ENARADA, New Delhi
By Ajay N Jha
Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi is an enigma.
At times, he shocks both his friends and foes alike with some very unusual quips and quotes. At a time when Gujarat Chief minister Narendra Modi has been on a marauding offensive and using all tricks in the book to heap ignominy and ridicule on the Congress party and pillorying Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh in particular, it was expected that the Congress Vice President, who is tipped off as the Prime Minister in waiting by many congressmen, should have been coming out with befitting rhetoric and repertoire to silence his critics.
Unfortunately, what he has done through his queer kind of statements on a few issues, has not only surprised many congressmen but also invited jeer and jibes from his political rivals. Two days ago, in a workshop organized for training party spokespersons, he said that “If India is computer, Congress is its default programme,” adding that the Congress the party captured the essence of the nation.
At a time when BJP’s key face Modi is aggressively attacking Congress and the UPA, Rahul advised party men for restraint saying the country does not appreciate anger and aggression. This mas already left many senior Congress leaders red-faced and they are indeed wondering how the party is going to withstand the saffron onslaught in the coming days.
But then, it is not for the first time that Rahul Gandhi has made such kind of quixotic Statement. Earlier, he caused much surprise and consternation all around for saying that” “Poverty is often a state of mind” even though such ideas were expressed earlier by some people. Again he shocked everyone by saying “Very soon people will imagine that Mahatma Gandhi was not a genuine person, ” while addressing a tiny gathering at Gandhi Ashram with Sabarmati on 5th August.
“Asking me whether you want to be prime minister is a wrong question,” Gandhi told some party leaders during an informal interaction in the central hall of parliament on 5th march 2013. He said his “focus was strengthening the party and not becoming its prime ministerial candidate ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.”
This was a stunner and it cut the party and its worker both ways. Those within the party who have been sulking and upset over his style of functioning, must have taken a sigh of relief that their status quo would remain for some more time while those who had started their dreams soaring high along with RG’s elevation as No2 in the party hierarchy, were crestfallen as all their dreams had crashed on the ground.
“The Prime Minister’s post is not my priority. I believe in long-term politics,” said Rahul Gandhi, while stressing that the Congress’s infamous “high command culture” must be over-written with power being distributed through the party. This made all the more clear that he was like Commander running away from the battle field even after the War bugle had been sounded and the whole army had been put on maximum alert. It amounts to having accepting defeat even before the war was fought. !!
The fact remains that Rahul Gandhi cannot wish away his position in the party. He talks about abolishing the high command and he is a beneficiary of the same system. This sends out a very confused signal to the rank and file of the party. They would be fighting an uphill task against a resurgent BJP under Modi. The vice-president of the Congress party, that is Rahul Gandhi, cannot be excused for talking of the cuff — like he is not in the race for the PM, he is in for a long haul to bring the party on the rails. All this talk was fine when he was the general Secretary of the party. He can’t do now, after being anointed as the official number 2 in the party.
This is strange kind of predicament for the Congress party .The commander cannot afford to be unsure of his “political footing”. In some quarters these statements can also be interpreted as RG running away from a fight with Modi, even though he has not been declared the PM candidate of the BJP. This also comes as a rude shock for Congress leaders who have pinned their hopes on him to bring the party back to power in 2014. There has been a growing clamour in the party for projecting him as its prime ministerial face before the next Lok Sabha elections and such statements from the party VP pour cold water over it.
The Congress party was quick to latch on to his remarks claiming high moral ground saying it contrasted with other parties, where people are “fighting for posts”. But such defence cuts little ice with the people of the country, it can only be seen as an unsure leader running away from a tough fight.
Moreover, in his talk with MPs, Rahul Gandhi also gave signals that he was against the ‘high command culture’, saying that he wants to empower more and more people than a handful, who call the shots. “Today I see how MPs feel without power and it is the same story in all the parties, be it Congress or BJP. I want to empower the 720-odd MPs in Parliament.” “I want to give voice to the middle tier…empower the middle-level leaders. There are some parties in India which are run by one leader (BSP), two leaders (SP), five to six leaders (BJP) and 15 to 20 leaders (Congress). My priority is that I want to empower the MPs as also the 5,000-odd legislators in various states,” he said.
People were perplexed by such statements — what exactly does he mean when he talks about empowering 720 MPs, it sounds hollow, the critics laugh and say what was he doing for the last 10 years. It sounds very empty and devalues the leader. One should, obviously restrain from making such statements, more so when he is himself the direct biggest beneficiary of such a system.
