great. That's wonderful. So Rahul, we'll open it up to her other people. It's really been wonderful having this conversation with you. So our first questioner is Pranjal Chandra. Who is in doing masters in policy in the Harris school. And so he will appear on video soon to ask his question. Hello. Very well articulated about this. And how it happens. And it's very nice to listen to that. I think my question is specifically about the barriers to Indian politics and how does somebody who doesn't come from a political background or financial background in politics and not just like front end, but also back. And particular, how does a student at Harris School of Public Policy at University of Chicago from Uttar Pradesh says public policy, political campaigns and political economy and politics. At the lower levels, at the Pradhan level, at the ward level, much easier to get in. And for me, that's really the interesting level. That's very interesting for me because that's where the real political action happens. And there, it's a much more open system. At the higher levels, it gets more difficult. For someone like you, if you're interested in policy, we have a system in the Congress Party where we design manifestos for our campaigns. And that's a place you could go right now and we could slot you in there and you could start working on that. Some of the faces that you see, the senior faces in the Congress who are sort of coming from the policy side have basically come through that system. And what we'll do there is we'll send you to, say, an Uttar Pradesh and then you will spend the next one or two months doing consultations with people about what they want in the manifesto. You talk to farmers, laborers, business people, everybody, and you'll be part of the conversation. And then that manifesto will become something the government will implement. And then you can go in to one section of that manifesto and help implement it. I mean, that would be the channel that we would put someone like you through. That's great. Can I reach out to you for that? Sorry? Should I reach out to you for that then? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sam will put you in touch, Sam. I mean, I'll put you in touch. My office will put you in touch. But we've got a consultation, set of consultations going on right now and they're looking for guys like you. I'll put you right there. Perfect. Yeah. Okay, Rahul, thank you, Pranjal. The next question is from Titash Desarkar, who is the fourth year PhD student in the Department of South Asian Studies, South Asian Language and Communication. And he will soon come on video to ask his question. Hello, Mr. Gandhi. Can you hear me? Yeah, I can. Yeah, hi. So I have two quick questions. One is the overwhelming sense of fake news that has been propagated via mobile phones, TV channels, and print media. And I emphasize the kind of tremendous power of this. So how do you begin to even counter this overwhelming sense of fake news? And secondly, when activists are put in jail left, right, and center, how do you counter the fear psychosis that is being propagated across the country? Thank you so much. See, the fake news, you know, I mentioned to professor that there is a superficial level and then there's a deeper level. And the superficial level hides the deeper level often. The deeper level is an attack on the idea of union. And it is a organized systematic attack. And the idea is kill democracy institutionally. Meaning let the democratic process work, but strangle it institutionally. So you can feel the strangulation on the press. You can feel the strangulation in the courts. The fake news and the intimidation is so that people don't question this. It's frightened them away. So they don't start to ask this fundamental question, which is wait a minute. Why is this happening and who's doing it? And the force that are doing it are there, you can see them and they are making billions and billions and billions of dollars by doing it. So at the end of the day, it is wealth. It is an attempt to grab India's wealth and not give it to its people, right? That's the structure. How will it get fought? It will get fought by mass mobilization. I somebody said to me, oh, you know, why is the opposition not able to fight the BJP? And my answer is as an opposition leader, I need institutions. I need a free press. I need illegal system. I need conversation and power. These are things I need. If you take them away from me, well, Gaddafi used to win election 99% of the vote. Saddam Hussein won election 99% of the vote. That's what happened. And then to that mix, you add social media. You add control of WhatsApp. You add control of Twitter. I mean, there's a list of a thousand people. Many, many Congress people who the government has said Twitter has to shut down. This is the conversation going on between Twitter and the government of India. So the result, the answer is mass mobilization. And the answer is going to come when the people who are taking this money overreach, which is what they've done with the farm laws. They've overreached because you see, when you think the opponent is weak, you go too far. And then suddenly you realize, oh, the opponent is not that weak. The thing to understand is the opposition to the BJP and the RSS is very, very strong. It's sitting there. Simple metric. We're 60%. Even on the day of the election, we were 60%. So number one, bringing them together. And number two, when these guys overreach, they're making it expensive, which is what we're doing with this trolling, with this