Shehzada
Rahul bin Rajiv ibn Indira bint Jawahar bin Motilal al-Gandhi al-Nehru
Written
by Dr. Seshadri Kumar, 04 November, 2013
Copyright © Dr. Seshadri Kumar. All Rights Reserved.
Disclaimer: All the opinions expressed in this article are
the opinions of Dr. Seshadri Kumar alone and should not be construed to mean
the opinions of any other person or organization, unless explicitly stated
otherwise in the article.
*********************************
It took many years for
me to learn that “bin” or “ibn” meant son in the Arabic language (with the
daughter equivalent being “bint”), and “al” simply meant “the”, as in “The
Saud” for “al-Saud.” Immediately the
degree to which I was impressed by those names went down by a few notches. The next thing a good friend pointed out to
me was that if a person had a lot of ibns and bins and als in his name, it
wasn’t necessarily a great thing, and that really destroyed the mystique.
Think about it: why
would you introduce yourself with your father’s name, your grandfather’s name,
your great-grandfather’s name, and then add a few more associations (such as
“The Saud” or “The Sabah”) unless they were much more important than you were?
To understand this fully,
perhaps a few counter-examples will help.
Who doesn’t know Albert
Einstein?
Everyone knows him as the greatest physicist of the 20th
century, and most know him simply as Einstein.
Almost no one has any idea who his father or grandfather or
great-grandfather was; practically no one knows of any association of his,
except that he was German and settled in America; a few more know that he was
also a Jew who fled Germany to avoid persecution by Hitler. But no one would introduce Einstein as
“Albert Einstein, the Physicist, the Jew, the German” or something equally
ridiculous. The man achieved so much
that a simple “Einstein” is sufficient for everyone to know who you are talking
about.
Among Indians in science and mathematics,
CV Raman and Ramanujan, among
others, have earned similar fame on the strength of their achievements that
hardly anyone knows anything about their families – but they know what these
people did. Amar
Bose, who recently died, made such a mark in the
world of audio technology that everyone knows what “Bose” stands for, even though
very few would even know that the man’s first name was Amar.
The same is the case for
a great achiever in any field. Take
sports, and if you just mention the name “Ali” in a sporting context, everyone
knows you are referring to Muhammad
Ali, for Ali’s achievements in boxing are so
great. You never say “Bruce Lee, son of
Lee Hoi-Chuen; famous kung-fu master; lead actor in ‘Enter the Dragon’”; but simply
“Bruce Lee.” (There
would have been no reason for Bruce Lee to mention his father: Lee Hoi-Chuen
was an actor in the Hong Kong film industry, but was soon eclipsed by his
world-famous son.)
You do not need to know Bill
Gates or Steve
Jobs’ family history, their ethnicities, their
origins, or anything else about them.
They stand by themselves on the strength of their achievements in
business and the software industry.
Musicians have a
tendency to quote their lineage; Hindustani musicians tend
to trace their musical lineage to Mian
Tansen and Carnatic
musicians tend to trace their musical lineage to Tyagaraja or Dikshitar. But the truly great musicians don’t need such
associations – one often talks about them in isolation, with little reference
to their parents or gurus. People like Ravi
Shankar, Vilayat
Khan, MS
Subbulakshmi, or Bhimsen
Joshi, although having been trained in well-known
musical traditions, stand on the strength of their own achievements. When Pandit Bhimsen Joshi was to perform on
stage, it was unnecessary to even mention that he was the disciple of Pandit
Sawai Gandharva, who was, in turn, the disciple of the founder
of the Kirana Gharana, Ustad
Abdul Karim Khan. These
are facts that aficionados of Hindustani music know; but for the lay public, a
simple mention that “Pandit Bhimsen Joshi will now perform” would usually be
enough to bring a smile of recognition and anticipation to the average Indian’s
face.
That a famous person is
known without reference to anyone else is true whether the person in question
is known for good deeds or bad. Even the
villains of history are known by their names alone. Examples abound, such as Hitler (how
many would know that he was the son of Alois Schicklgruber?), Stalin (how
many know his original name – Stalin was a self-awarded title meaning “man of
steel” – was Josif Vissarinovich Djugashvili?), Saddam
Hussein, Pol Pot (not
even his real name), Idi
Amin, and many more.
Osama bin Laden is an
exception in that he mentions his origins (“bin” Laden), but even he was so
notorious that a mere “Osama” was enough to convey to the world who was being
referred to.
In the same way that it is true that the truly noteworthy
people - those who have their achievements
(or ill-deeds) written all over them - do not ever need to quote their antecedents,
so it is true that the second- or third-rater always needs to mention his
origins, his associations, his friends, and all others whose reflected radiance
he can bask in.
Mother,
Father, Grandmother
The heir-apparent to the Congress party throne, Mr. Rahul
Gandhi was, for a long time, an enigma to everyone. No one knew what his positions on different pressing
issues were. He never gave interviews;
never called press conferences; never held an official position in the
Congress; but had been an MP from Amethi since
2004 and, as the son of the Congress President, Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, was
assumed to hold tremendous influence in the Congress party and hence the ruling
United
Progressive Alliance (UPA) coalition, in which the Congress party was a
majority partner.
