‘This is India, not North Korea’: Rahul slams PM over action against Youth Congress members

Rahul Gandhi criticises PM Modi for suppressing dissent, equating recent protests to North Korea's authoritarianism in India's democracy.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday (February 26, 2026) strongly criticised the police action against his party's youth wing activists over the "shirtless protest", drawing a sharp parallel between Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government and the authoritarian regime in North Korea.

"This is India, not North Korea," Mr. Gandhi, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, said in a post in Hindi on X and asserted that peaceful protest is the soul of democracy and not a crime.

He said the world's largest democracy is being slowly pushed in a direction where dissent is labelled as treason and asking questions is called a conspiracy.

When those in power start seeing themselves as the nation and dissent as the enemy -- that is when democracy dies, Mr. Gandhi said.

"In today's India, under the rule of a compromised PM, peaceful protest has been turned into the biggest crime. The world's largest democracy is being slowly pushed in a direction where dissent is labelled as treason and asking questions is called a conspiracy," the former Congress chief said.

"Think about it, no matter the issue, if you raise your voice against those in power through constitutional means, then batons, lawsuits, and jail are almost a certainty," he said.