Rahul Gandhi has had a change of heart and attire. Soon after his return from a two-month-long sabbatical in a Myanmar Buddhist monastery, he changed into white kurta-pyjama to lambast the Narendra Modi government for being a ‘suit-boot-ka-sarkar’ or a government run by people who wore suits. The point pertaining to Western garments could only be made in an Indian dress, which also fitted in with the Congress heir apparent’s project of championing the cause of farmers. His argument is that it is the corporate czars wearing foreign apparel who have been grabbing the lands of the peasants with the government’s help to build industries. To drive home the fact of the dauphin’s pro-agriculture outlook, the Congress presented him with the replica of a wooden plough at a public meeting.
However, it may have been a hasty step. For, the latest news that has filtered out from his Tughlaq Lane residence is that the not-so-young-prince has been closeted with a group of young e-entrepreneurs. As was suitable for the occasion, he was in jeans and a T-shirt.
Not only that. Rahul has clarified that although he was nowadays seen as someone who only talks about agriculture and farmers’ issues, he was not against business. What has happened since he told Parliament that he would fight in the streets for farmers’ rights ? Has mummy ticked him off? Has the Congress realised that berating the corporate sector carries the risk of drying up of funds from businessmen that are the lifeblood of politicians and their parties?
Whatever the reason, what is evident is the realisation in the Nehru-Gandhi household that politics is a serious matter, that it is not for a dilettante who flies in from a prolonged lay-off to pretend that his heart bleeds for the farmers. What is required is an informed acquaintance with the problems faced by both the farmers and the non-farming segment of the economy.
It will simply not do to say that land cannot be taken from the farmers for the sake of industries, as Rahul has been doing, because there is a need to relieve the growing pressure on land by encouraging the cultivators to move from farms to factories. Otherwise, the fragmentation of holdings between successive generations of peasants will result in smaller and smaller plots, affecting productivity and leading to impoverishment.
Industrialisation is also needed to provide employment to the children of farmers who want to leave the family’s traditional occupation, which they may consider stultifying, and move to the towns both to secure jobs and to avail of more advanced educational opportunities for their sons and daughters. It is also not wise for Rahul and his mother to constantly plead for increasing the minimum support price of foodgrains because this policy, formulated in the days of acute shortage, goes against the trends of the present less constrained times and also against the diversification of crops in areas like Punjab that are more suitable for growing maize and mustard reflected in the traditional Punjabi fare of sarson ka saag and makki ki roti than for water-guzzling crops such as rice that lead to the depletion of underground water.
A casual chat with those engaged in e-commerce is not enough to appreciate the ins and outs of the business. This new form of business has many ramifications, including spelling doom for the so-called mom-and-pop kirana stores and also other brick-and-mortar shops that may not able to survive the onslaught of online purchases. But, as Rahul’s peregrinations from one subject to another — farmers, houseowners worried about real estate bills, ex-servicemen, Kerala fishermen and rubber growers — are typical of a dabbler who has no economic vision and merely wants to remain in the public eye to make up for the years when he exposed himself by being photographed napping in parliament as someone who is in politics simply because his mother wants him to be the prime minister.
As he cannot be considered a political animal, Rahul may create more problems for his party by taking up issues of which he has no real understanding.