Modi's reminder on intolerance has a Bibek Debroy and Sonia Gandhi link

This seems to be the week of revisiting history. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday reminded people of an incident when top ranking for Gujarat by economists got New Delhi infuriated. Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat then. The controversy led to the exit of Bibek Debroy, one of India's top economists, from a Congress-linked institute for which the expert blamed the party's leader Sonia Gandhi.PM Modi mentioned the incident while delivering the plenary speech at India Today Group's Kisan Tak Bharat Agriculture Conference at New Delhi's Bharat Mandapam.Earlier this week, Congress matriarch Sonia Gandhi released her memoir, Belonging: A Journey of Love. This incident that has to do with the Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies, like several other controversies, doesn't find a mention in that.The RGICS is the division of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, which has Sonia Gandhi as its chairperson, but claims to be independent of the views of the Foundation's trustees. But the incident that PM Modi referred to on Thursday at the Kisan Tak event involves that connection, and the debate about democracy and intolerance.In an apparent jibe at Congress leader and Sonia's son, Rahul Gandhi, Modi said, "These days, some people take out the Constitution from their pockets. They think that the country's Constitution and democracy are in their pockets. Even when they are not in government, they have a different kind of intoxication with power." Then Modi referred to the incident from when he was the chief minister of Gujarat without dropping any names, but enough hints."You may remember that there was a time when people in the media used to rank the best-performing states. In one such ranking related to the economy, Gujarat was ranked number one, and at that time I was the Chief Minister of Gujarat. The institution that gave Gujarat the number one ranking was named after a former Prime Minister of India. That hint is enough; you can find the name yourselves," said Modi.Then he mentioned how Gujarat getting the top ranking in economy had irked those in power in Delhi."This ranking was based on research conducted by some of the country's most-respected economists. But the people sitting in power in Delhi did not like Gujarat receiving that recognition. They formally instructed those conducting the research that things could not continue this way. They said that from then onward, no report could be published without their approval first," said Modi.The incident Modi was describing at the India Today Group event on Thursday was from 2005. It was the time the Congress-led UPA was in power at the Centre and Sonia Gandhi was the coalition's chairperson.That becomes evident when we take into account what Bibek Debroy, former Chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to the PM and a member of Niti Aayog, revealed in 2015 amid the heated debate over "rising intolerance" in India. Debroy, who passed away in November 2024, was then the director of the Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies (RGICS).Debroy's revelation on "intolerance" came in an interview to India Today TV in November 2015.He said in the interview to Karan Thapar, who hosted To The Point programme on India Today TV, that he experienced several instances of "intolerance", and many of them at the behest of Sonia Gandhi, the chairperson of both, the UPA and the RGICS's parent body.One instance, he said, was in 2002 when Debroy had invited Seshadri Chari, then editor of the Organiser -- the RSS mouthpiece -- to a conference on Indian politics. "There were people who spoke on behalf of Mrs [Sonia] Gandhi, not herself, and said 'Please do not invite Seshadri Chari. I stuck to my guns. It did not cross the threshold," said Debroy.The other instance Debroy, then a Niti Aayog member, recounted was what PM Modi was hinting at on Thursday."It was about a paper that I and a colleague undertook called An Economic Freedom Rating of States in India. It was published in 2004, and ranked Gujarat No. 1. No one objected, until 2005," said Debroy in the 2015 interview to India Today TV."In 2005, when the municipal elections were happening in Gujarat all hell broke loose. I was told that henceforth, any publication by the RGICS has to be politically vetted. This was sent to me signed by Mrs Sonia Gandhi, who was the chairperson, on a standard green sheet of paper," said Debroy, adding, "I resigned."After Debroy's remarks, the Congress came up with a rebuttal over his exit. It released papers and statements countering Debroy's allegations.Debroy, it said, quit RGICS in December 2005 when his two-year contract ended, according to a report in The Times of India. The Congress said that Debroy had earlier "on June 30 expressed his desire to quit on September 1 but the offer was rejected", according to the report.This coincided with Sonia Gandhi heading the National Advisory Council (NAC) as its chairperson, suggesting and monitoring social welfare policies of the Manmohan Singh government. The NAC was criticised by the BJP and other parties in the Opposition as an "alternative Cabinet" and Sonia was referred to as the "Super PM".She resigned as the NAC Chairperson in March 2006 amid the "office of profit" controversy.The attacks over the NAC find a mention in Sonia Gandhi's Belonging. She tries to justify its working and suggested schemes with the Congress-led UPA being returned to office by voters."For all its work, the NAC was continuously reviled through its existence as 'Sonia Gandhi's kitchen cabinet'. And yet I feel it was the combination of both factors — economic growth and social justice — that gave our party a second term in the general election of 2009," Sonia writes in her recently published memoir.The Congress-led UPA was voted out in 2014 as the Modi-led BJP stormed to power at the Centre. It was returned to office with a bigger mandate in 2019, and the 2024 general election saw him do a hat-trick as the PM.There were allegations of polarisation, intolerance and restrictions on democratic institutions since the BJP came to power in 2014."That was the situation then, and today those very people go around delivering lectures on tolerance and democracy," said Modi on Thursday at the Kisan Tak conference, alluding to the RGICS ranking fiasco.Debroy's criticism of Sonia Gandhi's interference in academic freedom in 2005 and PM Modi's reference to that in India Today Group's Kisan Tak conference add a recent history to the debate on democracy and intolerance.- Ends