But now, he has decided to speak. Since accepting the mantle of the party
leader at a well-publicized
party conclave in Jaipur in January 2013, Rahul has been giving a
series of speeches, ostensibly to match his main rival, Gujarat Chief Minister
and the declared PM candidate of the main opposition party, Mr. Narendra Modi, who
seems to be giving one speech in a new venue every day or every other day.
By doing so, Mr. Gandhi has proven the correctness of George Eliot’s words: “Blessed
is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence
of the fact.” Such a judgment might
sound harsh, but when one looks at the pronouncements of Mr. Gandhi and the
reactions they have elicited, starting with his acceptance speech in
Jaipur on that fateful January day, this could even be seen as a
lenient judgment.
In Jaipur, when accepting the position of the Congress
vice-president, Mr. Gandhi chose to ramble on about personal recollections,
including of his grandmother Indira Gandhi’s
assassination and of his father Rajiv Gandhi’s reaction
after the death of Mrs. Indira Gandhi.
Then he chose to talk about how his mother, Sonia Gandhi, wept on the
night prior to his address in Jaipur when she realized that Mr. Gandhi was to
be appointed to the post of vice-president of the party the next day, and how
she said that “power is poison,” because, according to Mr. Gandhi, she is not
attached to power.
The audience was supposed to marvel at the self-control of
Mr. Gandhi, who chose to so reluctantly assume the mantle of the party leader
even when hordes of sycophants, led by Mr. Digvijay
Singh and Mr. Manish
Tewari, urged him to take up the position.
We were expected to watch, awestruck, the sight of a young man being
handed the kingship of a nation of 1.2 billion and not showing an eagerness to
accept it. We were expected to be grateful
for the selflessness of Mrs. Gandhi who (according to Rahul Gandhi’s testimony)
is not attached to power.
Such a judgment might be appropriate in the case of Einstein
who, after the death of the president of Jewish state of Israel, Chaim Weizmann, in
1952, was approached by David Ben-Gurion,
Israel’s first Prime Minister,
to take up the Presidency of
Israel, since he had the unique distinction of being the most famous living Jew. Einstein, after thanking Ben-Gurion for the
offer with sufficient gratitude, politely declined the offer with the words, “All
my life I have dealt with objective matters, hence I lack both the natural
aptitude and the experience to deal properly with people and to exercise
official function. I am the more distressed over these circumstances because my
relationship with the Jewish people became my strongest human tie once I
achieved complete clarity about our precarious position among the nations of
the world.”
Such a response is truly praiseworthy, for the person making
it was both someone who had attained the greatest heights of achievement in his
domain as well as someone realistic (some would call such a person “humble”)
enough to understand his limitations in other domains.
But on what grounds are we expected to have the same belief
in either Mrs. Sonia Gandhi or Mr. Rahul Gandhi that they genuinely feel that
“power is poison”? Mrs. Gandhi has not
chosen to decline the reins of power handed to her – she appears, and has
always appeared, quite clearly someone who is happy with the assumption of
power of the Congress party. While
Congress sycophants might be quick to point out that she did not assume the
prime ministership after the UPA’s victory in 2004, critics may point to the
possibility of legal hurdles that prevented her from taking over as PM. In any case, she is the effective leader of
the Congress and Dr. Manmohan Singh, who became the PM, is widely seen to be a
puppet in Mrs. Gandhi’s hands.
So, coming from such a person, a statement like “power is
poison” is not at all credible. And, if
indeed she realized later that power was poison to her, Mrs. Gandhi could have
retired from political life long ago.
She has not.
Einstein said he didn’t think he could do justice to the
post of president of Israel, and he declined
the offer. Sonia Gandhi said “power is
poison” and yet accepted the
position of Congress president. That’s
the difference. One is credible; the
other is not.
In any case, the point of this discussion is not to analyze
Sonia Gandhi, but the choice of Rahul Gandhi’s pronouncements. When one looks at the statements Mr. Gandhi
made at the end of his Jaipur speech, three things stand out:
1.
Mentioning his grandmother’s assassination, in
order to reinforce the fact that she was assassinated while in power, and so
died as a kind of martyr (although there are many opinions on her death and not
everyone agrees that she was a martyr) – and so trying to bask in the reflected
glory of her martyrdom,
2.
Mentioning his father’s reaction to Mrs. Indira
Gandhi’s assassination and his speech to the nation, again to bask in reflected
glory, this time of his father’s (though people might dispute whether Mr. Rajiv
Gandhi’s actions after his mother’s death were glorious in the first place),
and
3.
Mentioning that his mother thinks “power is
poison” to try to paint her as a self-sacrificing servant of the country
(although, as pointed out above, this conclusion would be erroneous) and,
again, attempting to bask in that glory, as the son of Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, the
self-sacrificing Congress president.
All in all, this is a brazen attempt to achieve fame by climbing
on other people’s – specifically his forebears’ - backs, rather than standing
on his own achievements.
Hence, Rahul bin Rajiv ibn Indira bint Jawahar bin Motilal
al-Gandhi al-Nehru.
Talking
Economics and Social Policy
Defenders of Mr. Gandhi will argue, and correctly so, that
Mr. Gandhi does talk about policies, and that the CII speech laid out his
vision for India. While it is true that
the CII speech laid out a vision for India, that vision, unfortunately for Mr.
Gandhi and his supporters, is not his own.
