INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
"I told my sister Priyanka that I'm not happy," Rahul Gandhi said on LTTE chief Prabhakaran's deathHamburg, Germany: Congress President
Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday said he and his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra were not happy after the terror group LTTE's chief Prabhakaran, who
ordered the assassination of his father Rajiv Gandhi, was killed, as they felt "the violence inflicted upon him had impacted others,
including his children".The Congress chief said he has lost two members of his family to violence
"My grandmother (Indira Gandhi) and my father (Rajiv Gandhi) were both killed
So, I have suffered violence," Mr Gandhi said at the Bucerius Summer School in Hamburg, Germany."I am talking actually from experience
The only way you can move forward after violence is forgiveness
And to forgive you have to understand what exactly happened and why it happened," Rahul Gandhi said.Former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was
killed by two of her bodyguards in 1984, and her son and former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by a suicide bomber of the LTTE
Sri Lankan security forces shot dead Prabhakaran and destroyed the LTTE in May 2009, ending a quarter century of separatist war in the
island nation."To deal with it is to actually listen and act non-violently
People think this is weakness
But in fact this is strength
My father was killed by a terrorist in 1991
In 2009, I saw the person who killed my father lying in a field in Sri Lanka," Rahul Gandhi said."I called up my sister Priyanka and said
that this is very strange, but I am not happy
I should be celebrating that the person who is dead is the person who killed my father
But somehow I am not happy
She said 'you are right, I am not happy either'," the Congress chief said
"The reason I wasn't happy was because I saw myself in his children
So, I realised, him lying there actually means that there are kids like me who are crying," he added."He might have been a bad or an evil
person, but the violence that was done against him was impacting others, like it had impacted me
If you go deep, you will find there is something that triggered that violence
It's not just a random event
Some action or violence done against him or her has triggered it," Rahul Gandhi said.He also said that the only way one can fight violence
You might be under the illusion that you can fight violence with violence, but it will come back
You might think that you are very powerful and that you can subdue somebody else, but they will find a way of coming back," Mr Gandhi said.
