Summit Storm: Shirtless Protests, A Robot Dog, and Questions Around Rahul Gandhi

By Kumkum Chadha    

The one question many, also from among the Congress, are asking: Has Rahul Gandhi lost it? Well, if one has to take into account the most recent development then the answer is definitely a Yes.

When the BJP government was burning the midnight oil to make the India AI Summit a success, it had not bargained for bad  publicity. Neither had it imagined that a Chinese robot dog would come to haunt it; or a pan-India political party would leave the government red-faced.

It started with a private university, Galgotia, to be precise, that presented Orion, a Chinese robotic dog, as its own manufacturing marvel. To quote one of its overzealous spokespersons: “We are the first private University investing more than 350 crores in artificial intelligence. So, Orion has been developed by the centre… quite a naughty robot”.

It later turned out that the “naughty dog” was Unitree Go2: a commercially available robot made by a Chinese firm. It is reportedly available in India for a little over two lakh rupees.

Of course, the university was asked to pack its bags and leave the Summit, but the false claim and the embarrassment of downright plagiarism was there for everyone to see.

Even as the government was attempting a near impossible damage control, another salvo was fired at it: this time by the Congress party. It was on February 20 that protesters entered one of the halls in Bharat Mandapam where the high-level summit was underway.

According to the police, a group of young men, later identified as Youth Congress members, staged a protest targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The drama unfolded after the protestors completed the mandatory online registration process and entered the venue. They wore sweaters and jackets over their T-shirts.

In a dramatic move, the jackets came off as did the T-shirts. Bare-bodied, the group of young men started raising slogans against Prime Minister Modi. In fact, their T-shirts carried offensive anti-Modi messages.

The shirtless protest, as the demonstration is now known, was aimed at targeting the government signing the Indo-US trade deal, which the Congress alleges is a sell-out.

This time around opinion is not divided on the protests being in bad taste, rather lowering the image of the country when foreign delegates from around the world were attending the Summit.

The Congress’ defence that “protests happen during international events” did not cut ice. Neither did Congress Spokesperson Supriya Shrinate’s “shut up and sit down” barb to those opposing the protests. “Doesn’t the country’s image get tarnished by bowing down and surrendering to America to clinch a trade deal?” she wrote, as she accused the prime minister of “sacrificing farmers’ rights” and “handing over all our data to America”, besides “stopping oil purchases from Russia under American pressure”.

Opposition parties and Congress allies, though measured in their collective response, did not support what most dismissed as an “ill-conceived idea of a sick mind”.

If Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav said that “what Congress did on the global platform… brought shame to the country”, BSP’s Mayawati said that “any expression of anger through semi-nudity is unbecoming and reprehensible”.

It was the nudity spiel that Prime Minister Modi milked to the hilt, so to speak. “The Congress was already naked” he said at a public rally in Meerut. “The Congress turned a global event for India into a platform for its dirty and naked politics. Congress leaders reached the venue naked in front of foreign guests. The country already knows you are naked; why did you need to remove your clothes?” Modi said reiterating that the Summit was not a BJP event.

Union Minister Giriraj Singh went a step further by saying that he did not rule out Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi turning up in Parliament in his underclothes, “under wear” to use Singh’s words. For record, Rahul Gandhi’s attire has been under scrutiny for some time now for violating Parliament’s unwritten dress code.

MPs make it a point to dress appropriately while attending Parliament: either in a kurta pyjama or a collared shirt and trousers. All casual wear, including jeans were a complete no-no, till of course Rahul Gandhi gave a go-by to the norm. His signature dress—a white short sleeved T-shirt. On one occasion, when Parliament sat late into the night, Gandhi was seen entering the House in night-wear pyjamas.

That Gandhi has been grabbing headlines is a given, particularly when Parliament is in session. As master of the ring, he has been steering disruptions in the House and derailing proceedings. For instance, his mentioning former Army Chief General MM Naravane’s unpublished book in February disrupted proceedings in the Lok Sabha.

Gandhi had attempted to put the government on the mat by questioning Prime Minister Modi and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on government inaction on the China border.

Referring to some passages from the book, Gandhi said that Prime Minister Modi shirked responsibility when the general spoke about “Chinese tanks approaching Indian territory” in 2020 after the clash in Galwan Valley. BJP members were on their feet saying that quoting from an unpublished book is against the rules of Parliament.

The row over the book apart, women MPs from the Opposition joined hands and walked towards the prime minister’s seat with banners in hand.

Prime Minister Modi was expected to come to the Lok Sabha to reply to the Motion of Thanks. Women MPs trooped in to where the prime minister sits, raising objections over the Indo-US trade deal and the controversy over Naravane’s book.

Later Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla stated that he had “requested” the prime minister not to come to the House for fear that women MPs could create an “inappropriate incident” near the prime minister’s seat.

Even as the women MPs rejected the charge calling it “defamatory”, it was a victory of sorts for the Opposition, given that the prime minister could not reply to the debate in the Lower House of Parliament. 

The Congress seems to be doing what was done to it 22 years ago. The last time that the Motion of Thanks to the President’s address was passed without the prime minister’s reply was in June 2004, when the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh could not reply to the debate in the Lok Sabha following BJP protests. He had then asked the Lok Sabha to put the motion to vote without his reply.

A year later, while speaking in Parliament on the Motion of Thanks, Dr Singh mentioned that he had not been allowed to speak the previous year. You win some, you lose some. Equally some things work and some don’t.

This time around, if the Congress party scored by not letting the prime minister speak even as it pushed for its right to be heard, on the shirtless protest it was on a weak wicket. The consensus: even if the protest was right, both the venue and the manner was unbecoming particularly for a political party that is positioning itself as a main Opposition party.

Add to that Rahul Gandhi calling the protesters “Babbar shers” and the rot is complete. “I am proud of my Babbar sher colleagues… who have fearlessly raised their voices… against the compromised PM,” he posted affirming that he stands firmly with the protesters. For the right minded, it could not get worse than this.

It is at this point that one needs to stop and ask: is politics above the nation? Is a summit a BJP event? Should India be compromised in the presence of foreign dignitaries? And should international events be held ransom to petty politics? If the answer to any or all these questions is a Yes, then all us who are proud nationalists and self-assured Indians can only hang our heads in shame.

—The writer is an author, journalist and political commentator