"Everybody Knows What's Going On": Rahul Gandhi On FIR Against Celebs

Open letter FIR: Rahul Gandhi said India was moving towards an authoritarian state (File)

Anybody who says anything against Prime Minister Narendra Modi is thrown into jail, Rahul Gandhi said today, attacking the government over a sedition case against 50 celebrities who had written an open letter to the Prime Minister expressing concern about mob violence.

"Anybody who says anything against the prime minister, anybody who raises anything against the government is put in jail and is attacked. Media is crushed. Everybody knows what's going on. This is not a secret," the Congress MP told reporters who asked him to respond to the FIR (First Information Report) over the open letter.

Mr Gandhi, who quit as Congress president over the party's national election debacle, said the country was moving towards an authoritarian state.

"Everybody knows what is going on in the country. It's not a secret. In fact the whole world knows it. We are moving into an authoritarian state. It's pretty clear," said the Wayanad MP, who is in his constituency to express solidarity with protests against a night traffic ban on the highway passing through the Bandipur Tiger Reserve.

Open letter: The FIR has been filed against a group of celebrities including Ramachandra Guha (above), Mani Ratnam and Aparna Sen

The FIR was lodged in Bihar's Muzaffarpur on Thursday against a group of celebrities including Ramachandra Guha, Mani Ratnam and Aparna Sen, who had written an open letter to PM Modi.

The letter had said that the mob killing of Muslims, Dalits and other minorities must be stopped immediately and stressed that there was "no democracy without dissent".

The letter also noted that "Jai Shri Ram" had been reduced to a "provocative war cry". Other eminent personalities like Mani Ratnam, Anurag Kashyap, Shyam Benegal, actor Soumitra Chatterjee and vocalist Shubha Mudgal were also signatories.

On a petition filed by a local lawyer, a magistrate ordered an FIR. The police said the FIR listed charges including sedition, public nuisance, hurting religious feelings and insulting with an intent to provoke breach of peace.

"On one side, there is the idea that the country should be ruled by one man, one ideology and everybody else should shut up. On the other side, there is the Congress party and the opposition who are saying no (to this) and that this country has many divergent views, different languages, cultures, many different expressions and those voices should not be crushed. That's the main battle going on in the country," said Mr Gandhi.

"I heard this in total disbelief because I cannot imagine any court admitting a case of sedition against that letter because it is against the spirit of the letter, to read it like that. It's a letter written in a positive tone with all respect to our democratic values," filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnan, one of the artistes who wrote the open letter to PM Modi, told NDTV.