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Both the events were in the offing. For quite some time there has been speculation about the longevity of the current Lok Sabha. The Left parties had been chafing for quite some time though experts seem to be unanimous in their opinion that the Left would be the loser in the eventuality of a poll. Why then the Left has pressed the button will be debated for a long time to come but what has been eagerly awaited by observers and Congressmen has been the elevation of Rahul Gandhi. His readiness to shoulder greater responsibility in the party and assume the same position that his father did when he first took his reluctant steps in politics has generated considerable excitement across the board. It would be remembered that it was only the other day that the Congress President Sonia Gandhi had remarked that the time for the younger lot of Congress would come and that they should wait. They have patiently waited and it is now obvious that the Party believes that the time is ripe to prepare for handing over the baton. It is not just about Rahul Gandhi as there are number of his peers in the Congress who have been in public for a considerable time now. Jyotiraditya Scindia, Sachin Pilot, Nitin Prasad, Milind Deora etc. have been in the Parliament for sometime now and they believe that their apprenticeship has been fruitful for them. Add to them the likes of Jairam Ramesh and Abhishek Singhvi and we have an all together different face of the Congress, a face that it has not possessed since the days of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. However, this also opened up a debate and in a few quarters the old guard of Congressmen has been questioning the wisdom of thrusting more responsibility on the ‘baba-logs’. These people are also pointing out to the miserable performance of the Congress in the recently concluded U.P. elections. That was the first time that Rahul Gandhi had ventured out of Amethi and Rae Barielly to test the political waters. Throughout the campaign he was mobbed by curious and apparently admiring crowds. Soon, though, he had found out that campaigning was not just about pleasing personality and mingling with the crowds. The media was quick to highlight his amateurish understanding of the problems that the country faced and the exaggerated sense of the role of his family in good governance. His remarks about the ‘break up’ of Pakistan were provocative and unnecessary. The end result was that instead of wooing back the Muslims to the Congress fold he had pushed them towards the BSP! Professional Congressmen also attribute the success of BSP to Rahul Gandhi and his faulty understanding of poverty and social justice. In fact, these Congressmen believe that he along with this new breed of leadership possesses neither the idiom nor the philosophy to woo the poor and the oppressed. They point out that Rahul Gandhi had inducted a number of volunteers having modern and west oriented education and all of them had brought their management skills to the constituencies they were assigned and yet the results were disastrous. In all fairness it needs to be said that much before the arrival of Rahul Gandhi, or for that matter Sonia Gandhi, the Congress had been dismantled in the state of Uttar Pradesh. The coalition of groups and castes had not only been destroyed under the twin attack of Ram Mandir and Babri Masjid demolition but the backward classes and dalits had also deserted the party under the influence of Mandal and Dalit politics. Thus the Congress ship that Rahul Gandhi had offered to pilot during the Assembly elections was a ship without manpower and therefore much of the time it moved only up and down when the Rahul wave would strike it on the streets. Finally there appeared to be frenzied movement of the waves without the ship inching forward, as the election tally of the Congress demonstrated. It is also obvious that a political party that believes in its destined role and is proud of its history cannot allow things to remain like that in the wake of adversity. With the structure demolished it has to rebuild it brick by brick and in the process if the bricks are new rather than the old ones then that much the better for it. By thrusting more responsibility on Rahul Gandhi even in the wake of the heart breaking set back in Uttar Pradesh, the Congress President has signaled that she is neither daunted by the challenge nor the mountain that appears to lie before the party. In fact, an objective analysis of the political scene and comparison with what late Rajiv Gandhi had faced would suggest that the younger Gandhi is in an advantageous situation. While Rajiv Gandhi had inherited a political team that had been cobbled by his mother and younger brother Sanjay Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi is evolving a team of young men who have had a choice in life and have willingly chosen public life to which they bring modern outlook and management practices. Rajiv Gandhi worked with the team that he inherited and hoped that it would realize the onerous nature of responsibility on their shoulders and change; Rahul Gandhi has the confidence that he has a team of young men who share his vision and cherish his values. Obviously far more meaningful work can be done by a team that is cohesive and the team member does not have to look over his shoulder to keep an eye over some of the colleagues. Having said, it should be obvious that all that the Congress President has done is to assign a responsibility to Rahul Gandhi and the younger lot that no one else was capable of taking. Congress needs not only fresh blood but also ideas. It needs to take into account the harsh reality of the widening gap between the rich and the poor and the mocking anomaly where irrespective of whether a person has shelter or not, or whether he has clothes or not, he is considered to above the poverty line provided he has access to six chapattis and a bowl of dal! It also needs to take into account the fact that the rate of urbanization is rapidly increasing and that the concerns of the rising middle class have to be taken into account. In doing so a balance has to be created between agriculture and industry and the process of industrialization, inevitable as it is, cannot be to serve the purpose of the foreign countries but of the people who are displaced in the process. Today, a huge chunk of the country’s population constitutes of young people. They are impatient of the old ways and lack of success at the international field in many areas. This explains the massive response of the people in the Twenty20 Cricket championship and the sudden belief that the country can do without the Gods of yesterday! Some might attribute this response to the fickle nature of the mob but underneath it is the pining for success and greater role in the world. It is time to make moves in that direction and for Congress there cannot be a better time to send the message that the stage is being created for the young at a time when BJP, the pretender to the right to rule Centre, is busy mobilizing opinion in favor of an eighty year old L.K.Advani. Fortunately, Rahul Gandhi has an opportunity at a time when the country is going through a phase of hectic economic activity. Never before have there been more jobs for the educated and never before has the country had the confidence of achieving the targets that are set before it. Yes, there are dark areas like agriculture but there is nothing to be despondent about it. A leadership that does not carry the baggage of biases and prejudices ought to be able to make course corrections in agriculture and allied sector and open greater opportunities of progress. But even more important is the fact that this young group of leaders has a certain charisma that helps them lead the way. Suave, educated and yet capable of mingling with the coarse hands they can stand up as models who inspire others to break the barriers and open new vistas. They are the ones after whom the ordinary people fashion their life and in the ultimate analysis this is what leadership is all about. In fact, the wait is over and their time has come. The ball now, as the cliché goes, is in their court. |
Close on the heels of the
debacle of Uttar Pradesh elections Rahul Gandhi has been entrusted with
greater responsibility. A no-existent party could not have done better
in UP but now he has been given a broader canvas and a team that is in
public life of its own conscious choice. The young guns of Congress are
leaders in their own right, eager to leave a mark and make a difference
to the collective lives of the people. Importantly, the young India is
ready and willing to carry the baton.
