‘Distorted, cherry-picked’: Ramachandra Guha on Rahul Gandhi, PM Modi comments

Historian Ramachandra Guha said on Saturday his comments on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress’ Rahul Gandhi were just a part of his long talk at a literature festival in Kerala.

The 61-year-old author had said people in Kerala had done a disastrous thing by electing a “fifth-generation dynast” Rahul Gandhi to Parliament as compared the Congress leader against the “hard-working and self-made” Prime Minister.

After making the comments during his talk, “Patriotism vs Jingoism” at the Kerala Literature Festival (KLF), Guha sent out several tweets to issue a clarification.

“I did say in my #KLF talk that Rahul Gandhi was a fifth generation dynast, but I said much, much, more…” he tweeted along with the text on which his talk was based.

Watch: Ramachandra Guha’s ‘fifth generation dynast’ jibe at Rahul Gandhi

“My talk was a defence of constitutional patriotism against Hindutva jingoism. I am sorry that a reporter has cherry picked two sentences out of a one hour talk to distort its meaning (sic),” he wrote.

He had talked about the differences between the former Congress president and the Prime Minister, as well as, listed some of Modi’s qualities.

“Narendra Modi’s great advantage is that he is not Rahul Gandhi. He is self-made. He has run a state for 15 years, he has administrative experience, he is incredibly hard-working and he never takes holidays in Europe. Believe me, I am saying all this in all seriousness,” he had said, according to news agency PTI.

Guha also said that even if Gandhi was “much more intelligent, more hard-working, never took a holiday in Europe, as a fifth-generation dynast he still will be at a disadvantage against a self-made person”.

Guha has been critical of Modi in the past and even called him a man with “dictatorial qualities”. Last month, he had also accused the Modi government of using CAA—which offers citizenship to undocumented migrants of multiple faiths other than Islam, from Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan—to “divert attention from a sinking economy.”

The historian said he stood by his comments on the Congress party and the rise of Hindutva in the country.

“That said, I do believe that the countrywide movement against Hindutva is handicapped by the fact that the party of the freedom movement is so closely controlled by a single family,” Guha also tweeted.

“I ended my KLF talk by saying that even if the Congress may not be up to the task, ordinary citizens will carry on the struggle in defence of constitutional values. As they have done so admirably in the protests against the CAA.”