Rahul Gandhi and abhaya mudra – a stance going back to 2017

In his first address as Leader of Opposition in Parliament Monday, Rahul Gandhi spoke about a common thread running through all religions. He went on to mention ‘abhaya mudra’, the image of an open palm, and said this was common to depictions of Lord Shiva, the Guru Nanak and Jesus Christ, and figured also in Islam, Buddhism and Jainism.

“The first idea in this image that we defend is the idea of confronting our fear and never being sacred… For us, there is more than power, there is truth. For you (the BJP), there is only power, that is the only place you want to be… When we fought the BJP, we were not violent,” Rahul said, going on to draw a parallel between theabhaya mudra and the hand symbol of the Congress.

It is not the first time the Congress leader mentioned the abhaya mudra, nor the first time he drew a parallel with his party symbol and showed images of gods across religions to make his point.

In January 2017, addressing a ‘Jan Vedna Sammelan’ or ‘People’s Plight Convention’, organised by the Congress, Rahul spoke about finding the party’s hand symbol in the images of Lord Shiva, Guru Nanak, Mahatma Buddha, Lord Mahavira and Hazrat Ali.

The BJP had approached the Election Commission to complain, accusing Rahul of dragging religion into a political matter. Rahul also drew ridicule for talking about going to Google to find the meaning of his party’s hand symbol.

In his speech at the convention, Rahul said: “I was looking up the meaning of the Congress hand symbol. I saw the Congress party’s symbol in Shiv ji’s portrait. Then, I saw other photos. I saw Guru Nanak ji’s photo, there was the Congress’s sign. I saw Mahaveer ji, Buddha, Bhadrakaal… all had the Congress symbol… The symbol denotes that we should not get