The
Welfare State Vision of the NAC
Mr. Gandhi’s vision for India is, essentially, the vision
that has been articulated by the left-leaning National
Advisory Council (NAC), an extra-constitutional advisory body that
advises the Congress president and the Union government on policy matters,
featuring, in the past, well-known socialists like Aruna Roy, Jean Dreze and Harsh Mander. The NAC also has the blessing of India’s own home-grown,
left-leaning Nobel laureate, Amartya Sen. The
vision of the NAC is to turn India into a complete welfare state, and
it is due to prodding from the NAC that the UPA-1
and UPA-2 governments have introduced legislation such as the Mahatma
Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (free
income), Food
Security Bill (free food), Right
to Education (RTE) (free education), and other such socialist laws.
Mr. Gandhi, in his Jaipur acceptance speech as well as in
other speeches he has made since, such as the CII speech, has tended to focus
on this “rights-based” approach that the UPA is proud of as its legacy to
India. Leaving aside the problematic
question as to whether this is a legacy one should be proud of or ashamed of,
it is not even Mr. Gandhi’s own legacy to present as an achievement. The “achievement,” if any, belongs to the NAC,
and to Sonia Gandhi for championing it. So
Mr. Gandhi has nothing to crow about when it comes to RTE, FSB, MNREGA, and the
like.
The
Faux Pas on Poverty
In a discourse in Allahabad on August 6th, 2013,
Mr. Rahul Gandhi made another well-publicized blooper when he
said that “poverty is a state of mind.” Critics were quick to pounce on this
statement, saying that this showed how out of touch he was with the masses, and
how he was making a mockery of the grinding, dirt-eating poverty that millions
in India face on a daily basis. Not
many, however, realized the deeper contradiction (which actually makes you
question the coherence of his thinking) inherent in his statement.
What Mr. Gandhi actually said in his speech was “Poverty is
just a state of mind. It does not mean the scarcity of food, money or material
things. If one possesses self-confidence, then one can overcome poverty.” As an
absolute statement, this is not wrong, though it may not work for the majority. One can come up with many examples of
inspirational people, past and present, who have not let the circumstances of
their birth stop them from achieving greatness.
A good Indian example is the late Dhirubhai Ambani, who
was born into poverty but became one of the world’s richest men through sheer
drive and initiative. Another is Mr.
Gandhi’s and the Congress Party’s bête noire, Mr. Narendra Modi, who grew up
selling tea on trains but rose to become chief minister of Gujarat and is now a
prime ministerial candidate for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the main
opposition party.
But where Mr. Gandhi gets into trouble is that if he really
believes this statement, then he should not be pushing all the entitlement
programs, such as FSB, MNREGA, and RTE, that he, the NAC, and the UPA
government, are so proud of. There is an
inherent contradiction between saying that poverty is a state of mind and then
also saying that we will end your poverty by giving you cash: if my poverty is
a state of mind, I do not need your cash to change it; I need to change my
mindset! This contradiction makes Mr.
Gandhi sound very addle-pated.
Probably realizing all this, and also realizing that he is out
of his depth when talking about serious issues such as economic policy, Mr.
Gandhi has returned to what he does best: bask in the reflected glory of family
members, past and present.
Muzaffarnagar,
Communal Riots, Alwar and Churu
1.
My father and grandmother were killed by
terrorists.
2.
My mother told me, don’t talk about me in your
speeches.
3.
I felt like my chest had been ripped open when
my father died.
4.
They killed my grandmother, my father, and will
probably kill me too.
Mr. Gandhi should realize that he is a politician addressing
a public gathering, not a psychiatric patient in a private room with his
therapist. With all due respect to his
feelings - and he is fully entitled to them - we do not care a whit. The public does not care for a politician’s
personal life, only what he has done for them, is currently doing for them, and
can do for them in the future.
So why does Mr. Gandhi go on about this in speech after
speech? To highlight the fact that his
father and grandmother were killed because of decisions they took when they
were in office (Mrs.
Indira Gandhi for Operation Bluestar and
the desecration of the Golden Temple; and Mr. Rajiv Gandhi for
the Indian
Peacekeeping Force in Sri Lanka that ended up killing Tamils) and
whom he now seeks to portray as martyrs – and wants the benefits of that
positive association to accrue to him.
Milking
the Sympathy Wave
The problem for Mr. Rahul Gandhi is that the benefits of
association with famous people do not last a lifetime. Rajiv Gandhi reaped the benefits of a
sympathy wave when his mother was assassinated in 1984 and won a landslide
victory in 1984; however, that association could not help him forever. In the next elections, in 1989, Rajiv Gandhi
was judged not as the son of the assassinated Indira Gandhi, but as the
incumbent prime minister, who was involved in many scandals and misdeeds,
including the Bofors
arms scandal, and lost the election.
Sympathy waves are effective immediately after an
event. Rajiv Gandhi was fortunate
(inasmuch as one can be fortunate because of the death of one’s mother) that
the election in 1984 happened so soon after Indira Gandhi’s assassination; it
helped the Congress win overwhelmingly.
Had the election been 5 years away, it is doubtful that the Congress
Party would have gotten the kind of wave it did. Mr. Rahul Gandhi, on the other hand, is
trying to milk an old cow with dried udders.
All the sympathy for Mrs. Indira Gandhi and Mr. Rajiv Gandhi is gone
long ago.
