Another year. And the heartburns and the headaches from the last continue. Comrades, the hangover is the party. And it never ends. ‘Birth, and copulation, and death,’ as the poet said. Add to it politics. That pretty much sums it up. But, still, the India of 2023 is not likely to be the India of 2022. Nine state elections are coming up: Tripura, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram, Rajasthan, Telangana, Jammu and Kashmir. Is the Congress ready for it? No. They are watching Rahul Gandhi walk: someone has found his feet.
In Tripura, Meghalaya, and Nagaland, the BJP is in power on its own or in alliance with local parties. In Karnataka, the BJP leads. In Chhattisgarh, the Congress is in power. In MP, it was first the Congress and now the BJP. In Mizoram, it is neither the BJP nor the Congress but the Mizo National Front. In Rajasthan, it is the Congress Party despite the best attempts by the BJP. In Telangana, a local party, Bharat Rashtra Samithi, led by K Chandrashekar Rao, is sitting pretty—for the moment. The states of Jammu and Kashmir are under the president’s rule, which means the BJP writ goes. The results of polls in these states, though, will pretty much indicate how the 2024 general elections will turn out. It will also test the real political dividends of Rahul Gandhi’s walk.
The single event that might yet change Indian politics happens to be the discovery of one man, Rahul Gandhi. He has found out that walking is injurious to his enemies. His Bharat Jodo Yatra will resume its UP phase today (January 3), after a week’s break in Delhi. The reinvention of Rahul Gandhi is the Laal Singh Chaddha moment in Indian politics.
In a recent speech, Rahul Gandhi said he was trying to set up a shop of love in the bazaar of hate—“Nafrat ke bazaar mein mohabbat ki dukaan khol raha hoon.” Suddenly we have in our midst a poet-hero. The walk, the beard, the Sufi sentiments. But are these sufficient? Indeed, as PG Wodehouse asked: When is sufficient enough?
Last week in Delhi, Rahul Gandhi held a press conference where he said that the Narendra Modi government’s record on employment generation, GST, unimaginative educational philosophy, and his government’s stand on the China issue were not up to the mark. For instance, the latest report released by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy says unemployment hit a 16-month-high of 8.3%. But these hard issues are so much in focus as a new 'vichar dhara', which is about love and unity, as represented by the yatra. And through it, he has brought the long-missing thing since the Gandhian days—the body—back into politics. The elimination of distance between the hero and the crowd.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is determined to develop India into a modern nation. Almost all his speeches list unprecedented developmental activities. But as a leader, either because of security concerns or because of conventions of the mystique of power, there is always a distance between him and the crowd, which he tries to bridge with his communication skills.
Rahul Gandhi has, wisely, decided to go the other way—if only because he could not match the oratory of the prime minister. But surely there is a reactive, contrarian strategy in it. He has concluded that he would be doing precisely the opposite of the BJP. So, instead of development, he talks about love. Instead of distance, he swears by proximity. Instead of shaving or trimming his beard, he lets it grow. Instead of jackets and coats, he wears a T-shirt. Instead of standing, he walks. This is politics, but the politics of a Sufi. Recall the singing and dancing that the BJY frequently breaks into.
But sooner or later, this will need to change. Rahul Gandhi and his party will need a clear economic vision. The prime minister and his team constantly talk about the Hindu version of a Europeanised India. This is a dream. Or a myth, if you will. India is far, far behind the poorest European nation. And realistically speaking, there is just no way India will ever catch up, not in 100 years. The streets of a London or Paris suburb in the early 19th century still look more beautiful and orderly than Okhla or Ghaziabad of the 21st. It’s not the place, it’s the race.
But no politician can afford to say this. The dream must be kept alive. So, sooner or later, Rahul Gandhi will have to negotiate the chimaera of development and low life indices, the common lot of the average Indian. For now, he says he sees to the yatra. But this is precisely when the think-tank in the Congress must be working on an economic plan.
It is doubtful if the Congress can improve upon the welfare policies and their execution, as Nalin Mehta shows in his book, The New BJP: Modi and the Making of the World’s Largest Political Party. But there can be clear, practicable measures in many other aspects (tax, infrastructure, health, and education). Some of it would be useful in the impending state elections. In these states, the party under Mallikarjun Kharge should be having talks by now with the regional opposition parties, and the local bodies of the Congress should be capitalising on the goodwill that Rahul Gandhi has created.
Failing which the BJY will be one of those mystic efforts that will fizzle out to become a talking point of the futile but righteous woke-liberal crowd: ‘In the room the women come and go/Talking of Michelangelo…’ The casual, endless conversations on the great might-have-been. Nostalgia is their way of owning up; by turning dreams into nostalgia, they have the illusion they are the few that can feel. The sensitive, and therefore, the superior people.
If Rahul Gandhi has to turn his walk into votes, the picnic nature of it must cease, at least in Srinagar. That speech must spell out what comes after love. His party should be working on it by now. The morning after love is when doors close with a bang.
C P Surendran
Poet, novelist, and screenplay writer. His latest novel is One Love and the Many Lives of Osip B