Berlin, Dec 23: Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, has asserted that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision for India is fundamentally flawed and will fail, while alleging that the country has effectively handed over its production base to China.
Delivering a speech at the Hertie School in Berlin, Germany, on the theme ‘Politics Is The Art Of Listening’, Gandhi said there was a deep ideological clash over the idea of India itself.
“A lot of us do not agree with his ideology, we do not agree with the vision of India that he has, we think that the vision will fail, and it has tremendous problems and creates massive tension in India, will make Indian people fight with each other, and so we will fight it. And it’s a clash between two visions of India,” Gandhi said while addressing the gathering.
He further claimed that India’s manufacturing sector had weakened significantly under the BJP-led government at the Centre, stating that the share of manufacturing in GDP had fallen from 17 per cent to 12 per cent during its tenure.
Gandhi criticised what he described as the outsourcing of production to China, arguing that such a trend has severely constrained job creation and poses long-term risks to democratic stability.
“To an extent, India has handed over production to the Chinese. If you look at the world in the 40s and 60s, you see that America dominated the production and then later, Germany, Italy, Japan and Korea dominated it. And today, China is dominating it,” he said.
Explaining the implications, Gandhi added, “What that means is that it is very difficult to give a large number of people employment. A country like India, the US or even Germany cannot give its people employment based on services. You have to have manufacturing and production units, and we have handed it all over to the Chinese.”
He also reflected on the global debate around democracy and production, saying, “In this transition, how do democracies produce? China has proven that you can produce in a non-democratic environment. We have to prove that you can actually produce in a democratic environment.”
Gandhi stressed that manufacturing, micro, small and medium enterprises and agriculture remain central to generating large-scale employment in India.
He called for reforms in the Goods and Services Tax regime and industrial policy to strengthen domestic production.
The Congress leader also reiterated his criticism of demonetisation, stating that it dealt a severe blow to small businesses, and linked the policy to the broader decline in manufacturing’s contribution to the country’s GDP.
IANS