An
Absent MP
Worse for Mr. Rahul Gandhi, he has 9 years of his own
non-performance as MP from Amethi to be judged against. His father was quite fortunate that he was
relatively new to politics when he entered it at the behest of his mother in
1980. Within 4 years, his mother was
assassinated, and so people did not expect that he would have had a huge track
record of achievement in those 4 years in which to judge him poorly.
Rahul, on the other hand, has been an MP for 9 years, the
son of the most powerful person in the country, and done nothing worthwhile to
justify his time in such an influential position.
Invisible
in the Lok Sabha
The
Backwardness of Amethi
These facts are summarized in Table 1.
|
Amethi,
2004
|
Amethi,
2008
|
UP, 2004
|
UP, 2008
|
India,
2004
|
India,
2008
|
Population
BPL, %
|
47
|
44
|
34
|
32
|
28
|
26
|
%
Literate
|
59
|
64
|
60
|
65
|
68
|
72
|
% Fully
Immunized Children
|
20
|
16
|
23
|
24
|
44
|
46
|
% Homes
Electrified
|
27
|
14
|
35
|
38
|
62
|
69
|
% Homes
With Pucca Roads
|
52
|
54
|
65
|
67
|
67
|
71
|
%
Violent Crimes
|
18
|
22
|
19
|
20
|
13
|
11
|
Average
Annual Household Income
|
48,666
|
51,447
|
73,016
|
77,441
|
105,408
|
115,025
|
Table
1. Comparison of Vital Statistics of Amethi, UP State and
India as a Whole
This is a staggering revelation of incompetence and
indifference. Uttar Pradesh has long
been known to be one of the most backward states in the Union – so much so that
it was one of the few states that are termed the BIMARU states
(Bimar is a Hindi word for “sick.) To
ensure that your constituency is a “Bimar” constituency even
within UP is no mean achievement.
It takes indifference, cynicism, and incompetence of a really high
degree to make that happen. Just think
of the electrification rate – the percentage is Amethi is around half the UP
percentage, which in turn is roughly half the national average.
And this achievement is due not to Mr. Rahul Gandhi
alone. Amethi has long been the pocket
borough of the Nehru-Gandhi family. From
1980-81 it was represented by Mr. Sanjay Gandhi, Mrs. Indira Gandhi’s younger
son; from 1981-91 it was represented by Mr. Rajiv Gandhi, who for many years
was the PM at the same time; from 1999-2004 it was represented by Mrs. Sonia
Gandhi; and from 2004-2013 it has been represented by Mr. Rahul Gandhi. Not only this, even in other times, it has
been represented mostly by Congressmen.
From 1991-98, the constituency was represented by Mr. Satish Sharma, a
close friend of Mr. Rajiv Gandhi. Thus,
in the period between 1980 and 2013, a period of 33 years, Amethi has been
represented by the Nehru-Gandhi family or close associates of it for all but a
period of 2 years, when it was represented by Mr. Sanjay Singh of the
BJP (at the time) in 1998-99.
The integrated result of all these years of royal patronage is that the district is one of the most
backward in India and perhaps in the world.
This is a scathing indictment of the governance of the Nehru-Gandhi
family. They have managed to keep their
own constituency poor, illiterate, sick, undeveloped, violent, and in the dark
even when the rest of India was coming into the modern age.
This is a monumental disgrace.
Against such a backdrop, statements coming from Rahul Gandhi
saying that he cares about the uplift of the poor seem extremely shallow and
fake.
Missing
in Action
In addition, not only has he done nothing to benefit his own
constituency, he has done precious little in influencing things at a national
level. During the turbulent days of the Lokpal
agitation by Anna Hazare, Rahul Gandhi was conspicuous by his
absence. The only contribution he made
during the entire movement was to make a statement in the Lok Sabha during the
discussion on the Lokpal bill that he thought the Lokpal should become a
constitutional body – a fairly worthless statement. The only thing more pathetic than that
intervention by Mr. Gandhi in the Lok Sabha was the sight of his sycophants
coming on national TV channels and behaving and talking as though what we had
seen was scarcely less illuminating than the divine revelation of the Gita by
Lord Krishna to Arjuna in the Mahabharata.
During the New
Delhi gangrape case in 2012 of a young woman in a moving bus, a
case that outraged young people all over the country, Mr. Gandhi was nowhere to
be seen – something that was not expected of one billed as a “youth icon” by
his party.
In short, for the last 9 years, Mr. Gandhi has been a
no-show. He has not visibly or
verifiably contributed directly to any significant policy that has had any
positive effect on the country – and so is in the unenviable position of not
being able to claim credit for anything while seeking the highest office in the
land.
Unproven
Mettle
One can pick a leader for a variety of reasons – an ability
to manage people and handle conflicts well; an ability to understand and
operate in great complexity and ambiguity; an ability to rouse people to
action; or a penetrating intellect that can bring clarity to difficult
situations. But one of the most
important reasons is that he or she leads his team to victory.
All the great generals of history, from Hannibal to Caesar to Genghis Khan to Grant to Napoleon to MacArthur to Zhukov were
people who earned the right to lead by winning.
This is such a great quality that other failings of a person can often
be overlooked merely if the person is a winner.
Which
Brand of Whiskey Does He Drink?
There is a well-known story of General Ulysses Simpson
Grant, the most celebrated general of the Union Army under Abraham Lincoln in the
American
Civil War. Lincoln was
extremely frustrated because his generals were unable to win battles against
the Confederate forces
headed by the legendary general Robert E. Lee, one
of the greatest military minds in history.
