Gulbarga, Aug. 14: Caste-based discrimination at home is bigger than the racial discrimination Indians are facing abroad, said the AICC general-secretary, Mr Rahul Gandhi, during an interactive session with students in Gulbarga on Saturday.
“It is the problem of every home and we have to focus on our home first. Do you accept Dalits fully? What about the honour killings in Haryana and other parts of the country?” he asked a gathering of over-500 students at SBR College here. He was responding to a query on recent assaults on Indian students in Australia.
Replying to a girl student who suggested that abolishing reservation would be the best way to revamp the education system, the Congress leader said that equal opportunity should be provided to all citizens irrespective of his or her caste. “In an urban set up, things are very different. Discrimination is very much a reality,” he said.
On the brain-drain from India he said, “It is good, as it brings large amounts of foreign exchange and even helps bring new ideas into the country; even the leader in Mahatma Gandhi was born after his experiences in South Africa.”
Partly agreeing to the opinion of a student that political corruption had become the nation’s biggest problem, Mr Gandhi said, “Practising democratic te-nets by parties will address it and I am all for that.”