Economy growing but wealth not getting distributed, says Rahul Gandhi

Rahul Gandhi shares his advice to students on connecting with people, listening deeply and being kind to themselves, while discussing India's economic growth and unemployment, wealth concentration & civil war in Manipur.

Economy is growing but the wealth is getting concentrated in a few hands and the challenge of unemployment continues, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said in an interaction with some students of Harvard University.

The former Congress president on December 23 shared on X a video of the interaction held on December 15, and said, "My advice to all students — True power comes from connecting with people, listening deeply to what they're saying, and being kind to yourself."

Asked about economic growth in the last 10 years during the interaction, the Congress leader said, "When you talk about economic development you have to ask the question in whose interest is that economic development."

"The question to ask is, what is the nature of that growth and who is benefiting from that. Right next to the figure of growth in India, you have the figure of unemployment in India. So India's growing, but the way it's growing is by massively concentrating wealth towards very few people," he said.

"We are operating on a debt sort of model and we are no longer producing. The real challenge in India is how do we set up a production economy that is able to give large numbers of people jobs. We have two or three businesses that are pretty much entire businesses," he said.

"We have Mr. Adani, everybody knows he is directly connected to the prime minister, he owns all our ports, airports, our infrastructure! With that kind of concentration, you will get growth but you will not get any distribution," he said.

Asked why this has not translated into an electoral outcome or mobilisation of people, Gandhi there is a massive mobilisation but there is a requirement for an "infrastructure to fight an election".