Congress President Rahul Gandhi at Bucerius Summer School in Hamburg, Germany. Congress President Rahul Gandhi at Bucerius Summer School in Hamburg, Germany.

Congress chief Rahul Gandhi Wednesday said the BJP-led government’s weakening of “support structures” provided to the marginalised castes and sections, demonetisation and a “badly implemented” GST were the reasons for increasing incidents of mob lynchings and attacks on dalits and minorities.

Addressing a gathering at Bucerius Summer School, Hamburg, he said the US, while invading Iraq, had stopped a tribe, Tikriti network, from getting government and Army jobs and later, the tribe linked up with other groups. “And you got an insurgency that fought the US and caused massive casualties to the Americans. That insurgency then slowly entered the empty spaces in Iraq and Syria. And then it connected with the global internet to form the horrific idea called the ISIS….if you don’t give people a vision in the 21st century, someone else will give them one. That is the real risk of excluding large number of people from the development process,” he said.

Rahul said India begun a transition 70 years ago from a rural India to an urban India which meant breaking the ideas of caste. Since the transformation posed risks for different people — dalits, lower castes, tribals and minorities — it was felt that the government should support its people. He said all the governments before the one headed by PM Narendra Modi followed this ideas strongly. He said schemes like Right to Food and Right to employment have been weakened. He said demonetisation destroyed cash flows to small and medium enterprises which helped people move to urban centres. “Large numbers of people were forced to go back to the villages.”

“These three things that the government has done has made India angry …When you hear about lynchings, attacks on dalits, attacks on minorities…that is the reason for it.”

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