Raising the right issues

Sir — Rightly or wrongly, Congress president Rahul Gandhi took a leaf out of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s book and discussed ‘domestic politics’ on foreign soil. In his Hamburg speech, Rahul Gandhi explained (and cautioned) how exclusion could lead to extremism of a dangerous kind represented by the ‘horrific Islamic State’.

The BJP misconstrued it as justifying the formation of IS and blunted the thrust of his argument that the Government should include all citizens in the ‘development process’ and give them a sense of belonging to the nation. Rahul Gandhi said the obvious when he said that tribals, Dalits and religious minorities are on the receiving end of a great deal of prejudice and intolerance and that demonetisation and poorly-implemented GST have resulted in shutdown of small and medium industrial and business units and loss of jobs.

Rahul did not spare the RSS and accused it of denying women space in public life, spreading hate and trying to divide the country.

His avowal of faith in ‘confronting and conquering hate with love’ in his Hamburg speech resonated with all right-minded people.