‘I wasn’t there during many Congress’ mistakes, but happy to take responsibility’, says Rahul Gandhi on anti-Sikh riot

Responding to a question related to 1984 riots and the Congress’ relationship with the Sikh community, Rahul Gandhi has said that a lot of the “mistakes” the Congress committed happened when he was not there but added that he was more than happy to take responsibility for everything the party has ever done wrong in its history.
| Photo Credit: ANI

Responding to a question related to 1984 riots and the Congress’ relationship with the Sikh community, Rahul Gandhi has said that a lot of the “mistakes” the Congress committed happened when he was not there but added that he was more than happy to take responsibility for everything the party has ever done wrong in its history.

Mr. Gandhi pointed out that he has publicly stated that what happened in the 1980s was “wrong”.

The remarks by Mr. Gandhi were made on April 21 during an interactive session at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at the Brown University in the U.S. The video of the interaction was uploaded on the YouTube channel of the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs on Saturday (May 3, 2025).

A Sikh student asked a question as to what attempts he was making to reconcile with the Sikh community and referred to the 1984-Sikh riots in his lengthy poser.

The student also referred to Gandhi’s remark during an earlier visit to the U.S. during which he had said the fight he was fighting was about whether Sikhs would be allowed to wear a turban in India or not.

In his reply, Mr. Gandhi said, “I don’t think that anything scares the Sikhs. The statement I made was that do we want an India where people are uncomfortable to express their religion? As far as mistakes of the Congress party are concerned, a lot of those mistakes happened when I was not there, but I am more than happy to take responsibility for everything that the Congress party has ever done wrong in its history.” “I have publicly stated that what happened in the 80s was wrong, I have been to the Golden Temple multiple times, I have an extremely good relationship with the Sikh community in India and a loving relationship with them,” the Leader of the Opposition, Lok Sabha said.

During the interaction, Mr. Gandhi had said, “All great political thinkers, social reformers and you go back 3000 years — Buddha, Guru Nanak, Basava in Karnataka, Narayana Guru in Kerala, Phule, Gandhi, Ambedkar, and you see one stream. None of these are bigots. None of these people were saying – ‘we want to kill people, we want to isolate people, we want to crush people, we believe that things should be done in one particular way’. All these people, the voices of whom are in our Constitution, are essentially saying the same thing, that carry everybody along (and emphasising on) truth and nonviolence.”

“This to me is the bedrock of Indian tradition and Indian history. I don’t know one person whom we consider great in India who wasn’t of this type. All our mythological figures, Lord Ram was of that kind, where he was forgiving, he was compassionate. So, I don’t consider what the BJP says to be the Hindu idea at all. I consider the Hindu idea to be much more pluralistic, much more embracing, much more affectionate, much more tolerant and open,” Mr. Gandhi said.

There are many people in every single state and every community who stood for those ideas, lived for those ideas and died for those ideas, he had said at the U.S. interaction.

“And Gandhiji is one of those people, probably the best in modern times but there are many of them. To me, hatred and anger against people come from fear. If you are not scared, you don’t hate anybody,” he said. Further, Mr. Gandhi also slammed the BJP and called it a “fringe group”.

“I don’t view the BJP conception as a Hindu conception. In terms of thinking, they are a fringe group, they are not mainstream. Now that they have captured political power, they have got a huge amount of wealth and they have got power, but they don’t represent the large majority of Indian thinkers by any means,” Mr. Gandhi had said.