Lee and his fellow generals like Stonewall Jackson were
winning battle after battle against the Union army until, finally, the Union
army produced a winning general, US Grant.
Once Grant started winning, some jealous generals went to Lincoln and complained
that Grant was a drunk. Lincoln
responded that in that case he would like to know which brand of whiskey Grant
drank, so that he could send a carton of the same to each of his generals, if
only it could make them fight like Grant.
Such is the aura of a winner. (from Lincoln the Unknown by
Dale Carnegie.)
The Captain
Who Couldn’t Play
Another well-known case, this time in sports, is the curious
case of the English cricketer Mike Brearley. Although nominally a batsman, Mr. Brearley
had a pathetic career as a batsman – his international batting average was only
around 28 runs. Brearley’s USP, however,
was not any individual cricketing skill, but his captaincy. As captain of the English team, Mr. Brearley
had an impressive record of 17 wins and 4 losses in 31 test matches.
He was also famous for reviving the
confidence and winning abilities of England’s greatest all-rounder, Ian Botham,
in very short time. In the second
test at Lord’s in 1981, Botham had a pair (scoreless in both innings) and had
only taken 3 wickets in the loss. The
loss in form and the loss of the test caused Botham to lose his captaincy and
lose confidence in himself. Yet, under
Brearley’s captaincy, Botham stormed back in the very next test to take 6
wickets for 95 runs in Australia’s first innings, score 50 runs in England’s
disastrous first innings (his was the highest score), and then score 149 not
out in the second innings to force Australia to bat again and lose. The test series became so famous for Botham’s
turnaround that it has since been referred to as “Botham’s
Ashes.”
So maybe, in the same vein, can we ignore all of Mr. Rahul
Gandhi’s faults and deficiencies, and just look for those winning qualities in
him? Can Rahul be the Mike Brearley for
the floundering Congress Party? Let us
examine the record.
Mr. Gandhi joined politics in 2003. He won election to the family seat of Amethi
in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections. This is
not a particularly notable achievement, given that the Congress party
completely controlled the constituency; his victory was more a victory the
party handed to him than a victory he had earned for the party.
The
2007 UP Elections
His first major test was in the 2007 elections, where he
took on the task of re-invigorating the party in the state of Uttar Pradesh. UP, once a Congress stronghold during the
reign of Mrs. Indira Gandhi, had been lost by the Congress in 1991, never to
return to the party. In truth, the task
Mr. Gandhi had chosen for himself was formidable. To create a winning grass-roots organization
for a party that had not been in power for 26 years in a state is not at all
easy. One might be forgiven for cutting
Mr. Gandhi some slack and, in fact, commending him on taking on such a
challenge. Victory might have been too
tall a target to achieve; however, what was expected at a minimum was that the
Congress would at least do significantly better than in the previous
election.
The results revealed, however,
that
the Congress party did worse than in the previous state elections. In the 2003 UP election, the Congress party
won 25 seats; and in the 2007 election, under Mr. Gandhi’s leadership, the
party won only 22 seats, a loss of 3 seats, with only 8.53% of the vote. By no measure could Mr. Gandhi be deemed to
have had a positive outcome on the party’s fortunes in the state.
The
2010 Bihar Elections
A similar fate awaited Mr. Gandhi in his next test, which
was the state elections in Bihar
in 2010. As in UP, the Congress party
had been out of power in Bihar for two decades, so an outright victory would be
expecting too much of Mr. Gandhi. A much
more realistic expectation, however, and a real test of his skills as a leader
and a winner, would be a significantly improved performance in the 2010
election compared to the previous state election in 2005. Even a modest improvement could be seen as a
sign of positive change.
What happened
under Mr. Gandhi, however, was a debacle.
The
party that had won 9 seats in 2005 could only win 4 seats in Bihar under Mr.
Gandhi’s leadership.
The
2012 Gujarat Elections
Not content with these failures, Mr. Gandhi next took on the
incumbent chief minister of Gujarat,
Mr. Narendra Modi, who had won two terms in a row and was aiming to win a third
time in 2012. Mr. Gandhi promised that
under his leadership, the Congress party would defeat Mr. Modi and win back
Gujarat for the Congress for the first time since 1995, a hiatus of 17
years. The result for Mr. Gandhi in
Gujarat was slightly better than those in UP and Bihar, but hardly impressive:
the Congress
won 61 seats out of 182, a marginal improvement over its
performance in 2007, when it won 59 seats.
But all the rhetoric of defeating the BJP government under Mr. Modi
proved to be empty.
Thus, in all three major tests of Rahul Gandhi’s leadership
skills and his ability to win elections for his party since entering politics,
he has either proved an unmitigated disaster or has hardly made a difference.
Foot-in-the-Mouth
Disease
We have seen that Rahul Gandhi’s record as an administrator
of his constituency reveals extraordinary incompetence. It is not something he can brag about in his
speeches. We have also seen that as a
leader who can win elections for his party, Mr. Gandhi has a miserable track
record. So Mr. Gandhi cannot boast about
past victories in his speeches. But if
one has to project himself as a prominent leader, one must talk about something
in public speeches.
Given his past baggage, Mr. Gandhi has two choices at this
point, neither of which is very attractive – talk about issues, or talk about
family members who have done better than him.
