Note: Rahul Gandhi's well advertised Niyamgiri trip is now being scrutinised, critics in the national level are arguing that as a soldier of Kalahandi, Rahul Gandhi has not followed development of Kalahandi, it is high time Rahul Gandhi should catalyse to establish a central Govt. Rural University, a medical college, Railway Wagon factory, railway lines, Central Agriculture University etc in Kalahandi
The Asian Ages, April 9, 2013
His critics sarcastically describe him as the crown prince of the world’s largest democracy. His supporters say he represents the youth of a country in which roughly two out of three people are below the age of 35. Is Rahul Gandhi a Prime Minister in the making? Is he willing to take on the mantle held by his great-grandfather, grandmother and father? Is he ready for the position his mother could have held in May 2004 but preferred not to?
Or is his apparent reluctance to assume a more powerful and influential role in the working of the country’s “grand old party” a clever ploy? Is it that Rahul Gandhi does not want to be seen presiding over a humiliating electoral defeat of the Congress in the coming 16th general elections? If, of course, his party performs creditably, he can share some of the plaudits. Is this a kind of win-win situation for the vice-president of the Congress who turns 43 on June 19 and who has spent nine years as a member of Parliament?
Is his diffidence for real? Or does he sincerely believe that humility in a political leader can become a source of strength, especially when compared to the naked ambition displayed by his political opponent, the 62-year-old Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi who is now officially a key player in the top echelons of the Bharatiya Janata Party?
On January 20, at the Jaipur session of the All-Indian Congress Committee (AICC), Rahul Gandhi made an emotional speech telling his party colleagues at one stage: “Last night each one of you congratulated me. My mother came to my room and she sat with me and she cried... because she understands that power so many people seek is actually a poison.”
On April 4, addressing a gathering of well-heeled tycoons at a conference organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry in the capital, Rahul Gandhi held forth for nearly an hour and a half in a rambling speech that was long on generalities and short on specifics. He sounded almost philosophical on occasions, while raising questions the answers to which he did not clearly have.
“Millions of Indians are brimming with energy. We are now sitting on an unprecedented tide of transformation. This tremendous movement of people and ideas will define this country in the 21st century,” he said to a round of applause from his audience comprising corporate captains who invariably tend to be deferential towards the powerful. India’s political and administrative systems needed revamp, he added without elaborating on how this would be done during a speech that was replete with analogies and anecdotes.
Flashback: It is 1985. Rahul Gandhi’s father, then all of 40 years, is speaking at the centenary session of the AICC in Mumbai. He promises to rid his party of “power brokers”. He asks a rhetorical question: “What has become of our great organisation? Instead of a party that fired the imagination of the masses throughout the length and breadth of India, we have shrunk, losing touch with the masses.”
Rahul Gandhi’s grandmother’s assassination by her bodyguards (with whom he learnt to play badminton) was followed by the most spectacular victory the Congress had ever won. In 1984, the party on its own won 404 out of the 543 seats in the Lok Sabha; 415 with its allies. Five years later, Rajiv Gandhi was no longer India’s Prime Minister. The number of Congress MPs came down by more than half to 197 seats in 1989 and then rose to 232 in 1991 after Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination. The numbers of Lok Sabha MPs belonging to the Congress in the next five general elections stood at 140 in 1996, 141 in 1998, 114 in 1999, 145 in 2004 and 205 in 2009. Where this number will stand after the coming general elections is anybody’s guess.
Like his father, Rahul Gandhi still seems uncomfortable in the dirty world of Indian politics. Like his father, his approach appears technocratic. In his speech at the CII conference, he mentioned the names of the Prime Minister and the “father of the nation” only once each. But the individuals whose names cropped up frequently were “Montek, Sam, Nandan and Sunil” (presumably, Bharti Mittal), clearly revealing his mind-set.
One cannot fault Rahul Gandhi for many things he said: the need for inclusive, job-creating growth, and the necessity to give a voice to the underprivileged. But the fact remains that India’s reality is extremely complex and not easily amenable to simplistic solutions. These “motherhood” statements were all very fine, but what was more significant was what he did not state. Inflation was not mentioned even once. Corruption came up but in an oblique context. No reference was made to the brutal gangrape of a young woman in Delhi which shocked the nation and made hundreds hit the streets.
His track-record so far has been far from impressive. The performance of the Congress in the February-March 2012 elections to the Uttar Pradesh Assembly was pathetic. In Gujarat, he campaigned for his party only at the final stage. In July 2008, he had referred to Kalawati from the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, whose husband, son-in-law and daughter had all committed suicide. But his views on what should be done to strengthen Indian agriculture and bring down the incidence of farmer suicides are not known. In May 2011, he took up the issue of alienation of agricultural land in Bhatta-Parsaul in Uttar Pradesh. Earlier, in August 2010, he had addressed tribals at Lanjigarh in Orissa saying: “I am your soldier in Delhi.” He has not followed up any of these important issues that he himself flagged with any degree of diligence.
