India wants economic prosperity, not 'racial purity': Rahul Gandhi's dig at Modi govt

Top Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday decried reported attempts to conduct a study on racial purity, saying that what the country needed was job security and economic prosperity and not 'racial purity'.

Rahul was responding to a news report that claimed that the Ministry of Culture was in the "process of acquiring an array of DNA profiling kits and associated state-of-the-art machines for establishing the genetic history and trace the purity of races in India".

"The last time a country had a culture ministry studying ‘racial purity’, it didn’t end well. India wants job security & economic prosperity, not 'racial purity', Prime Minister," Rahul tweeted tagging the news report.

Rahul was apparently referring to the Germany of Hitler's time when he propagated the idea of racial purity and targeted the Jews.

Soon after the news report came, the Ministry of Culture said that it was "misleading, mischievous and contrary to facts".

Though it did not fully deny the story, the Ministry clarified that the proposal was "not related to establishing genetic history and 'trace the purity of races in India' as alluded to in the article".

The story in Morning Standard had quoted archaeologist Vasant S Shinde, an adjunct professor at the Bengaluru-based National Institute of Advanced Study and Director of the Rakhigarhi Research Project, as saying that "one can say to an extent that this will be an effort to trace the purty of races in India". Culture Secretary Govind Mohan had met Shinde and other experts on the issue.