On another occasion, while calling the Mahatma as “my guru”, he said Gandhiji could inspire people as also the rank and file of Congress as they knew that he was not one who is hankering after power. He said he could take a holistic view of the scenario as regards party politics because “I am a parachute”, implying he owed his leadership to the membership of the first family in Congress.
The Congress vice-president regretted that all political parties have been designed in a manner that prevents the youth from getting key positions at a time when they are seeking a greater say in political affairs. Stressing that he wanted to change the picture in this regard, he suggested that this was necessary to avoid an “explosion”. “At one point, the pressure from the youth will be such that there will be an explosion,” he said.
It is very difficult to hazard a guess on his mind and thinking pattern as very little is known about him in public domain. On many occasions however, the content of some of public speeches have been mediocre and staid. Sometimes, they lack in coherence while at others, they lack convincing logic. No one knows for sure as to who tutors him and who are the members of his advisory core teams. May be it is because of his speech writers like Jairam Ramesh or His mentor Sam Pitroda’s ideas which often don’t gel with the ground reality of India or because of his own lack of comprehension.
Yet,it would be very difficult for Rahul Gandhi to escape reality. The Congress party has been in power for more than 50 years, and has to take the proportionate share of the blame when it comes to the ills in society. He seems to be living in the past, in a world of illusions. He needs to come out of it, give the party cadres direction and leadership to fight the battle of 2014. There are no half-heated measures in politics, more so, when he is the official number 2 of the ruling party. He has to come out all guns blazing, or the events would overtake him.
Party insiders and confidants say the young Gandhi is looking beyond the government’s present troubles, and his strategy of building support from the ground up guarantees a long-term future for Congress and, by extension, for himself. Still, with the party mired in corruption scandals and in danger of being forced into an early general election or thrown out at the next scheduled poll in 2014, Gandhi may find he has no throne to ascend to. Pressure has been mounting on him from within the troubled party to take charge because Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is seen as a lame-duck and an electoral liability. But he seems to have let both the family and the party down together. !!
A careful examination of his quips and quotes during last few years clearly show his confused state of mind. He is neither able to break free from the past completely nor he has his own set of ideas which could sync with the present political realities of the country and the Congress party. A potential leader must have something more than good personal qualities. He must have an intellectual spark which does not necessarily come from his educational qualifications. Rahul Gandhi has not so far given evidence of such an intellectual spark.
All these years, he has been trying to translate utopia into hard political reality and in the process, ended up being neither “chicken nor Fowl”. Till now, he has not demonstrated any leadership qualities by way of ideas and actions. He was always conspicuous by his absence whenever the party was hit by any major policy wrangles, scams and cases of corruption. He never joined issues and faced up to the opposition and behaved and proved the allegation of Narendra Modi that he was like a “fish in the aquarium”.
His ability to understand and logically analyze the complex internal and external problems facing the country is yet to be proved. He has remained MP for almost 9 years now and that would have given him enough opportunity to seen every nook and corner of the country- from Kashmir to Kanyakumari and from Godhara to Guwahati and form a definite opinion on the major issues faced by the majority of India. But people have rarely heard any word of wisdom from him which could actually be a ‘game changer’ for the party in true sense.
His views tend to be very simplistic and do not indicate wide reading and an ability to think deeply. He has been more like a programmes and guided missile whose target is already fixed from remote control and he performs exactly that. His tours and interactions are on the expected lines and he rarely tried to break free and present an alternative.
A good leader of the future must excite the younger generation. Rahul doesn’t—not even in his own party. He is trying to be a “rebel and a reformist” at the same time. He seems peeved and annoyed at the present dispensation which is governed and dictated by his own Mother and her coterie but he does neither have the guts to take them head on and present a’ viable and credible set of alternatives’ in the larger interest of the party. Fuming and fretting at the system of whose product he himself has been and yet he does not have the courage to break free.
He seems to have little understanding of the ground reality of the country and its complex set of problems. He is not able to understand that politics and operating political system in India does not depend on electronic gadgets and ‘alt+Shift+control’ method. Perhaps he needs to remind himself that leadership does not necessarily require high educational qualifications. K.Kamaraj, the former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, who subsequently became the President of the Congress (I) and played a key role in post-Nehru transition, was hardly educated and hardly knew Hindi. And yet, he turned out to be one of the successful leaders produced by India.
The funniest part of his comment was on his matrimony and its relationship with politics. Here, he appears to be swinging between ‘Gandhi and Gautam Buddha. His explanation is ludicrous and if that was the case, then perhaps many senior politicians in India and the world have been without matrimony and childless.