Talking about issues is difficult for Mr. Gandhi because, as
we have seen, Rahul is very deficient in this area. Not only is he out of depth in most of the
things he talks about, as we have seen in the examples presented earlier, but many
a time he presents pure fabrications, which create a mess that others from his
party have to clean up for him.
Bones
in Bhatta Parsaul – Human or Animal?
Demanding
Gratitude from the BJP for Kargil Support
During the attempt to pass the FDI in retail bill, Mr.
Gandhi suggested that the BJP should support the FDI bill as a
way of showing gratitude to the Congress, which had supported the NDA
government in the Kargil war. The BJP immediately (and correctly) retorted
that supporting the country at a time of war was not a political calculation,
but the obligation of every Indian.
ISI in
Touch with Muzaffarnagar Victims
The statement was made by Mr. Gandhi to
target the BJP, whom he accused of fomenting the riots, of creating
circumstances that encouraged Muslim citizens of India to turn to terrorism;
but it backfired because it was viewed as questioning (without any basis) the
patriotism of Indian Muslims. The very
constituency he was trying to curry favour with was
furious with him.
In
addition, the Election Commission issued
a show-cause notice to Mr. Gandhi asking him why they should not take
action against him in light of his remarks which violated the model code of conduct.
Grandstanding
at the Expense of the Party
This tendency to make serious mistakes whenever he talks
about issues is so grave that it leaves Mr. Gandhi with just one choice.
This is the use of more references to his father, his
mother, his grandmother, his great-grandfather, and perhaps even his
great-great-grandfather. Even though, as
a strategy, this is revolting and nauseating, it is far preferable to landing
the party (and maybe even the country) in a soup whenever he makes a statement.
The
1971 War Gaffe
The Indian narrative regarding the 1971 war had always been
couched in humanitarian terms – in other words, the Indian army got into the
act because of the oppression taking place in east Pakistan (now Bangladesh) by
people from west Pakistan – as a last resort to prevent further genocide by the
west Pakistanis. India has always
maintained that it intervened for two reasons: as a humanitarian gesture, and
to stop the immigration from east Pakistan into West Bengal, which was a
calamity of huge proportions (more than 10 million refugees). In addition, India’s entry into the war was
precipitated by Pakistan launching
pre-emptive air strikes at Indian
airbases on December 3, 1971.
However, in 2007, when Mr. Gandhi was campaigning for the
party in the UP state elections, he claimed credit for his family (his
grandmother, Indira Gandhi) for having “decided” on “the division of Pakistan.” The ostensible reason was to highlight Indira
Gandhi’s determination in winning the war and imply that he, as her grandson,
possessed the same strength of character.
But this statement led to
a huge diplomatic row with Pakistan, which alleged that India’s
stance all these years that its intervention in Pakistan was a humanitarian
move was a smokescreen – that their real objective was to deliberately break up
Pakistan.
In other words, to make himself look good, Mr. Gandhi put
the country’s diplomacy, its negotiating power, and its international
reputation, at risk. Foreign policies
towards countries are crafted very carefully by diplomats in order to convey
the right image in international fora, and these are maintained for decades,
irrespective of which party is in power at the centre. Diplomats think carefully about each word
that they use, for fear of misinterpretation.
In one stroke, however, Mr. Gandhi managed to ruin the work of scores of
diplomats working for decades – all in an effort to project himself in a
positive light. Just as an example, such
an admission weakens India in international diplomacy when India accuses
Pakistan of fomenting terror in Kashmir – for the Pakistanis can now retort – wait,
didn’t your own Rahul Gandhi admit that there was a deliberate plan to divide
Pakistan? Why find fault with us for
wanting to divide India?
Babri
Masjid Would Not Have Happened With a Gandhi at The Helm
So Mr. Gandhi’s attempt to portray his family as above
communal politics is not only factually incorrect, it is also a betrayal of the
party and weakens his own party’s image.
It is a measure of the hollowness of the man that he has to stoop so low
as to try to grab something, anything, no matter how weak that claim to fame
may be.
The
Representation of the People Amendment Bill And Ordinance
The RPA allowed for convicted lawmakers to retain their
seats in legislatures and the Parliament provided they had filed an appeal in a
higher court within 30 days of the conviction.
The Supreme Court ruled that any lawmaker who was convicted of a
sentence of imprisonment more than 2 years would henceforth be immediately
disqualified from holding his or her seat, and would not be eligible to serve
again as a legislator or parliamentarian.
This meant that several convicted MPs then serving in the
Lok Sabha would be at risk of losing their seats and their political
future.
At the same time, the UPA government filed a review petition
in the Supreme Court asking the court to reconsider its earlier decision of
July 10th declaring sections of the RPA ultra vires. On
September 4, 2013, the Supreme Court rejected the review petition. The Supreme Court bluntly said that in its
interpretation, the present RPA was unconstitutional, and
said, “Parliament is free to amend the law if it does not agree with [the]
interpretation of law given by the Supreme Court.”
On September 26th, MPs from the BJP met President
Pranab Mukherjee to
try and persuade him not to give his assent to the ordinance, terming it
unconstitutional. The BJP action was
done in the backdrop of widespread public outrage over the ordinance, and
President Mukherjee understood the gravity of the situation. He
immediately summoned senior ministers of the UPA - Kamal Nath, Parliamentary Affairs Minister,
Kapil Sibal, Law Minister, and Sushilkumar Shinde, Home Minister, to a meeting
with him and asked them tough questions on why the government had
introduced the ordinance, dropping hints that he might not simply sign on the
dotted line.
