New Delhi: Congress Leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday evening gave a lecture on 'Learning to Listen in the 21st Century' at United Kingdom's Cambridge University. "Indian democracy is under attack and several politicians, including himself, are under surveillance," said Gandhi during his address. His statement drew sharp reactions from the BJP which accused him of maligning the country's image on foreign soil after facing successive electoral setbacks. The Wayanad MP is a visiting fellow of the Cambridge Judge Business School. Gandhi is on a week-long tour of the UK and is scheduled to hold some closed-door sessions on Big Data and Democracy and India-China relations at Cambridge University.


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Here are the ten points from Rahul's address:


Gandhi referred to the controversial Pegasus snooping issue and alleged that the Israeli spyware was installed on the phones of a large number of politicians, including him.


The former Congress president listed five key aspects of the alleged attack on Indian democracy --Capture and control of media and judiciary; surveillance and intimidation; coercion by federal law enforcement agencies; attacks on minorities, Dalits and tribals; and shutting down of dissent.


 



The 52-year-old former Congress chief said that the institutional framework which is required for a democracy: Parliament, a free press, the judiciary and just the idea of mobilisation, these are all getting constrained. 


Rahul Gandhi, who gave a presentation, noted that in the Constitution, India is described as a Union of States and that Union requires negotiation and conversation. He also showed slides on the screen of him being confronted by police officers outside Parliament in New Delhi.


"It is that negotiation that is coming under attack and threat... You would have also heard about the attack on the minorities and press," he said, adding that protecting and defending Indian democracy is more than just about India but about defending the "democratic structure and democratic system on the planet".


"I have got a number of criminal liable cases for things that should under no circumstances be criminal liable cases, but that's the story and that's what we are trying to defend.


"As the Opposition, it is very difficult to communicate with people when you have this type of an assault on the media, on the democratic architecture," he said, explaining the motivation behind his Bharat Jodo Yatra ? a 4,081 km walk through 14 Indian states from September 2022 to January 2023 to draw attention to "prejudice, unemployment and growing inequality in India".


Gandhi recalled his student days at the university, which he said had given him a lot "in terms of knowledge and understanding?.


The second strand of his lecture focussed on the "two divergent perspectives? of the US and China since World War II and the final strand was around the "Imperative for a Global Conversation", as he knitted the different strands together in a call for a new type of receptiveness to various viewpoints.


Gandhi is on a week-long tour of the UK and is scheduled to hold some closed-door sessions on Big Data and Democracy and India-China relations at Cambridge University. Later in the week, he will interact with representatives of the Indian Overseas Congress (IOC) UK chapter and also address an "Indian Diaspora Conference" planned over the weekend in London.