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Raghuram Rajan, ex-RBI governor and ex-Chief Economic Advisor and current professor of finance at Katherine Dusak Miller Chicago, recently blamed Arnab Goswami’s 2014 interview of Rahul Gandhi on the image tarnishing of Rahul Gandhi.
In the interview to the Print, professor Raghuram Rajan says that the “disfiguring interview” completely tarnished Rahul Gandhi’s image, and that Rahul Gandhi is an otherwise “reasonable man”.
What interview is Raghuram Rajan talking about? Let us find out.
Rahul Gandhi’s Arnab Goswami Interview 2014
In 2014, Rahul Gandhi gave an interview to Arnab Goswami, where he pressed Rahul Gandhi on several questions. Watch it here.
According to Rahul Gandhi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was responsible for the Godhra Train Burning riots of 2014. It was due to his Chief Ministership that Gujarat’s communal riots of 2002 took place, and that he should be held responsible.
Yet, the interviewer Arnab calmly informs him that the Supreme Court validated the SIT’s investigation. After this, Rahul Gandhi switches gears to tell Arnab that the war is an intellectual war that he is fighting, against the majoritarian Hindus. He further affirms that then-Chief Minister Narendra Modi is indeed responsible for the said riots.
At this point, Arnab Goswami brings up the anti-Sikh riots in Delhi and Punjab after the assassination of Indira Gandhi, points out that the cases for those riots are still going on, and that Rajiv Gandhi was the Prime Minister around this time. Rahul Gandhi, once again, doubles down on this being an ideological battle, and that while both are wrong, the battle is ideological.
The Problem With Raghuram Rajan ’s Arguments
The problem with Raghuram Rajan defending Rahul Gandhi’s argument here is that he has a “holier than thou” attitude. While in both cases, it was the projection of some members of a community to an entire community, the psychology behind it was very different.
The anti-Sikh riots of 1984 were driven by personal vendettas. Satwant Singh and Beant Singh were driven by personal motives. That Indira Gandhi had asked soldiers to enter the Golden Temple in Amritsar, soldiers who partook in misbehavior like smoking cigarettes (tobacco is a big no-no in Akali Sikhism), and were vindictive, is well known.
The fact that these soldiers were not individually punished, stands as a failure of the security apparatus. Meanwhile, Bhindrawale had turned the Golden Temple of Amritsar into a brothel. This was not very well known back then. Regardless, two wrongs don’t make a right. And that Satwant and Beant Singh were lone wolves in their attack, yet their actions were pinned on the entire Sikh community is true as well. Many Congress workers, such as Kamal Nath, Jagdish Tytler, Sajjan Kumar and HKL Bhagat, were involved in these exact riots, and many of their cases are pending till date.
Meanwhile, the 2002 Gujarat riots started with the planned attack of the Sabarimala Express, as per the Nanavati-Mehta Commission. While the Bannerjee Commission had a different view on the “organized attack” aspect of this incident, it was rejected for using inappropriate methods and selective factoring of evidence. This mainly boils down to forensic reports which categorically and scientifically prove that inflammable liquids were used to light the fire in the Sabarimala express, hence confirming the intention. Many right wing leaders were implicated and arrested, and this also led to the dwindling of the numbers of the VHP in the state.
Despite the difference in motivation and organizational level, the core fact is the same: two individuals Satwant and Beant Singh assassinated a Prime Minister, and the blame fell on the entire community. Similarly, an organization of local leaders, including Maulvi Umarji, Razaq Kurkur, Mohammed Ansari and Haji Bilal, instigated the killing of pilgrims from Ayodhya, ten years after the liberation of the Ram Janmabhoomi temple, and this led to the blame being pinned on all Muslims.
This premise is the same for both cases. The acts of a few fell on the entire community, which suffered for this. And while Narendra Modi has been fairly cleared from a direct role and the VHP losing its ground base in Gujarat, the cases on Congress members still carry on today.
This is not a disfiguring interview at all. It is calling a spade a spade. Raghuram Rajan misses this fact, and falls into the ideological ‘us vs them’ trap. Modi has openly expressed sadness for the Gujarat Riots as well, in almost every instance, despite being given a clean chit. This may not be much, but it is much more than the Congress workers who till date deny their involvement. Whereas Modi’s case was put on fast track, the BJP government has also failed to put pressure towards the Jagdish Tytler and Kamal Nath cases to come to a conclusion. HKL Bhagat passed away before his case was concluded, and only Sajjan Kumar has gone to jail so far.
To not show sympathy for a case which has still not been brought to justice, which is still pending, and of which many families are still waiting for justice, is not “disfiguring”. Rather, it shows the double standards that Rahul Gandhi had in 2014, when it came to taking action.
Conclusion
We all like to believe that fairness is the way of the world. That if one incident is played out a certain way, then the other incident must also be the same way. We wish that all sides were equally bad, and we correctively rationalize one side to fit this imaginary equilibrium.
Instead, we should focus on the facts. Here, we see that while special committees fast tracked the case in one instance, a similar case was delayed for almost 40 years. This year 31st October will mark the 40th anniversary of the anti-Sikh riots that rocked Delhi and Punjab, and the alleged perpetrators still mostly roam free.
The real reason for these crimes is the abysmal lack of police in our country. There are 29 police officers for every 4,00,000 people. The global average is 300 police for every 1,00,000 people. Raghuram Rajan would be better off mentioning this.
Rahul Gandhi is not a child who wouldn’t know any better. As of today, he is older in age than Yogi Adityanath and Sudhanshu Trivedi both, He should act like a fully grown adult, and not a child, when it comes to politics.
Regardless, if anything about this is disfiguring, it is the lack of applying the same standards equally across the board to all parties. Reality is not fair, like the world inside all of our heads is. It is informed by facts of the case alone. As Raghuram Rajan enjoys his retirement in Chicago, he should not try to rationalize his echo chamber’s actions on a public forum. He should see things as they are.
