RSS and BJP want women to stay at home, Rahul Gandhi tells Indian diaspora in United States

Washington: Love, respect and humility are missing in Indian politics, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said while addressing the Indian American community in Texas, where he also accused the RSS and the BJP of believing that women should stay at home.

Gandhi was addressing the Indian American community in Texas on Sunday in Dallas during his first interaction with the Indian diaspora after becoming Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha this summer.

During an interaction at another event, Gandhi said that the attitude of Indian men towards women needs to change. The 54-year-old said he is a supporter of women’s participation in politics starting with the women's reservation bill. Gandhi said women should be supported financially if they want to start a business and they should be treated equally to men.

“The BJP and the RSS believe that women should be restricted to a particular role. They should stay at home, they should cook the food, they should not talk too much and we believe that women should aspire to whatever they want to do,” the Congress leader said.

"The RSS believes that India is one idea. We believe that India is a multiplicity of ideas," he said during his address to the Indian American community.

"Very much like the United States, we believe everybody should be allowed to participate. We believe that everybody should be allowed to dream, (and) everybody should be given space, regardless of their caste, language, religion, tradition, history,” he said.

“This is the fight. The fight crystallised in the election when millions of people in India clearly understood that the Prime Minister of India was attacking the Constitution of India. Because what I am saying to you is the union of states, respect to languages, respect to religions, respect to traditions, respect to caste. This is all in the Constitution,” Gandhi added.

Gandhi said his role was to inject values of love, respect and humility into Indian politics.

“I think what is missing in our political systems and across parties is love, respect and humility. Love to all human beings, not necessarily only people of one religion, one community, one caste, one State, or to those who speak one language," he said.

"Respect to everybody who is trying to build an India, not just the most powerful, but the weakest and humility, not in others, but in oneself. I think that is how I see my own,” he added.

Making an indirect reference to the Lok Sabha results in which the BJP failed to get a majority on its own, Gandhi said, "The people were saying the BJP is attacking our tradition, attacking our language, etc. What they understood was that anybody who is attacking the Constitution of India is also attacking our religious tradition."

“We saw that immediately, within minutes of the election result, nobody in India was scared of the BJP, of the Prime Minister. These are huge achievements. These are huge achievements of the people of India who realised democracy, of the people of India who realised that we are not going to accept an attack on our Constitution. We're not going to accept an attack on our religion. We're not going to accept an attack on our States,” he said.

Asserting that the US needs India and vice versa, Gandhi said the Indian diaspora is a "bridge" between the two nations.

"In my view, you should travel freely between these two homes. You should bring the idea of India to the United States and the ideas of the United States to India,” Gandhi said in his remarks.

“You have a very important role because the relationship between these two unions is going to determine the future of both” the countries, he said.