Sangeeta Sharma
BHARAT JODO YATRA
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s speech at Aroor (Alappuzha district), Kerala
New Delhi, Sept 20 (LAB)Kerala is the land of Shri Narayana Guru, of Chattampi Swamikal Ji, of Mahatma Ayyankali Ji-Rahul Gandhi in a public meeting at Aroor (Alappuzha district), Kerala, during the Bharat Jodo Yatra.
Will Narayana Guru Ji have approved the violence in India today, there will not be a single person in this crowd, who will say yes. If I ask you, would Chattampi Swamikal say that people should attack each other, people should beat each other, you would say no, he would never say that. And if I ask you, would Mahatma Ayyankali Ji say that society should be full of hatred, division, anger, you would say, no, he would never say that. So, what did these great leaders stand for? They stood for the respect of other people. They stood for humility. They stood for love and affection and that is why they are remembered in Kerala today.
I would like to ask you the name of one great leader who you remember, who said we should divide society, we should kill people, we should hurt people. I want to hear his name. There is no such leader. People who preached hatred, anger, and destruction are always forgotten. People who preach humility, respect, affection, and love are remembered forever and they are remembered because they do a service to the people. They give strength to people, they give courage to people and that is why they are remembered.
And today, if you look at our country, the people who are leading our country are spreading hatred and division. Listen to their speeches and you will find that there is not a single speech where they preach affection, love, and humility.
They do not speak with humility. They speak with utmost arrogance and they spread hatred and anger. No country can succeed if it is angry, and full of hatred and arrogance. India has never been successful when it has been angry and full of hate and India has never failed when it has been full of love, affection and humility and these ideas that your leaders, your great leaders like Narayana Guru Ji supported and spread. We have the same ideas behind the Bharat Jodo Yatra. We are not abusing anybody, we are not threatening anybody, we are walking with humility and with the idea that the people of India, the people of Kerala, have knowledge. It is not easy to walk from Kanyakumari to Kashmir. You might ask, why are you walking, why not go by car, why not sit in an air-conditioned car and go across it?
The reason is that we understand very clearly the struggle that you face every day in your life and, if you are going to walk on these streets, then we are going to walk on these streets with you.
When the idea of a yatra first came, the seniors in the Congress said to me, that we should do a yatra and we should drive from Kanyakumari to Kashmir. But, I told them, that if you are serious about doing a yatra, if they are serious about sending a message to the people of India about the situation India finds itself in, then I will happily walk from one end of the country to the other.
Brothers and sisters, hatred, anger and arrogance have their consequences. It does not come for free. The consequences of the hatred that the BJP has spread, the consequences of the arrogance of their leadership, and the consequences of division that they have created in the country can be seen by all of you.
With the highest unemployment in our history, young Keralites, and young Indians can simply not get a job. Does not matter what your education is: undergraduate, master’s, PhD. Does not matter, you cannot get a job in this country anymore. The second richest man in the world is an Indian person. He owns all the airports and all the ports, and he controls multiple businesses, agriculture, infrastructure, power, the solar, wind, and mining, he has a monopoly practically in every business in India and there are four or five people like this. All of them are close to the Prime Minister of India. They support him fully and in this environment, where we have the second richest person in the world, we cannot have jobs for our youngsters.
On one side, you cannot get jobs, on the other side you have the highest prices you have ever faced. These are consequences of the hatred, the division and the anger that they spread in society and our opponents from outside can see what is going on in India. They can see India is divided, they can see India is full of hatred; they can see clearly an arrogance in our leadership. So today, for the first time, we are in a situation where the Chinese have occupied thousands of kilometres of our lands. They have entered our country and they have taken our land and our Prime Minister has said publicly that nobody has entered. Our army has said that they have entered and our Prime Minister has denied it. But the Chinese are sitting on Indian land the size of New Delhi. This is the reality, this is the truth, and it is because India has been weakened, and the energy of the Indian people has not been utilised. They are suffering, they don’t have work and they are facing the highest prices.
They are divided and they see a country that is full of hatred and the idea of the Bharat Jodo Yatra is to make it very clear that India refuses to be divided. India refuses to be full of hatred and most important, India refuses to be arrogant. We are a humble people. See the difference between a humble person and an arrogant person, the humble person understands very clearly what his power is, and what his position is. The humble person understands very well, who and what he is. An arrogant person does not understand who he is and so an arrogant person takes decisions that are always going to be wrong.
This country’s great strength is its humility. It is its compassion. It is the respect it has for itself and its people. Brother and sisters, these are not our weaknesses, these are our strengths and using these strengths, we can take on any challenge this is what I have learnt from the people of Kerala and the people of India. So, I want to thank you for showing this to the rest of the country and to me. Throughout the yatra, you are supporting us with love and affection.
I get up in the morning and I walk the whole day. Normally what happens is when you get up in the morning and you are walking the whole day, the first step is easy and the last step is difficult. In Kerala, I am faced with a mystery. I didn’t understand it for two or three days. I would get up in the morning, I would walk the whole day and then I would find that the last step of the day was easier than the first one.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s full speech at Aroor (Alappuzha district), Kerala today-September 20, 2022. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRxtntpkg6o