BJP national vice president M Chuba Ao on Saturday, May 28, made a blistering attack on Congress leader Rahul Gandhi for his comments that India is only a union of states and not a nation.
“Jawaharlal Nehru wrote ‘Discovery of India’, now Rahul Gandhi should rewrite India’s glorious history. He should call his book ‘Discovery of the Union of States’. I find his statement shameful. He should tender an unconditional apology,” Chuba told ‘Organiser’.
“Who gave him this intellect that he should raise doubts about India as a Bharat-varsh? I find it ridiculous…,” he said adding “My attention was drawn to the episode on Nehru’s death anniversary (May 27), it is all the more painful”.
“We never expected such a statement… India has always been a Rashra, a large nation and a civilisation and everyone is proud of it. Rahul Gandhi’s statement is shameful and more so in a foreign soil,” regretted Chuba, who hails from Nagaland.
In a video that has gone viral – one IAS officer Siddharth Verma is heard telling Rahul Gandhi at the Cambridge event – “You (Rahul Gandhi) quoted Article 1 of the Constitution saying India, i.e Bharat, is a Union of States. If you turn the page back and read the preamble, it does mention India as a nation. Bharat itself is one of the oldest surviving civilisations in the world. And the term finds its origins in Vedas…even Chanakya described India as a nation to his students while teaching at Takshashila”.
Rahul Gandhi, however, did not agree and pointedly asked if Chanakya had used the word “nation” while describing the idea of India to his students. To this, Verma responded saying Chanakya used the term “Rashtra”, a Sanskrit word for “nation” to characterise India. However, the Congress leader is found insisting that “Rashtra” meant “Kingdom” and not “a nation”.