Rahul Gandhi’s advantage is that he has a long way to go. But he has to try much, much harder if he is to survive and grow politically. By drawing a fine distinction between an insensitive government and a responsive party, between a corrupt and decrepit administration and an alert and transparent civil society yearning for change, he may not exactly be helping himself or his party’s cause. After all, it is his party that has ruled the country for almost five decades.
Or is his apparent reluctance to assume a more powerful and influential role in the working of the country’s “grand old party” a clever ploy? Is it that Rahul Gandhi does not want to be seen presiding over a humiliating electoral defeat of the Congress in the coming 16th general elections? If, of course, his party performs creditably, he can share some of the plaudits. Is this a kind of win-win situation for the vice-president of the Congress who turns 43 on June 19 and who has spent nine years as a member of Parliament?
Is his diffidence for real? Or does he sincerely believe that humility in a political leader can become a source of strength, especially when compared to the naked ambition displayed by his political opponent, the 62-year-old Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi who is now officially a key player in the top echelons of the Bharatiya Janata Party?
On January 20, at the Jaipur session of the All-Indian Congress Committee (AICC), Rahul Gandhi made an emotional speech telling his party colleagues at one stage: “Last night each one of you congratulated me. My mother came to my room and she sat with me and she cried... because she understands that power so many people seek is actually a poison.”
On April 4, addressing a gathering of well-heeled tycoons at a conference organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry in the capital, Rahul Gandhi held forth for nearly an hour and a half in a rambling speech that was long on generalities and short on specifics. He sounded almost philosophical on occasions, while raising questions the answers to which he did not clearly have.
“Millions of Indians are brimming with energy. We are now sitting on an unprecedented tide of transformation. This tremendous movement of people and ideas will define this country in the 21st century,” he said to a round of applause from his audience comprising corporate captains who invariably tend to be deferential towards the powerful. India’s political and administrative systems needed revamp, he added without elaborating on how this would be done during a speech that was replete with analogies and anecdotes.
Flashback: It is 1985. Rahul Gandhi’s father, then all of 40 years, is speaking at the centenary session of the AICC in Mumbai. He promises to rid his party of “power brokers”. He asks a rhetorical question: “What has become of our great organisation? Instead of a party that fired the imagination of the masses throughout the length and breadth of India, we have shrunk, losing touch with the masses.”
Rahul Gandhi’s grandmother’s assassination by her bodyguards (with whom he learnt to play badminton) was followed by the most spectacular victory the Congress had ever won. In 1984, the party on its own won 404 out of the 543 seats in the Lok Sabha; 415 with its allies. Five years later, Rajiv Gandhi was no longer India’s Prime Minister. The number of Congress MPs came down by more than half to 197 seats in 1989 and then rose to 232 in 1991 after Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination. The numbers of Lok Sabha MPs belonging to the Congress in the next five general elections stood at 140 in 1996, 141 in 1998, 114 in 1999, 145 in 2004 and 205 in 2009. Where this number will stand after the coming general elections is anybody’s guess.
Like his father, Rahul Gandhi still seems uncomfortable in the dirty world of Indian politics. Like his father, his approach appears technocratic. In his speech at the CII conference, he mentioned the names of the Prime Minister and the “father of the nation” only once each. But the individuals whose names cropped up frequently were “Montek, Sam, Nandan and Sunil” (presumably, Bharti Mittal), clearly revealing his mind-set.
One cannot fault Rahul Gandhi for many things he said: the need for inclusive, job-creating growth, and the necessity to give a voice to the underprivileged. But the fact remains that India’s reality is extremely complex and not easily amenable to simplistic solutions. These “motherhood” statements were all very fine, but what was more significant was what he did not state. Inflation was not mentioned even once. Corruption came up but in an oblique context. No reference was made to the brutal gangrape of a young woman in Delhi which shocked the nation and made hundreds hit the streets.
His track-record so far has been far from impressive. The performance of the Congress in the February-March 2012 elections to the Uttar Pradesh Assembly was pathetic. In Gujarat, he campaigned for his party only at the final stage. In July 2008, he had referred to Kalawati from the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, whose husband, son-in-law and daughter had all committed suicide. But his views on what should be done to strengthen Indian agriculture and bring down the incidence of farmer suicides are not known. In May 2011, he took up the issue of alienation of agricultural land in Bhatta-Parsaul in Uttar Pradesh. Earlier, in August 2010, he had addressed tribals at Lanjigarh in Orissa saying: “I am your soldier in Delhi.” He has not followed up any of these important issues that he himself flagged with any degree of diligence.
Rahul Gandhi’s advantage is that he has a long way to go. But he has to try much, much harder if he is to survive and grow politically. By drawing a fine distinction between an insensitive government and a responsive party, between a corrupt and decrepit administration and an alert and transparent civil society yearning for change, he may not exactly be helping himself or his party’s cause. After all, it is his party that has ruled the country for almost five decades.
The writer is an educator and comment
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