00:00Thank you, Speaker Sir, for letting me speak on a very important topic.
00:16Women are a central force, a driving force in our national imagination.
00:31In our national perspective, all of us, every single one in this room, has been influenced, taught, learnt a lot
00:51from women in their lives, mothers, sisters, wives,
01:04as Rijujiji said, of course, Prime Minister and myself don't have that wife issue.
01:16So, we don't get that input, but we have our mothers and our sisters.
01:22Yesterday, I was sitting, I was watching my sister achieve something that, in five minutes, achieve something that I have
01:32not been able to do in maybe 20 years of my political career,
01:38which was to make Mr. Amit Shah Ji smile.
01:43There's something that I also need to practice and learn, and I was feeling very proud as an older brother
01:50as she was doing that, delivering the speech in a way that is different than mine, of course.
02:04I remember when I was a little boy, I used to be very scared of the darkness, and we used
02:11to have this huge dog who used to attack my sister and me all the time.
02:20So, we were very scared of going out into the garden at night, we were scared of the dog.
02:29One day, my grandmother somehow found out about this.
02:35And I'm saying this because this was one of the most powerful lessons taught to me in my life by
02:41a woman, a grandmother.
02:48And my parents had gone out for dinner, and she came, she caught my hand, I still remember, and she
02:54took me out into the garden.
02:55One, dark garden at night, no lights, no government houses have big gardens, quite a big garden.
03:03And she took me there, and she left me.
03:06She said, now you stay here, don't move.
03:10And she left.
03:12And I watched my grandmother, I remember she was wearing a yellowish sadi, I watched her go away.
03:22I didn't have the courage to tell my grandmother that, you know, I don't want to stay here, so I
03:28stayed.
03:32And she went away, she went away, probably for one or two minutes.
03:36But for me, it was like two, three hours.
03:41I was imagining the dog coming to bite me.
03:45I was imagining ghosts, I was imagining snakes, I was imagining everything.
03:52And then after some time, I remember my legs were even shaking a little bit, and then I saw my
03:56grandmother come.
03:58And she came, and she asked me, so, what are you scared of?
04:08So I said, you know, Dadi, I'm scared of that dog.
04:14I don't know that he might come and bite me.
04:17I'm scared of somebody being in the garden that I don't know.
04:22I'm scared of bats, I'm scared of snakes, I'm scared of things I can't see.
04:27And she says, no, Rahul, you're not scared of all those things.
04:32You're not scared of the darkness.
04:34You're not scared of the dog.
04:37You're not scared of the bats.
04:40You're only scared of your mind.
04:43You're only scared of your imagination and what you are thinking.
04:50And then, and then she said that, you know, you should not be scared of the darkness.
05:04Because the truth, most often, is in the darkness.
05:12And if you do not have the courage to face your fear, you do not have the courage to go
05:20into darkness,
05:22you will not be able to understand the truth, you will not be able to fight for the truth.
05:29This is one of the biggest lessons in my life.
05:31I use it, it's a political lesson, I didn't realize then.
05:35Now as I get older, I realize it was not only a political lesson, more fundamentally it was a religious
05:42lesson.
05:44I didn't understand then and what she was saying to me was that satyam shivam sundaram.
05:54That's what she would say.
05:56She said that I want you to be able to go into the darkness.
06:02I want you to be able to go where you're scared.
06:07And I want you to see what the truth looks like.
06:10And later I realized, my God, by taking me into the garden, she was explaining Shiva to me.
06:18She was explaining the central planet of our religion.
06:23She was explaining satya to me.
06:25And in many ways she was explaining ahinsa to me.
06:31And she said to me, I remember that, listen, truth is painful sometimes.
06:44And there are some truths that need to be told here today in this house.
06:51The first truth is that this is not a women's bill.
06:58This is nothing to do with the empowerment of women.
07:05There is a women's bill.
07:08It was passed in 2023 in this house itself.
07:15And my friends and teachers in the BJP said that it will be implemented in 10 years' time.
07:27That is the women's bill.
07:31This is an attempt to change the electoral map of India.
07:38Using and hiding behind India's women.
07:46And actually, actually, it is a shameful act.
07:51Because instead of giving them women's reservation, which is very easy to do,
07:55and every single opposition person will support it right now.
08:01Pass, bring that old bill back right now.
08:05And we will help you pass it for implementation from this second.
08:11Now, that is the women's bill.
08:15This is something else.
08:18And the truth needs to be told about what this is.
08:24There is a central truth in India's history, in India's past and present.
08:35And I have become more and more and more aware of this truth.
08:40And that is the brutal, cruel, unforgiving treatment
08:55of the OBC community, of the Dalit community, and other communities.
09:04Minorities and women.
09:07And this is a historical fact.
09:09This need not be argued here.
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