Return of Rahul

By Prem Chandran

Rahul Gandhi is back, and he is back with the masses. Whether or not India’s TV news anchors continue to raise their energy levels to a new pitch on him, the scion of the Nehru family must be smiling ear to ear at the way he managed to fill the TV screens for over two months now – for reason or rather no reason.

Fact of the matter is that the media tried to sensationalise a matter that in normal course should not have been. But, having done that, they left their job half-done as is often the case. It is the right of an individual to go on vacation and it is also his right to maintain his privacy. It however is also the right of the media, or prying newshounds, to make a try and unravel what was made out to be a mystery, locate where the young leader went and report what he was doing there. But, alas, they are more interested in studio discussions, raising the adrenalin levels and taking fat salaries. The super journalists of the day holding fancy posts like Editor-in-Chief could do nothing more than pitching a tent in the vicinity of Rahul Gandhi’s house and waiting for him to return! There too, the lately smart Rahul Gandhi let them down without giving their cameras even a single frame. After all, visuals are less important, studio discussions about the pros and cons are! So much for the strength of the electronic channels-driven Indian media today.

Rahul Gandhi might or might not explain where he went and what his purpose was. While the silence he and the Congress party establishment maintained all through his absence and thereafter too gave room for speculation, what is clear by now is that he is back in circulation in the party. He met a crowd of farmers, cheerfully backed their cause and promised them that the party will do its best to scuttle the new land law being introduced by the Narendra Modi government. The Congress party is seeing an opportunity in it to take on the government and prove that it still has some life left in it. Farmers have a cause to uphold. Land is dear to them. But, if everyone keeps hugging the land they have and refuse to part with it, the projects the government plans for national development will suffer.

Misplaced activism by Bengalis and court battles had seen parts of the Calcutta Metro rail project hanging fire for decades, even as the nation’s first such project had come as a blessing in disguise for the crowded city. There are limits to individual freedom, and national development is a collective cause. Fishing in troubled waters is how politics in this country progresses, but national development would suffer. Narendra Modi is watching the scenario. How he pushes this case will be a test of his leadership skills. Farmers in many cases are willing to part with their land, and what many of them look for is get the maximum for what they part with. Many in the past have lost their lands and got little by way of compensation. Farmers should not be taken for granted. There is the need to strike a balance between their interests and national interests. The matter should end there.

Congressmen are clearly impatient. They want to know whether their leadership is potent or impotent. They have no life of their own. Most are faceless creatures. They bank on the image of the dynasty to keep them ticking. With a series of electoral reverses, with Sonia Gandhi preparing to hand over the party mantle to her son, and Narendra Modi bent on killing the Congress (or the main opposition) inch by inch as he did in Gujarat from the start of his chiefministership, this is understandable. A change of guard in the Congress is sending alarm bells ringing in top party levels. Sheila Dikshit and Amarinder Singh know their days are numbered and are at best trying to exploit this situation by testing the waters and teasing Rahul Gandhi. On the other hand, when Kamal Nath favours Rahul’s leadership over Sonia, it is that he is seeing an opportunity for himself in the new power play. This is the time.

Both Sheila and Amarinder had dug the grave for the party in their respective turfs, and are now seeking a bailout by blaming Rahul Gandhi for the bad times. It is well-known that Rahul Gandhi has no love lost for the likes of Sheila or Amarinder. They are liabilities for the party, one by her actions and the other by his lack of actions. Being a former ‘Raja’ will not cut ice with the new India anymore. The Badals may have created history by their family rule, nepotism and corruption, but they mix with the ordinary people. Jet-set Amarinder is hardly to be seen.

When Rahul Gandhi got some space in the organisational set-up, in 2013, he tried to chart a new course for the Grand Old Party (GOP). But, the politics he tries to practise is different. He is unlike the rest of the politicians. He did not enter politics through campus rowdyism, as many do; or by street smartness. He sat by the side of his mother, observed what was going right and wrong, and then quietly tried to change the rotten system in the Congress party. But since he was not that very pushy, as rowdies would be, and since his mother gave him only limited freedom, he could do little so far. That does not mean he cannot do much. His good intentions are his strength.

Those who spread a protective ring around Sonia Gandhi all through the past couple of decades, and made hay, would want the present rotten system in the party to continue. A change of leadership, a la Rahul Gandhi would spell doom for the likes of Sheila Dikshit and the rest of the palace crowd. They were game with Sonia, and Sonia was game with them. Together, they kept the party ticking as well. Then, naturally, nemesis caught up. The results of what they did came out in the open: the 2G Scam; the Coal Scam; the Common Wealth Games Scam; the civil aviation scam that is yet to be well publicised thanks to the favours that a Praful Patel might have extended to those in the media by way of a cover for the way he went about running a ministry; and much more.

The Congress party, or the Sonia-Manmohan combine, giving a free hand to some of the irresponsible regional parties and their ministers proved to be major disasters for the nation. When Narendra Modi asked the nation for a majority for his party in parliament, people understood what difference it would make, and gave him exactly that. Feelings are strong that he has, to a large extent, reined in corruption at the political level vis-a-vis the functioning of the Union Government. The bureaucracy needs to be tackled too. Hope is that Modi will keep up his drive. Indian society as a whole, and the political class and the bureaucracy, state after state, remain highly corrupt. No file moves without a kick in the form a kick-back.

Under a Sonia-Manmohan dispensation, systems in this country had gone for a toss. Both had little of the strengths to handle the positions they held. The recent expose of government files being copied and smuggled out by corporate racketeers and others shows how the system of governance has suffered in this country under a leadership that was not watchful about what was happening around them. The British had left for us an efficient administrative system. Our leaders politicised it to the hilt, encouraged corrupt bureaucrats and strangled upright officials. The demoralization has resulted in what we are witnessing today -- of unscrupulous politicians and money-minded bureaucrats robbing the system of its strengths for their personal advantage. Rahul Gandhi is a well-meaning individual, but it remains to be seen whether he has the grit and determination to first clean up the Augean stables in his own party and win the confidence of the people. If he wants to do this, this here is the time to start the process.

Many of us have a distaste of Rahul Gandhi largely for the reason we do not want to see the perpetuation of a dynasty system in this country that works against the interests of a democracy to which we are strongly wedded. But, if he measures up to expectations, and showed the door to the corrupt and the self-seekers (if so, what will be left of the Congress?), he should have a space in our political system. His sense of fair-play needs to be appreciated. In fashioning a new India, three people should matter: Narendra Modi, Arvind Kejriwal and Rahul Gandhi. They are dear to us because they are keen on changing the rotten political and bureaucratic systems in this country caught in a mess of corruption, sycophancy, self-agrandisement, outright loot and ineptitude. First and foremost, rotten politicians must be shown the door one by one. Why not start with a Sheila Dikshit and her foot-in-the-mouth son? premcee@gmail.com