After the outrage had gone on for a few days, with the
Congress continuing to defend its ordinance in the face of public opposition
from all quarters, Rahul Gandhi suddenly sprung a surprise on the party when
he barged into a press conference on September 27th, held by
Congress General Secretary Ajay
Maken to explain the ordinance to the press and defend it. In his intervention, Rahul Gandhi
peremptorily called the ordinance passed by the UPA cabinet “nonsense” and said
that “it should be torn up and thrown away.”
The move caught not only Maken, but the entire Congress party, including
his mother, Sonia Gandhi, and the PM, Mr. Manmohan Singh, causing deep
embarrassment to the party and the PM.
What was Mr. Gandhi trying to do? Was he unaware of what was happening in the
country? Highly unlikely. Consider the timeline. The Supreme Court verdict declaring
provisions of the RPA ultra vires came on July 10th; the amendment
to the RPA was introduced in parliament on August 26th; the
rejection of the review petition by the Supreme Court happened on September 4th;
and the cabinet of PM Manmohan Singh passed the executive ordinance that had
the same import as the bill introduced in parliament on September 24th. President Mukherjee summoned the UPA ministers
to discuss the ordinance on September 26th and left no doubt in
their minds that he was not in favour of the ordinance. Mr. Gandhi’s outburst
came on September 27th. If
Mr. Gandhi was opposed to the ordinance, then surely he was opposed to the bill
(as has been made evident in statements from the party since). If so, why wait so long to make his
objections known even to his own party?
Mr. Gandhi waited more than a month after his own government
introduced the bill on the floor of the Rajya Sabha to speak about his
reservations against the bill – and he did it gracelessly, without informing
any of his party colleagues, even excluding the PM from his views. He did this after the rest of his party had
spent a whole month arguing for, explaining, and defending the bill and
ordinance that the PM, with the blessing of Sonia Gandhi as party president,
had introduced, with the support of the entire cabinet. If he was opposed to the bill, why not say it
up front and save everyone the trouble and the embarrassment?
There never was any doubt about what would happen if Rahul
Gandhi disapproved of anything, as was evident in the speed with which the
party changed course after Rahul’s intervention...within less than a week after
Rahul Gandhi’s public outburst, the
party withdrew both the ordinance and the bill. Given that he knew that the slightest
disapproval from him would deep-six the bill, Rahul Gandhi, if he really cared
about his party, would have talked privately with the prime minister and
prevented the bill’s introduction on August 26th.
Even assuming that, not being in the cabinet,
he was not privy to the discussions that led to the introduction of the bill,
he could still have talked privately with Mr. Singh a day or two after the bill
was publicly introduced and convinced him to withdraw the bill on the cabinet’s
initiative.
The only explanation is that
Mr. Gandhi deliberately let the Congress party push the bill, watched the
public reaction, saw that it was extremely adverse, realized that the president
was not in support of it, and then decided to rush in as the “rebel” who
represented the will of the people to defy his own party. In other words, Mr. Gandhi was grandstanding
at the expense of the party.
What must be even more galling to the party seniors is the
timing of the outburst. Prime Minister
Singh was in the United States on an international diplomatic mission, and Mr.
Gandhi’s outburst right in the middle of the trip made it appear that Mr. Singh
had no clout even within his own party and definitely would have weakened
his hand in any negotiations with the US or Pakistan. But Mr. Gandhi couldn’t care less for any of
these repercussions for the country, so long as this little piece of drama
afforded him a possibility to project himself – at the expense of his party,
his leaders, and his country.
The
Fear Psychosis
All this begs the obvious question – why, 0f all people,
would the Congress party want to keep projecting a person who is incompetent, a
backstabber, and an underachiever, as the future leader of their party and PM
of the country?
There are two main reasons for this, and both are driven by
fear – the fear of losing.
2.
Related to the first point, there is a lack of
adequate and credible leadership in the Congress party. To illustrate this point, one only needs to
look at the recent leadership struggle in the BJP to see an example both of
strong leadership and a strong party.
Mr. Narendra Modi, himself a strong leader, having won the state
elections of Gujarat handsomely three times in a row, was bidding for the
leadership of the party. He was strongly
opposed by senior stalwarts in the party, including the founder of the BJP, the
highly venerated LK Advani,
and other senior leaders, such as Murli Manohar Joshi,
leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha, Sushma Swaraj, and former
finance minister Yashwant
Sinha. He was also backed by several
senior leaders including the president of the party, Rajnath Singh, and senior
Rajya Sabha member Arun
Jaitley.
In the months that followed, what transpired was no less than a full-blown
civil war inside the BJP, with strong statements from several leaders speaking
in favour of or against Mr. Modi. Mr.
Advani even went so far as to
submit his resignation from all party posts if the party decided to go
ahead with Mr. Modi.
When the dust settled, it was Mr. Modi who had won, as he had the support of
the party cadre. But more importantly,
the BJP as a party was still united, despite a fierce fight. Mr. Advani did not split the party, as was widely
feared and speculated; despite all his reservations, he stayed inside the
party. And so did other senior leaders,
like his protégé Sushma Swaraj.
