Suddenly, no more Rah-Rah

Suddenly, no more Rah-Rah

Congress chief Rahul Gandhi’s resignation letter, though it talks about love and compassion, sounds angry. And the target is his own party.

There’s more to politics than juxtaposition and branding. Any student or observer of politics—doing it out of vocation or because s/he feels in it a deep connection to everything else—would readily admit that politics is not a manga cartoon that begins and ends, or an avenger narrative of love and hate playing on the 8 pm show. It’s a little complicated, unquantifiable, not finite. It’s to do with history and an ongoing present, with the here and now, the ground beneath one’s feet, hopes and aspirations.

It’s about a frank, sensitive reckoning with society and also about nuts and bolts, social and economic infrastructure, about solution-making for hard, practical problems. It’s about the rains in Mumbai, the drinking water crisis in Chennai, the sudden communal flare-up in Delhi’s congested but laid-back Chandni Chowk, the collapsed spine of agriculture across states that neither a Bima Yojana nor a NYAY dole can suffice to fix. It’s also about 5G trials, about China, about Trump, about the no-fly zone over Pakistan and Iran that’s bleeding Air India. It’s about ‘labour reforms’… and about disinvestment.

Speaking of which, think of the Indian National Congress, India’s oldest political party. It’s undoubtedly ‘in politics’. But its problem is that it mostly seems to be in some other zone. Obsessed with itself, navel-gazing…and perhaps totally disinvested from the ground, disconnected from its pain and yearnings. When is the last time a Congress parliamentarian created a ripple in the manner in which young debutant TMC MP Mahua Moitra did? The point is not whether you agree or disagree with her formulation, nor whether you can tell plagiarism if you see it (her speech was not plagiarised, as the original article’s author publicly affirmed).

Rather, take the vehemence of the counter-trolling itself as proof of success. We have Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s positive acknowledgement of Ghulam Nabi Azad’s speech on the first war in Kashmir—that apart, the Congress in the last five years has made its presence felt in the Lok Sabha perhaps more through a hug rather than through any issue it raised.

This is no Gandhian India, however much we get down to celebrating his 150th year with pomp and glory. The driving spirit is not humane love, or a sacrifice-based pursuit of a public ethics of living, but a baser play of control, driven only by a narrative of who gets to dominate who and how much. Even in the letter of resignation Rahul Gandhi put out on Twitter—almost in exasperation with the dispirited, half-geriatric pantheon of the Congress—he talks about ‘love and compassion’. That vibe is obviously meant to be juxtaposed against what’s often called an atmosphere of hatred and fear. But it sounds angry, just a little short of petulantly angry in fact, and the target is his own party. For making him stand on the burning deck all alone.

From the party’s top echelons who contested and lost (or focused on the campaigns of their sons), not once did we hear anyone make waves during the campaign speaking about NYAY or the promise of employment—the central themes of the Congress manifesto. One of them, caught on the campaign trail, in fact quipped that he could not understand the scheme! There was no rising chorus bristling with an alternative vision. In the event, the Congress brand just did not gain currency. Nor did the attack around Rafale (which, again, none in the Congress except Rahul and Priyanka spoke about).

Instead, leaders cribbed about Rahul and his politically inept team ruining whatever chances the GOP had to improve its tally. Another pet peeve: Rahul’s overdependence on an app that was apparently devised to take feedback from party workers on everything, from appointment of CMs to campaign points. The man helming the app is since being whispered about as a ‘BJP mole’.But it was a strange gap between a desire for democracy and a feudal culture. No one dared to ask Rahul, even if they disagreed, why he chose to put ‘left liberal’ ideas in the manifesto of a traditionally centrist party,  when ‘nationalism’ was the flavour of the season.

The communication gap hasn’t ended. Now that Motilal Vora, a palace loyalist, has taken the reins (till such time as they dare to find a new Congress president), Rahul will go campaigning in election-bound Haryana, Maharashtra and Jharkhand. Activity without responsibility or answerability. Why should it be upon him to devise a strategy or win votes, he’s not the CM candidate in any of the states, someone in Rahul’s circle snapped bitterly. Rounding off with an ironic lob: now that Rahul and all other Gandhis are stepping aside from leadership roles, the liberal intelligentsia that had a problem with the Congress being run by a dynasty should come and join the party in droves!

Rahul Gandhi’s is indeed a tragic life of missed opportunities. The classic reluctant politician, it took him years of dithering before he took on the onus of helming the Congress. Who knows how long it will take him to relinquish it? But in this short period, he led from the front. Now he’s giving up in despair… or so it seems.

Santwana Bhattacharya
Resident Editor, Karnataka
Email: santwana@newindianexpress.com

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