India’s democracy facing gravest threat, alleges Rahul Gandhi in Colombia

During an interaction with students at EIA University in Colombia, Gandhi said India’s democracy was facing its gravest challenge, adding that a systematic assault on its democratic system was the “single biggest risk” before the nation.

He stressed that India’s vast diversity of religions, languages and traditions could only survive within a democratic framework, but this framework was now under a “wholesale attack”.

Gandhi told the audience that India’s democratic framework was designed to accommodate its many religions, languages and traditions, and that undermining this structure would weaken the nation itself.

He argued that India’s diversity was its true advantage over countries like China, which have a centralised and uniform governance model. “India’s complexity, with its different cultures, traditions and faiths, is what makes us unique. But it only works if democracy provides room for everyone. Today, that foundation is under severe attack,” he said, stressing that even linguistic and regional divides were being sharpened.

In a wide-ranging exchange with engineering students, the Congress leader linked India’s future to global energy shifts. He traced how empires rose on past transitions -- Britain on coal and steam; and the US on oil and the internal combustion engine. He said the next great contest would be over batteries and the electric motor. “China is leading in that race. India, caught between China and America, sits right where the clash of visions is happening,” Gandhi said.

He warned that India’s service-driven economy was failing to create jobs, just as de-industrialisation fuelled political polarisation in the US under President Donald Trump. “The challenge is to build a production model in a democratic framework that can stand up to China,” he said.

His remarks have drawn a furious reaction from the BJP, which accused him of tarnishing India’s image abroad and called him the “Leader of Propaganda”.

Party spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla posted on X: “Once again, Rahul Gandhi is behaving like an LoP -- Leader of Propaganda. He goes abroad and attacks the Indian Democracy. He wants to fight the Indian state. Gandhi sometimes demands the intervention of the US and the UK, and now this. From Army to judiciary to Constitution to Sanatan.”

Another BJP leader, Gaurav Bhatia, said, “Rahul has done it again. He degrades India on foreign soil. He defamed our democracy in London, and mocked our institutions in the US. Now, he is doing it in Colombia. He spares no chance to insult Bharat globally.”