Now that’s the sign of a strong party. A
strong party admits of differences in opinion, even outright defiance, but once
the party as a whole decides, everyone goes along with the decision. It is not as properly democratic as the American
primary system, but for an Indian party, this is more than one would normally
expect.
A pitched battle, where people freely voice their dissensions, and the most
popular person wins, is a healthy, democratic system. The great achievement of the BJP, and of Mr.
Rajnath Singh, its president, as
I have discussed in an earlier post, is that he has managed to address all
the concerns at this early stage, well before the elections, and settle the
issue of leadership and the candidate for the PM post should the party
win. This means that since all the
issues were debated and a consensus was reached, no one can question the
decision again and demand a revisiting of the issue.
In contrast, the situation within the current Congress party is very unhealthy
and unstable. There is no better example
of the complete emasculation of the so-called party leaders than the fact that
Mr. Rahul Gandhi makes blooper after blooper; proves beyond doubt his
incompetence and his lack of understanding of history, economics, or politics;
shows his inability to lead the party to victory anywhere; and embarrasses the
party time and again; and yet senior party leaders, such as P. Chidambaram, AK Antony, Kapil Sibal, and Jaipal Reddy, to name a
few – men who are tremendously more experienced and wiser than Mr. Rahul Gandhi
in politics and almost any other knowledge domain – feel compelled to praise
his every failing and continue to say that Mr. Gandhi can do no wrong.
Such behaviour is seen only in a monarchy, where the prince or the
heir-apparent can never do any wrong, and so it is not acceptable to criticize
him (at least openly), whatever his faults.
More significantly, it is extremely unhealthy, for people feel one way
in private and say something else in public, leading to pent-up resentment. It makes for fair-weather friends and a
ground ripe for defection. The people in
this party are bound not by a shared vision, but by opportunism. The only trait that is valued in such a party
is loyalty to the maximum leader. In the
place of debate, discussion, criticism, openness, and a meritocracy, what is
usually seen in such a system is fear, sycophancy, nepotism, mediocrity, and
corruption.
One of the rare instances when someone in the Congress or its allies in the UPA
has openly criticized Mr. Gandhi was when, in
a recent interview, Mr. Sharad Pawar, a veteran politician, leader of the
Nationalist Congress Party and the Union Agriculture minister, did some plain
speaking, saying that he would not be willing to be part of a cabinet where
Mr. Gandhi was the PM, saying simply that “One has to prove his mettle in
administration. Rahul Gandhi should have joined the Manmohan Singh government.
He did not join.” Mr. Pawar’s objection
is what anyone endowed with commonsense would offer – after all, if someone has
never managed any administrative position in a company, you do not make him the
CEO. As renowned Indian historian, Ramchandra
Guha, recently said, “It is clear Rahul Gandhi suffers from never having
done a job. Not just a political job, but any job.” But the Congress party reacted
to Mr. Pawar’s statement with denial, and there was no further discussion
of such a valid objection. This is
because the party culture forbids any discussion or criticism of the first
family comprising Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, Mr. Rahul Gandhi, Ms. Priyanka Vadra or Mr. Robert Vadra.
There is no room for a leader like Narendra Modi in the Congress, one who can
challenge the supremacy of Mrs. Sonia Gandhi or her family like Modi challenged
LK Advani in the BJP. And it is this
lack of strong leadership within the Congress that allows incompetence and
mediocrity as exemplified by Mr. Gandhi to flourish.
Conclusion
Political parties are of various kinds. Some are based on an ideology; others are
based on caste, community, or other such groupings; and some are based purely
on a personality cult. The Congress
party is a party of the third kind.
It is based solely on allegiance to the Nehru-Gandhi family. Because of this unique aspect, there are no
requirements of competence, achievement, or loyalty when it comes to judging
someone from the family of Mrs. Indira Gandhi or her descendants. This is the reason why Mr. Rahul Gandhi,
despite all his obvious limitations, his lack of achievement, and his readiness
to backstab his party colleagues, is still being projected as the future leader
of the Congress and the future prime minister of India.
Congress
supporters were very upset when Mr. Narendra Modi recently referred
to Mr. Gandhi as a “Shehzada” (an urdu word for Prince). But that taunt only refers to dynastic rule
and is really not an insult per se.
After all, all the great Moghuls were first Shehzade before they became
emperors of eminence. Akbar was a prince, a Shehzada,
before he became one of the greatest emperors in the world. So were Jehangir, Shah Jahan, and Aurangzeb. The term “Shehzada,” therefore, does not
connote incompetence – only a transition stage for a ruler. It does imply, however, that the Congress
party is run like a monarchy, where the monarch and his or her family are above
reproach – which is an accurate reflection of reality.
However, Mr. Gandhi does not deserve a comparison with an
Akbar or a Shah Jahan. More accurately, he
resembles those members of a royal family who have no achievements to their own
credit – the hangers-on, if you will – people like the first or second cousins
of the monarch, who will never wield real power or influence, who will never be
respected either for their bravery or their intelligence or their wisdom - and
so are forced to constantly prate on about the accomplishments of their
forebears and associates – and who, therefore, add the names of their ancestors
to their own in a bid to make it more glorious than it really is.
Keeping that in mind, Mr. Gandhi deserves a name that is
more than just Shehzada:
Shehzada Rahul bin Rajiv ibn Indira bint Jawahar bin Motilal
al-Gandhi al-Nehru.