Finally, Rahul Gandhi has made Mahatma Gandhi as his “Guru”. But then, he should also remind himself that it was Mahatma Gandhi who had asked to dismantle the Congress party after the independence. One wonders if Rahul Gandhi too is fancying the same kind of thoughts and ideas or otherwise.
Under such circumstances, the Congress (I) will be doing a tremendous disservice to itself and the country if its tries to have him imposed initially on the party and then on the country as the next Prime Minister of India. Apart from the fact that he has come from a highly privileged political family, which has made a tremendous contribution to the nation, he is yet to demonstrate any qualities which compel attention and could make us look upon him as a leader of the future.
It is important to have an objective and balanced debate on this subject devoid of rhetoric, abuses and ideological arguments so that we have a complete picture of him before our eyes on the basis of which we can decide whether he is fit to lead India in the difficult years to come. Of course, there are people like Rashid Alvi and Rajiv Shuklas who continue to sing the song of ‘sacrifice’ of the Gandhi family and always come out with laughable explanations to support his actions. But they don’t understand the fact that 70 percent of young voters in India would need to be convinced by his words and deed to be worthy of leading the country. If the Congress (I) expects the people of this country to seriously consider him as a potential leader, he should not be treated as a sacred cow which has to be accepted by the people without any scrutiny.
Rahul Gandhi would still cover a lot of ground by taking the sane advice of a few senior Congress leaders and learn the rope of politics. However, the biggest question is: would he come out of those fixed ideas and fixations which have been injected into his mind by a few half -baked, technocrats, bureaucrats, aristocrats and advocates forming his core team???
One of the biggest complaints that have been heard from many senior Congress leaders who met him at some point of time or the other, is that he is always distraught and distracted and he cannot even listen to any of those people in his Janata Darbar for 10 minutes at a go. That is the sign of fickle mindedness and mental instability. Such a person cannot be a national leader if he not able to listen to someone patiently even for 10 minutes.
Secondly, fiddling with blackberry and at the same time listening to senior party leaders whom he has given time to meet is a bad manner. It is quite natural that many of them would be offended and indeed, many leaders have been. It clearly implies that either he makes it as a convenient tool to disrespect them or he takes them casually enough to send them to his PS kanishka Singh. Neither Mrs Indira Gandhi nor even Rajiv Gandhi ever did it. They used to listen to the woes and wails of the party workers patiently and then address their problems in their own way. Rahul Gandhi has to learn a few good manners while speaking to senior Congress leaders.
Any leader is always known by his core team of advisors. Mrs Indira Gandhi was a super human in many ways and yet she had the battery of seasoned advisers like PN Haksar, ML Fotedar, LK Jha, PC Alexander and even G Parthasarathy. Rajiv Gandhi too was a fast learner and he too had people like Suman Dubey, Romi Chopra, Capt Satish Sharma, Sam Pitroda, and even non-political friends who could fill in with a lot of information. Rahul Gandhi seems to have been commanded by a few whiz kids around him who have no practical grasp or knowledge of hard core politics and the resources and vision of reports from ground zero. Naturally, they are not in a position to fill his brain with practical and pragmatic ideas.
Under these circumstances, it would be difficult for the young Gandhi scion to chart out a radically ‘different course’ to keep the party intact in the coming years. As things stand now, many senior Congress leaders have already started giving up hope.
Modi has been tearing the UPA II government apart every second day with a thundering bolt like statements and allegations and all the 36 Spokespersons appointed by him to counter Modi have been falling wayside like ninepins.
The Only Congress leader who has been taking Modi head on from the day on is AICC General Secretary Digviajaya Singh even as he becomes very outlandish and out of sync at times. But he does make impact. He has been defending his party stoutly and never leaves an opportunity to pay Modi back in the same coin.
The other Congress leader known for his scathing attack and aggressive posture against BJP and Modi in particular, is Information Minister Manish Tewari. Sometimes, he still doubles up his role as the Congress Spokesperson as well.
Sanjay Nirupam is another Congress person who has been evolving as a fierce rival and he has been quite sharp as well. The rest of Congress spokespersons lack that kind of aggression, repertoire and firepower to counter and confront Modi and no amount of coaching classes or workshop is going to make a big difference.
With Lok Sabha 2014 polls threatening to become no holds barred in many ways, the Congress party had pinned a lot of hope on Congress Vice- President to withstand the BJP juggernaut led by Narendra Modi. That does not seem to be happening as of now.
(Posted on August 24, 2013 @ 10.15am)
(Ajay N Jha is a veteran journalist from both Print and Electronic media. He is the President and CEO of WICS Global Communications. His email id is Ajay N Jha <ajayjha30@gmail.com> )
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