Rahul Gandhi in US talk accuses Prime Minister Modi of threatening opposition

Opposition politician is expected to discuss the future of India's democracy during a 10-day visit to the US

Rahul Gandhi in San Fransisco. Photo: Indian National Congress

Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi said on Wednesday that minorities were under attack in India. During his first overseas tour after losing his seat as a parliamentarian, Mr Ghandi accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government of “threatening” the opposition.

Mr Gandhi arrived in the United States on Tuesday for a 10-day tour, during which he is scheduled to meet influential community leaders in three cities.

The 52-year-old politician was expelled from the Indian parliament in March after being sentenced to jail in a criminal defamation case over an election speech in 2019, where he mentioned that many "thieves” share a surname with Mr Modi.

Addressing a gathering of Indian-American community members in California, Mr Gandhi accused Mr Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party and the party’s Hindu supremacist ideological parent, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, of controlling politics in India.

Earlier in the year, Mr Gandhi started Bharat Jodo Yatra – the longest rally in the country in the past century, covering 3,500km in 150 days.

He said that the objective of the march is to unite the world’s largest democracy and rid it of the “politics of fear, bigotry and prejudice”.

"The government used all its strength to stop the Bharat Jodo Yatra. The BJP is threatening people and misusing government agencies. But nothing worked and the impact of the Yatra increased. This happened because the idea of 'Join India' is in everyone's heart," Mr Gandhi said during his US visit.

"The Bharat Jodo Yatra started because all the instruments that we needed to connect with the people were controlled by the BJP-RSS,” he added.

India’s opposition parties accuse Mr Modi's government of carrying out a political witch-hunt and misusing law enforcement agencies after a string of raids and arrests of opposition figures since 2014.

Responding to a question on increased attacks on Muslims in the country by the Bay Area Muslim community, Mr Gandhi said that Indians don’t believe in “hating or killing each other”.

“It is felt more strongly by the Muslim community because it is done most directly to them, but in fact it is done to all minorities. The Sikhs are feeling the same, the Dalits and tribal communities are feeling the same,” he said.

“This is a small group of people who have got control of the system, media and are fully supported by big money. There are more people who believe in love and affection ... and we have to fight hatred with affection.”

Mr Gandhi is scheduled to deliver a speech at the National Press Club in Washington DC on the future of Indian democracy and freedom of speech.

He will also hold meetings at Harvard University.

During a trip to the UK in March, the politician said during a lecture at the University of Cambridge that India's democracy was under attack, causing a stir back home. He also claimed that Mr Modi's government was using spyware to snoop on the phones of opposition leaders, an accusation the government denied.