big news, with the farm laws. See, the one thing that you cannot argue against is that the opposition and us in a big way have torn the BJP's reputation to shreds. We've literally ripped their reputation apart. We're exposing what they're doing. Thank you so much, sir. Thank you. Thank you. All the best. Thank you. What's that picture behind you? Thank you. The next question is from Shivani Agarwal. Shivani actually did her undergraduate from the university and then graduated from the law school last year. She doesn't have video capability, but she'll ask her questions on audio. I can see her. Oh, should I? Okay. Yeah. Sorry, my video is not great right now. Your video worked. Okay. Yeah. But you know, Mr. Gandhi, I buy your point that the media is completely captured and that any opposition needs a free press and a free judiciary. But the fact is that, given that we don't have that in India right now, I know you're outspoken about it. Your party spokespeople are outspoken about it, but we don't have it. So is India doomed to the same government for the next 10 years if this does not change, given the hold that the media has on public opinion and you know, their complicity with the government? See, a nation, right? When I was talking earlier about a vision. A vision is something that comes out of a process. It comes out of a struggle. It doesn't come for free. Right? You have a particular vision of your life. It comes from a struggle that you do. You're studying. You have a particular vision. As a result of that, you've had challenges. You've dealt with them and from that crystallizes the idea that you want of the future. That's what's happening in India today. India is in a struggle to come out with the way forward. It's the Indian brain is working hard, working hard on how to come out with the way forward for India. It's challenging time. Don't think that this is a simple time. The internet revolution, connectivity, levels of violence. These are difficult things to overcome. These are not easy things to overcome. But the machine is working. The evolution is taking place. And I won't say it's not going to be painful. It is going to be painful. But to build anything beautiful is painful. And I can see it in my own life. I can see that the pain that I made to suffer is giving me clarity. So nation mustn't be scared of dealing with pain. You say, okay, this is what it is. Let's take it on and let's work together to cross this path. I fight the BJP. I fight the RSS. I don't agree with the vision of India. But the Indians, I cannot get away from that. They are my people, our people. And I refuse to hate them. I just refuse to hate them because if I hate them, we're not moving forward. So I would request you to look at this with optimism to say this is a difficult time. Have you had a difficult time in your life ever? Sure. Have you lost anyone close to you or have you had a really challenging time? Yeah. You look back and you say, wow, that helped me. It helped me understand the world. Possibly. When you're older, you'll see that. Maybe now you're like, maybe not. When you're older, you'll be like, that's interesting. I looked at the world like this and then this happened. Now I look at it like this. So view what is happening in India like that. Our beautiful country is faced with a challenge. It's in a difficulty. It's having a tough time. And all of us are. And we have to go through this thing and we've got to carry people. We can't say I don't like him because he doesn't agree with me. I don't like him because he's RSS. We've got to carry him on. We've got to bring them to the table eventually. And that's what I would say to you. Young girl who's studying in the university. Disturbed by this thing that's going on. You shouldn't lose hope. You should say this is a difficult time. And this thing, this, this time is actually going to give me the tools, give us the tools to take India to a new place. I'm confident of that. I'm very confident of that, that five years, seven years from today, you'll be seeing India with a vision, India that is closer together and India that says, wow, that is a bad time. And God, it's over. Now let's move. Thank you, Shivani. Thank you, Shivani. Thank you, Rahul for your inspiring answer. We have two more questions. So the second question, the next question is from Rodrigo Estrada, who is a fourth year student and he will appear on video to ask his question. Hello. Hello, Mr. Gandhi. Thank you for your time and your words of wisdom. My name is Rodrigo and I'm a fourth year studying economics in the college. It was reported yesterday that China and India will be pulling back troops from the disputed border mountainous territory. What does it mean given that China has been increasingly aggressive and has really acted upon these regional aspirations for regional hegemony in response, what should be India's role as its closest peer competitor and can India count on the United States to form a balancing coalition? See, you have to give the Chinese one thing. You might not agree with their system. I don't like their system. I don't like the way they run their country, but you have to give them one thing. They have a vision. They have a clear cut vision. And that vision, I mean, if you want to put it very simply, that vision is to transform the world from a maritime world to a terrestrial world. So they want to basically, if you want to put it simply, restart the Silk Road and dominate the Silk Road and control the Silk Road. That's their vision. And it's a vision which is backed by money. You