IndiaðŪðģ at 75: My interaction with Dr. Shruti Kapila at the University of Cambridge
IndiaðŪðģ at 75: My interaction with Dr. Shruti Kapila at the University of Cambridge Had an engrossing conversation with Dr. Shruti Kapila at the University of Cambridge to mark 75 years of Indiaâs independence. Shared my views on a wide range of issues, the challenges India faces today, China, Ukraine, Big Tech, the path ahead for the Congress, and the need for a new vision for India.Big thanks to the organisers and the students of the Cambridge University for this wonderful interaction and for providing me with an opportunity to share my views. Intro (0:00) Union of States (4:56) India is a union of states described in our constitution. There is ongoing negotiation between these union of states. In the congress party, we view India as a negotiation between people. RSS use India as geographical entity. India comes live when India speaks (5:44) A systematic attack on the institutions that allow India to speak, parliament, election system & the basis structure of democracy is being captured by one organization. Conversation stamped out (6:22) As the conversation is stamped out, the deep state is entering those spaces. Impact can be seen in the country, you can see the type of policies which has been implemented. Democratic Structure (7:48) Democratic context depends on certain structure, it depends on election system is free, judiciary independent, Press should be fair & very importantly the type of money different political formation have. Idea is going to fight back (9:56) You cannot impose one ideology on a place as complicated as India. As they push the centralized ideology, you can see the result in the states like Tamil Nadu, Punjab, North East. Role of Nation Party (13:06) National Party that stiches up the conversation, huge opportunity for the congress party, if congress party reacts properly. All political parties go through transitions. We are not in power for 7 years, but we are in power for 70 years & we played a significant role in developing the country bring India where it is. Ideological Fight (14:46) There are two vision, BJP/RSS says social order need to be protected, what we are saying one man one vote, every one should have equal opportunity & access. We are trying to balance the rural & unban, we are trying to balance big business & farmers, labourers. MGNREGA & ADHAR (18:34) NREGA was a labour market intervention. Created a massive reaction in Indian farmers, it was a very powerful move. We had a totally different vision for Adhar, we put in Adhar sort of a unique identity & in our wildest dream we did not imagine Adhar would be useful. Today Adhar became a political weapon Tech Monopoly (22:08) I donât believe that the large social media companies are neutral. When I did a protest for a case of Dalit girl rape & magically my twitter users went to zero. Even from 40thousand a day to zero. We wrote to twitter regarding it, but no answer, 3 months later we decided to get in touch with Wallstreet Journal, a day before the article coming out, Twitter went back to 40thousands, thatâs my experience. Media Monopoly (24:23) Someone said 140/160 media entities owned by one person. So we have a media monopoly, then you have multiple business monopolies that provide finance to BJP. New vision to the country (25:01) The only way to face it by going directly to the people. Thatâs what Congress party did. There is lot of appetites, atmosphere for that & Congress party needs to redesign itself to observe that energy, use that energy to a new vision to the country. Two competing visions now in the planet (26:24) There are two competing visions now in the planet, one is the western & other is a terrestrial vision, that China dominates. China is offering to the countries around it an idea of prosperity, China is saying allow us to built infrastructure, we will have prosperity together. Alternative Vision of Prosperity (28:35) What alternative we are giving, if China offers prosperity, you can say to India that we have a defence pact that we will fight with China without the prosperity part of it. To me real question is, if there is an alternative vision, that vision needs actually create prosperity & wealth. Foreign Policy (31:44) I donât think Govt believe in Nehru idea of non-alignment, but Govt understood its constraint. But I think its better to have a foreign policy that is strategically sort out, instead of a foreign policy that you have taken one decision in one event & suddenly taken another decision in other event. Biggest learning of my life (34:05) The biggest learning of my life was my fatherâs death, there is no bigger experience than that, now I can look at it & say the force that killed my father caused me tremendous pain for sure, as a son I lost my father, then I can not get away from the fact that the same event also made me learn things that I would have never ever learnt otherwise.