Fighting to develop an India where people are kind to each other, says Rahul Gandhi in Gudalur

Congress leader and Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday said his fight was to “develop an India where people are kind to each other”. He was speaking at the golden jubilee celebrations of St. Thomas English High School at Gudalur in the Nilgiris.

Mr. Gandhi spoke of the threats posed to democracy and democratic institutions by the incumbent government at the Centre.

“Just before I came here, I had a chat with some of your students... I asked them, what makes a good teacher? And they immediately answered: ‘she listens to us. She treats us with love and affection. She is kind to us and makes us have fun while we study’. If you want to teach somebody or want to learn, you need an atmosphere of love and affection, and of respect. An atmosphere where people are talking to each other and listening to each other and being kind to each other. And that is exactly my fight. I want to help develop an India where people are kind to each other, where people listen to each other, respect each other’s traditions, languages and religions,” he said.

Mr. Gandhi interacted with the students on a wide range of subjects, including the education system and balancing conservation with development.. Responding to a query on the Aravalli hills, he said there was an urgent need to “think about development in partnership with the environment... because if we destroy our environment, we cannot have development. So, we have to be sensitive to our environment, to these beautiful hills and its ecology, if we want to develop. What is happening in the Aravallis is completely unleashed greed,” he added.

“The job of an institution, of a school like this, is to create people who can look at information and turn it into knowledge, and even more importantly, behave with wisdom. Because, if in the information age, we do not have wisdom and are carried away by information, the world will become a very unpleasant place. We will fight with each other, harm each other,” he said.

Among those present at the event were the Nilgiris MP, A. Raja; Gudalur MLA Pon. Jayaseelan; Reverend Mathews Mar Makarios Episcopa; Correspondent of St. Thomas Institutions Jobi Koruthi, and the school’s office-bearers.

Mr. Gandhi accused the Narendra Modi government of attempting to block the release of Jana Nayagan, starring actor-turned-politician Vijay. He described the move as “an attack on Tamil culture”.

“The I&B Ministry’s attempt to block ‘Jana Nayagan’ is an attack on Tamil culture. Mr Modi, you will never succeed in suppressing the voice of the Tamil people,” Mr. Gandhi said in a post on X.