need money to back a vision. So it's there. Now, it's not good enough for me to complain or for the United States to complain that, look, this is what China is doing. My question is, okay, so what's our vision? Do we have a contesting vision? What does it look like? And one of my complaints about the United States is it doesn't have one. It has a role. It has a place where it doesn't have a vision. I don't see the United States that I used to see. For example, the United States that I saw after World War II. Clear-cut vision of the world. This is what we're going to do. This is how we're going to do it. So the rest of the world is just floundering around without a vision. And the reason the Chinese came into India is because the Indian government doesn't have a strategy. A strategy magnifies power. I can be much weaker than you, but if I go to a good strategy, I can take you on. And that's what's really missing. And it's missing at the US level and it's missing at the Indian government level. And so I think about this and I'm sure people in the United States and India think about this, but there's a lot of work that needs to be done. Thank you. If you want me to elaborate a bit more, you look at the relationship between India and the United States. Today, it's about defense. It's a narrow relationship, right? It shouldn't be a narrow relationship. It should be a broad relationship. We should be working on many more areas. We should be asking many more questions. And the other thing that with all your respect, you have to give a particular space to your friend. You cannot expect that your friend is going to be comfortable if he doesn't have the space. So what I'm saying is it's a joint vision. It's not a US vision. It's a conversation with many countries. It's a conversation possibly even between the United States and China. And it's going to be because, look, the worst thing would be if these two giants go to war. And that is the ultimate nightmare for everybody. So we have to avoid that. And I think there not enough work is being done. Okay. Thank you, Rodrigo, for your question and your answer. Where are you from, Rodrigo? I'm from Texas. Okay. Nice. Okay. The last question. The last question Rahul is from Jasmine Chahal. She's a third year student in the college. And she will now appear on screen. Hi, Mr. Gandhi. Thank you so much for coming and talking with us today. Yeah. So my name is Jasmine. I'm currently in Chicago. And the question I wanted to ask was kind of along the strain of thought about this government control of media. I wanted to ask what you thought about this mass propaganda that is being spread about the farmers that are protesting. And we've seen a lot of doctored images, a lot of statements that have come out about it. And additionally, this recruitment of Indian celebrities that's been going on to spread this very promo the message against international pressure that we've seen rising about the protest. So I just wanted to hear some of your thoughts about that. The government is actually terrorized with this protest. I know it's from the inside. I speak to some of their leaders in parliament. They're terrorized. They're scared. And so they're trying to undermine it. And they are scared of what? They're scared that this protest migrates from the farm into the city. And they're terrified of it. They know that once it jumps from the farm to the city, then it's going to be unstoppable. So they're trying to undermine the farm. They're trying to tell the guy in the city, like, don't talk to this fellow. This fellow is, you know, he's not worth talking to. He's dirty. He's, you know, he's a parasite as the prime minister said in parliament. But this is coming from fear because they understand that if this thing spreads, it will do tremendous damage to them instantly. And the thing is, it's waiting to spread because you've got people in the cities who after demonetization, after a bad GST, they got nothing to do. Right. So what has happened over the last six years, right? The job creation backbone of India. Small and medium business, agriculture, these have been attacked by demonetization, GST, corona response, and now the farm bill. And so it is actually a very volatile mix. It's much more volatile than people think. And that's why I keep saying it's actually not a good thing that this stops. This stuff should be stopped in its tracks. The farm bill should be put away and a conversation should be started about reform in the agricultural sector. This is critical. India has to do it, but it cannot be done without talking to the farmers, without talking to the people who are part of that system. So it is actually fear that is causing this reaction. And by the way, the trolling is also fear. The hatred is also fear. It's like a bully, right? It's to frighten you and make you sit in your chair and walk it out. And I've experienced it with the BJP. The moment you get up there on. I've seen in my own life, I was in Gujarat. I was in a car. 10, 15, 20 BJP workers came with black flags, waving them over there, 15 yards to me. I just got out. I just told the guy, stop the car. Stop the car. Got out. My security guys were like, no, no, no, no, what do you do? I said, no, no, wait, let me go and speak to them. I went and spoke to them. They ran. They literally just ran. So it is fear that is doing this. And that's what people fighting them up to understand. Right. And so for us, as I said earlier, the biggest enemy is hatred. Because by the way, I think there's an earthquake going on. My room shaking. Anyway, the