The only way to let the sufferings of violence go is forgiveness, Congress President Rahul Gandhi said citing his personal experience.
“And for forgiveness, you need to understand where it is coming from. My father was killed by a terrorist in 1991. When the terrorist died a few years later, I was not happy. I saw myself in his children,” Rahul Gandhi said in Germany on what he felt when LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran — a key accused in the murder of his father and former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi — was shot dead by Sri Lankan troops in 2009.
He said he was not happy when the news reached him. “I called up my sister. I said to her that it is strange, but I am not happy. I should be celebrating that the person who killed my father is dead,” he said.
While addressing a gathering at the Bucerius Summer School, Gandhi said he lost two members of his family due to violence.
“My grandmother (Indira Gandhi) and my father (Rajiv Gandhi) were both killed. So, I have suffered violence. I am talking actually from experience. The only way you can move forward after violence is forgiveness. There is no other way. And to forgive you have to understand what exactly happened and why it happened.”
He added that the reason he was not happy was because he saw himself in Prabhakaran’s children. “Him lying there actually means there are kids like me who are crying. You might call him a bad, evil person, but violence against him was impacting others like it impacted me,” he said. “The only way you move away from violence is through forgiveness.”