Rahul Proposes Alternative Agenda for ‘Revolution’ in Lok Sabha

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Rahul Gandhi in Lok Sabha on Monday Image credit INC India

Rahul Gandhi in Lok Sabha on Monday Image credit INC India

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Excerpt from Rahul Gandhi speech in Lok Sabha on President’s address to parliament debate

I would like to layout some dimensions of what an alternative address would look like, what the INDIA Gathbandhan would probably focus on and where we would lay emphasis. The future of this country is going to be decided by the young men and women of this country, the youth of this country.

So, I think anything we say has to be addressed to them, has to be spoken to them. The first thing in front of us and this is something I am sure, the Prime Minister would accept and pretty much everybody in this room will accept is that even though we have grown, we have grown fast, we are growing slightly slower now, but we are still growing.

A universal problem that we have faced is that we have not been able to tackle the problem of unemployment. No! neither the UPA government nor today’s NDA government has given a clearcut answer to the youth of India about employment.

I don’t think anybody in this room will disagree with me. I will give a little statistic for the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister, something I would agree with directionally, the Prime Minister proposed the ‘Make in India’ programme I think, a good idea we saw the statues, we saw the functions, we saw the so called investment and the result is right in front of you, manufacturing fell from 15.3 per cent of GDP in 2014 to 12.6 per cent of GDP today.

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That is the lowest share of manufacturing in 60 years. I am not even blaming the Prime Minister because I think, it would not be fair to say he didn’t try, I could say that the Prime Minister tried and I think conceptually ‘Make in India’ was a good idea, but it’s pretty clear that he failed because manufacturing went from 15.3 per cent of GDP to 12.6 per cent.

So, the first question that any alternative vision would answer to the youngsters of our country is- okay, what and how are we going to solve this problem of employment? Any country basically organises two things, you can organise consumption and then you can organise production.

Modern way of saying organising consumption is services, modern way of saying organising production is manufacturing, but there is more to production then simply manufacturing for example; agriculture also is about production.

Now, pretty much, every government since 1990 has done a decent job on consumption, on organising consumption. Which are the companies that organise consumption- Uber organises consumption, Reliance organises consumption, Adani organises consumption, but, we have, as a country, failed in organizing production.

We have excellent companies, they try to organise production, there are the Mahindra of this world, there are the Bajajs of this world, part of TATAs organises production, but the record of the country in organising production is dismal. And essentially what we have done is way of handing over the organization of production to the Chinese.

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So, this mobile phone (shown mobile phone), even though we are saying, we make this mobile phone in India, that is not a fact, this phone is not made in India, this phone is assembled in India all the components of this phone are made in China.

The network that has produced this phone is made in China, is owned by China. So, every time we use a phone, every time we wear a Chinese shirt, a Bangladeshi shirt, every time we pair of Chinese sneakers, we are paying a tax to China because some Chinese youngster is earning a salary to make or to produce that product.

So, the first message I would give in a Presidential address would be that India has to focus completely on production, because if we do not focus on production and we continue to focus only on consumption, we will find that we will run huge deficits, we will increase inequality, and eventually, we will run into a serious problem- social problem because of unemployment, which we are already facing.

If you look at the numbers of the amount of people who are in jail, if you look at the numbers that are spent on internal security, if you look at the numbers, spent on our police forces, they are all spiral, they are all rising and everybody understands, the social tension is on the rise in India.

So, now the next question comes, okay! So, where is this employment going to come from, what is India going to produce and for that I would like to tell all the youngsters of this country that there is a revolution taking place, an existing revolution, the world is transforming completely and the change that is taking place… at the heart of the change that is taking place.

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We are moving from the world of the internal combustion engine to the world of the electric motor, we are moving from petrol to batteries, we are moving wind, solar potentially nuclear energy. So, our entire way of moving is changing and this is going to change every single thing, it is going to change warfare, it is going to change medical treatment, it is going to change education, it is going to change how we eat, it is going to change every single thing.

Now, the last time there was a revolution called the computer revolution, the government of India had a clear focus, we looked at that revolution, it was a Congress government, we looked at the revolution and we decided clearly that we are going to focus on the development of software and we wrote the wave of that revolution and today you can see the result, I remember people laughing, when the computer was being talked about.

You mentioned Mr. Vajpayee, I respect Mr. Vajpayee, but Mr. Vajpayee gave a speech saying that computers have no consequence to India. So, what is important when there is revolution, what is important is that you understand, what are the drivers of that revolution and where exactly do you need to focus, where exactly do you need to sit in that revolution.

I said, that this revolution is going to change everything. And I want the youngsters in this country to think about. There is a war going on in Ukraine, the war in Ukraine is actually a war between the internal combustion engine and the motor, the electric motor is inside the drone, the engine is inside the tank and you look at what is going on in Ukraine.

The tanks are dying by the thousands and small little drones with electric motors, small batteries not much bigger than that are destroying the entire tank, artillery infrastructure of both Ukraine and Russian.

So, the drone is the electric motor, the drone is the battery, the drone also needs to see, so the drone is a camera. In the same way electric cars, the electric car is a motor, the electric car is batteries, the electric car is cameras, robots are exactly the same thing, robots are electric motors, multiple electric motors with cameras, with batteries and this is what the revolution is going to look like.

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So, there are basically four technologies that are driving this entire change in mobility, electric motors, batteries, optics and then on top of that you can apply AI. Now, people I want to tell the youngsters of this country, people talk about AI, but it’s important to understand that AI on its own, it’s absolutely meaningless because AI operates on top of data. Without data AI means nothing and if we look at data today, there is one thing which is very clear.

Every single piece of data that comes out of the production system in the world, the data that was used to make this phone, the data that is used to make electric cars, the data that is used to make basically all electronics on the planet today is owned by China.

And the consumption data is owned by the United States. In China the consumption data is owned by China, but in India companies like; Google, companies like; Facebook, companies like; Instagram, X.

They own our consumption data. So, if India wants to talk about AI, it has to first answer the question what data is going to power that AI? And the answer today is, India doesn’t have that data, neither does India have production data, neither does India have consumption data.

We have handed our consumption data to the big American companies and the production data we don’t have anyway.

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So, what would that vision look like. The first thing, we would start getting youngsters excited about this revolution. We would start to introduce the idea of a completely new way of moving, a complete revolution in how things move, we would start teaching our children in schools about, batteries about electric motors about how these things combine, about how drones, robots, electric cars are structured, how they will work together and most important, we have to start building a production network, so that we can get access to production data.

Now, what would we focus on, we would not give you a laundry list. China has at least a ten-year lead on India in the space. China has been working on batteries, robots, motors, optics for the last ten-years, and we are behind.

So, what would our President’s address say to the youngsters, we will choose critical areas in each one of these technologies and we will start to build capabilities in those areas.

The second thing we would do, we would ensure that our banking system is not captured by two or three companies that basically do not allow you to build a production system, but our banking system is open, is dynamic and is accessible to small and medium business and to millions-and-millions of entrepreneurs who want to take part in the revolution.

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