biggest enemy is hatred. Because hatred is also fear. When you hate someone, it's because you fear them. So look straight into your, into the eye of your fear. No problem. No problem at all. And so that's what I tell you, Jasmine. And be positive about your country. Where are you from? Well, I'm originally from India, but I'm currently living outside of Chicago. I did want to ask really quickly, though, I know that we're going a little over time. What the Congress party is doing to combat this police brutality that we've seen inflicted against protesters. It's, there have definitely been a lot of examples, especially circulating online of things like this happening. So I just wanted to know, like, what are steps that you think your party is taking to handle these incidents? Have you heard the word? And it's a strange word, which was used in the freedom struggle called passive resistance. It's a strange word, right? It's like, oh, I'm not going to resist actively. I'm going to resist passively. What does this mean? Right? What it means is nonviolent resistance. What it means is that I will resist you without hurting your space. That's what the Congress party does. It's the, you, when you're talking to me, right? You have a sense of connection with me. And you also have a sense of distancing with me, right? You're like, this person's different name, but all of his similar to me. That sense of similarity is the Congress. That sense of distancing is the RSS. So what the Congress does is it brings this mass of people together and say, look, look, you're the same. Come here. You don't need to be distant. You shared so much. And when that mass starts to come together, the Congress starts to build. The Congress is not an organization. The organization comes after the idea. The, the idea is empathy, compassion. I'll give you, I'll tell you a story my grandmother told me and then we end. And you know, this, this takes, this takes me back to your first question. I was a little kid. My grandmother says to me, you know, she's talking. She was telling me about ice hockey game in, in Austria in the thirties where she went. And I realized that this is what actually the Congress is. Right. So she says, well, you know, I went to this ice hockey game and it was Nazi. And the Austrians were playing one of the Eastern European countries that they don't remember now, but I think it was Czechoslovakia, one of these countries that was sort of considered by the Nazis to be inferior. And she says, I was a little girl. I'd gone away with my guardians to watch this match. And she says, I'm watching this match. And the Germans were just crashing this other team, just brutalizing. Goal after goal after goal after goal. And she says, I was sitting there and I was just being back. I was just being back. This, this, this isn't right. This is unfair. And she says, then in the middle of this one player suddenly got the puck and he broke through the German defense and he went to score the goal. And she says, I was so happy that I just got out and I started to cheer. And she says, then suddenly there was silence in the, in the place. And I got scared. I was like, what's going on? Why is there silence? And then after the silence, there was suddenly a roar that started to say boo boo boo to this little bird. And then my grandmother said, I sat down. I got scared and I sat down. And I was like, oh, a little kid. And then she, and I said, so then daddy, what, what happened? She says, I realized that I would never ever in my life sit down again. That's the Congress. And it's in you. You might not be in the organization and the organization might have feelings that doesn't allow people like you to come in, which is what we're trying to correct. But the Congress is in you for sure. So that's, I think that's the end of our time. Yeah, Rahul. Jasmine was the last. We had very, you know, many, many other questions we obviously can't accommodate, unfortunately. But, you know, it's my very pleasant duty and privilege now to thank you from the heart for being with us, for being so generous with your time and with your thoughts. And you can see that how starved our students and we are of interacting with thoughtful politicians like, like you yourself. And so we very much hope that you will come again in person. We have a very strong traditional South Asian studies across disciplines. And I'd love for you to meet our faculty, students, graduate students. It has been one of them we just met. They're all doing wonderful work on South Asia, India included, of course. And, and I wish personally, I wish you all the very best. And through you, I wish my mother country all the best for all your future endeavors and for national endeavors. It's been wonderful to have this session with you. Thank you. Thank you. And, you know, you, you, all of you together have given much more time than I have. So thank you for that. I'd quite like to have a sort of ongoing conversation. So if there's any of your students who are interested in issues in India have questions about it, you know, would like to do this type of conversation with a smaller group of people. I'm always happy to do it, you know. And I'm looking forward to coming in and having a chat there. Hopefully, COVID will have subsided. So it's something that I'd love to do. And, you know, it's been, I must tell you that I'm very impressed by the, by the students. They asked some wonderful, very nice questions. And, and I could see a sense of compassion in them, a sense of love towards their country in them. So that's