Reimagining India

After a Long Innings of Two Decades as Congress President, UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi Looks Ahead at the Forces Posing a Challenge to the Country’s Democracy and Shares Her Vision for the India of Tomorrow

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PUBLIC SPEAKING does not come naturally to me. Perhaps that is why I was once described as more a reader than a leader.

The whole world seems to be in the grip of an epic upheaval. Technology and connectivity are colliding with inequality and insecurity. Societies everywhere are being rapidly and profoundly changed. This is true of our country as well.

Our people are increasingly impatient, ambitious, aspiring and aware. Our institutions are still evolving and need to be revitalised. Governance in the decades since our Independence has seen a continuity and direction rooted in the legacy of our founding fathers. Yet, today, we are being presented with an alternative, and indeed regressive, vision of who we were as a people, what we are and what we should be. This re-imagination is based on a distorted perception of our history, and it is a fatally flawed view of what will secure our future.

Ours has been an open, liberal democracy. It has been representative and participative. It has been fuelled by political competition with due regard to rules, traditions and conventions. Our open, liberal democracy has strengthened the bonds of unity without imposing uniformity. Our republic has not just been accepting of different points of view, but has encouraged debate and discussion. It has allowed for disagreement, dissent and protest. It has demonstrated its capacity for dialogue and compromise.

For years, our public discourse has been anchored in decency, reason and argumentation, and not in invective, innuendo and abuse. What has made our democracy precious is conversation, not monologues; accountability, not shunning any form of public questioning and interrogation.