Dear Rahul Gandhi,
This is my heartfelt letter to you. Do you know that my father knew Pandit Nehru? Well, who doesn’t? But he actually met him and I recall as a little girl being taken to his house on Children’s Day and him ruffling my hair. Coming to your grandmother, former prime minister Indira Gandhi, my father – the late General Prem Bhagat knew her quite well and there is a wonderful photograph in my book, ” The Victoria Cross – A love story”, of your grandmother being introduced to young officers based in Srinagar in 1974, at a dinner organised for her, and she looked so happy.
One thing I know for sure is that they would never have spoken in any way against India, whether they were in power or not. Especially not in visits abroad.
Your father, Rajiv was in school with my brother and knew him well, and when I was working in the US, I was the Associate Producer of a documentary that became a hit in America in 1992, called “Of Snakes and Software, India at the Crossroads of Change”, and it became famous because we interviewed your father.
I recall setting up the interview and going into his office to say we had arrived. He was very charming and made me feel really welcome. The interview was in 1991 when he was trying to make a comeback. When I heard one morning in the US that he had succumbed to a horrendous suicide attack, I was in shock.
The reason I am writing this letter to you is that you come from a family that would never speak against India abroad, but you seem to be doing just this, consistently.
Why?
You say that Democracy in India, is under threat, just after your party had a huge victory in Karnataka, and PM Modi congratulated the Congress on its win. Then you say there is no press freedom but everything you say and do is reported in all out networks and in newspapers in several languages.
So, why do you speak against the one country and people that have given so much to your family? True, the voters have not warmed up towards you in particular, but then honestly, that has more to do with you than them. You haven’t really been much of a politician in your life and it seems you don’t really want to be either, except when you are abroad. Yes, you did a Yatra but you had comfortable caravans to sleep in and your party to back you all the way, and to be fair what I heard from several sources was that it was more about your image than the Bharat Jodo part. I saw your face splashed alongside that of various ordinary Indians but it was always about you.
But the fact of this letter is that unlike Nehru, Indira, and Rajiv, your trips abroad lately seem to be all about how bad India is — No democracy, no freedom of the press, minorities being mistreated, etc. How can you forget the brutal killing of Sikhs in 1984 or the riots that took place year after year in several parts of India under Congress rule? If as you say the Dalits were mistreated in the 1980s, then you have to also say it was under the Congress Government.
And as far as the major minority in India is concerned, your party used Muslims mostly as a vote bank. I have heard several of them say this and they are from all walks of life. Can they all be wrong?
Perhaps, you don’t have the kind of passion for India as an Army Brat would. You see I have seen soldiers die of awful wounds in Army Hospitals- they and their families have given us a country where we can live safely, while they live for years in conditions that no army in the world lives in – at Siachen, Ladhak, Arunachal Pradesh, manning borders, some of which places I have been too. Many die in peacetime due to high altitude sickness or falling into ravines and freezing to death.
These borders are manned by Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus. They look out for each other, yet you can actually tell a foreign audience that minorities are being discriminated against.
What exactly do you gain from the comments you make against India? Do you want to win British and American votes? Don’t you realise that you are hurting every Indian, in how you depict our country abroad? I have worked in the US for 14 years and never once have I let down my country of which I am so very proud.
Do you hate the BJP so much and our PM who is lauded the world over for being a great leader that you have to discredit every single thing that India has achieved in the last 9 years? Surely, you must know that in 2014, our banks were in a mess and India was considered one of the Fragile Five countries. Even PM Modi’s worst critics admire him for the reforms he has brought about in Jammu and Kashmir and in the banking sector, in infrastructure, housing for the poor, internet connectivity, sanitation and so much else. This is evident to most Indians but not to you. Why?
Can you deny the strides made in so many sectors in India today? Yes, we have problems and they could have been addressed in the 60-plus years of Congress rule and some were like the IITs that were built and the land reforms. No one denies this. But neither can you deny the free food benefits and the health cards that have helped the poorest families, brought under the BJP Government along with inclusive banking. This benefitted all families irrespective of their religion or caste. Surely, you must know this.
The present Government never signed an MOU with the Chinese Communist Party. We still don’t know why you did it or what was in it. I do know that we were not allowed to develop infrastructure along the LAC and also Chinese companies and products flooded into the country and many Small and Medium size companies closed shops or had to buy from China to survive. As a journalist, I heard from makers of electronic goods to our famed pharmaceutical companies.
Perhaps you thought it was a good idea, too. Today, I am really proud that I can buy Made in India products. One should be proud of our workers and our entrepreneurs as they do need a level playing field to survive and succeed.
I hope you will take this letter in the spirit it is written in. As I said in the beginning, I have had some, albeit, brief connections with your family and feel they would not speak against India in trips abroad.
Yours Sincerely,
Ashali Varma
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