On April 26, while addressing an election rally at Vijaypura, Rahul Gandhi said that before we got the Constitution, ‘Rajas and Maharajas used to rule India’. He further implied that those Rajas had oppressed the common people and denied them their rights.
One of the many blatant falsehoods packed in Rahul Gandhi’s speech was rightly called out by PM Modi during a public rally in Belagavi, when he said, “The Congress prince has said that the Rajas and Maharajas of the past were brutal rulers who snatched the properties of the common people. He said they routinely exploited their subjects. What does this mean? It only means that he has insulted great kings like Shivaji Maharaj and queens like Kittur Chennamma.”
Rahul Gandhi’s attempts to divide Hindu society and turn Hindus against their own civilizational heritage has been apparent to anyone closely following his speeches of late – hence, PM Modi was also right to say that Rahul Gandhi did not dare speak of the atrocities committed by Nawabs, Nizams, Sultans, and Badshahs, over several centuries.
While mainstream media outlets are busy churning out apologia for Rahul Gandhi and projecting PM Modi as the ‘aggressor’, such as this piece in The Hindu, what everyone seems to have missed out (even the PM) is the most blatant omission by Rahul Gandhi. Before the country became Independent, it was ruled by the brutal British colonizers – it was the British Monarch, not our own Rajas and Maharajas, who looted our country and killed millions.
First from 1757 to 1857, the British East India Company (EIC) gradually came to dominate the entire country as it plundered our land and massacred its people. After the First War of Independence in 1857, the British Crown took direct control of Bharat, and proceeded to exploit Bharat’s resources and people even more harshly than the EIC. In 1877, British Queen Victoria was proclaimed as ‘Empress of India’.
British engineered famines killed millions, and several lakh people were forced to take up indentured slavery in British plantations in places like Fiji, Caribbean etc. Bharatiya manufacturing prowess and industries like textiles and ship-building were deliberately wrecked by the British. A regime of legalized and systematized violence kept our people in terror, our native educational system was destroyed, and legal and academic frameworks imposed by British bred an inferiority complex and divided our society so badly that we are yet to recover from its after effects. From 23% of global economic share around 1700, Bharat’s share sank to 4% by the time we gained Independence.
A 16-minute animated documentary ‘The Unmaking of India: How the British Impoverished the World’s Richest Country’ should be made mandatory viewing for every high school student in Bharat, as there is a serious lack of awareness amongst our masses about just how ruinous the British colonial period was.
In fact, the princely states where our Rajas exercised nominal control under the British Raj, were usually better governed than the regions under direct British control. Peasants who were brutally exploited by British tax collectors or the British-appointed zamindars, often fled to princely states to gain some respite. Mysore and Baroda are examples of princely states that invested in education, science and welfare of their people, while the British Raj was only interested in exploitation of Bharat’s resources for Britain’s benefit.
When Rahul Gandhi attacks the Rajas and Maharajas of Bharat, he is basically denigrating everyone from Sri Ram to Chhatrapati Shivaji and all royal dynasties in-between – the Guptas, Rajputs, Chalukyas, Kakatiyas, Cholas, Ahoms etc. Sure, there were bad kings, but our civilization has only respected those Kings who prioritized the interests of their subjects and upheld Rajdharma. And its not like democracy has delivered great leaders all the time – the likes of Mamata Banerjee, Rahul Gandhi’s own Nehru-Ghandy-Vadra clan, the Lalu Yadav clan, Jyoti Basu and so many-2 examples of bad democratically-elected leaders exist not just in Bharat, but across the world.
Rahul Gandhi’s recent rants, looking to sow discontent among Hindu SCs, STs, OBCs, poor GC (general category), women, by painting them as ‘victims’ of oppression by the GC male; telling janjatis (aka adivasis) that they are ‘original owners’ of country’s land and resources who were dispossessed and oppressed by other Hindus, not the colonizers; pushing failed Maoist-communist ideas of collectivization and wealth redistribution that even China and Russia have now abandoned; hate for Dharma which can be seen clearly in his mocking of the Dharmic doctrine of rebirth; the incessant rhetoric centered on caste-economic survey to fuel more quota politics and loot of public money under guise of social justice – all these portend danger signs for our nation.
Rather than debate with the government on economic growth, industrialization, legal and judicial reform, and how we can learn from East Asian countries that rapidly grew their economies and achieved middle-income status, our bankrupt Opposition led by Congress is driving the discourse in the opposite direction, towards failed, divisive, far-Left/Communist ideas that are designed to keep us a poor, conflict-ridden country for even more time to come.
But the most dangerous turn Rahul Gandhi has taken is his blatant, naked hate for Bharat’s civilizational heritage, his whitewashing of colonial crimes and his increased dalliance with anti-Bharat, anti-Hindu foreign elements. The chatter of ‘post-Hindu India‘ that was being heard in secular circles during UPA-2, has now returned with a vengeance. Letting Rahul Gandhi and his coalition coterie anywhere near power will be akin to committing civilizational suicide.
