Speak your mind in divided India: PC

Charging that the minorities, Dalits, tribals and extremely poor people were being treated as second or third class citizens in the country, former Union Finance Minister and senior Congress leader P Chidambaram on Sunday night exhorted the people from various walks of life to speak their mind on the manner in which the country was being divided under the Narendra Modi dispensation.

“This is the time for each one of you — father, mother, homemaker, small businessmen, middle busineasman, pensioner, student, young man or woman — to speak your mind and write. I am not asking to write to a newspaper. Write to your people close to you and share your agony or what you see. How can this country survive when it is divided so much,” Chidambaram said.

“It so happens that minorities, Dalits, tribals and extremely poor people have begun to think that they are being treated as second or third class citizens in the country,” the Congress leader said, while delivering a lecture on “Divisive Poltics-Stagnant Economy” organised by the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCCD) at Thane’s Kashinath Ghanekar auditorium.   

He made these remarks, while coming out in support of retired IPS officer Julio Ribeiro who had publicly defended Archbishop of Delhi Anil Joseph Thomas Couto for his much-discussed appeal for prayer for the country that faces “threat” to its democratic principles and its secular fabric.

“The Archbishop’s letter was apolitical and his appeal for prayer for the country that was witnessing a turbulent political atmosphere which poses a threat to the democratic principles enshrined in our Constitution and the secular fabric of our nation’. The letter makes no mention that the prayer was aimed at voting out the Modi Government in 2019. Still he was viciously trolled in the social mkedia for 15 days. What wrong did the Archbishop do?,” Chidambaram asked.

Alluding to a newspaper article in which Ribeiro defended the Archbishop Couto and said that he was prepared to accept being a second-class citizen but would not accept being termed as an anti-national, Chidambaram said: “An old man and a truly national hero says: I am prepared to accept he is a second class citizen in this country but will not accept to be termed as anti-national. Is Julio Riberio an anti-national? Will Ribeiro ever be second class citizen in this country. But, believe me a lot of people are being currently treated as second-class citizens in the country”.

Slamming the Modi Government for ruining the country’s economy during the last four years, Chidambaram likened the country’s economy to car with three punctured tyres — private consumption, private investment exports and Government expenditure.  “Private consumption is eight-year year low in the country. There is hardly any investment. Export growth is zero in the last four years. The economy is running only available tyre that is Government expenditure based on taxation which is not good for the economy,” the former Finance Minister said.

Maintaining that the Government messed up the concept of GST which was a Good and Simple tax as was devised by the UPA Government in 2006, Chidambaram said that there was no provision for refund in the multi-slab GST or “Gabbar Singh Tax” being implemented by the Modi dispensation. He said that the first thing that the Congress-led UPA Government, when voted to power in 2019, would  do  to “unravel” the GST.