Rahul Gandhi prefers to cast himself as the insurgent. He wants to be Arvind Kejriwal. His party would prefer if he were Narendra Modi. Unfortunately both positions are taken. Friday's speech can't change that reality
There is no doubt Mr Rahul Gandhi’s speech at the All India Congress Committee session on Friday, January 17, was aggressive, called the Opposition — primarily the BJP — names and sought to inject a certain energy and gusto into a Congress campaign that has thus far just refused to take off. There was at least one interesting idea — that of a pilot programme of internal elections or primaries in 15 lok Sabha constituencies. There was at least one poignant line: “We are trustees of an idea…” There was the description of the Congress as the embodiment of inclusion and pluralism and of the others, really the BJP, as alien to this tradition.
Having said that, some fundamental questions remain. In the past one year, Mr Gandhi has given two speeches that have been worthy of some note. At the Jaipur AICC session in January 2013, when he was anointed vice president of the party, he made an emotional address, referred to his mother and his grandmother and her assassination, talked of power being “a poison”. On Friday in New Delhi, he was combative and gesticulating in the manner of a go-getting politician. The key point is: What happened in the period in betweenIJ
Mr Gandhi’s speeches through the rest of 2013 (post-Jaipur) were tepid, confused, overly obsessed with stories of his family, lacking in inspirational ideas or even the controlled and pre-meditated aggression that politicians so often resort to. Why was the Friday version of Mr Gandhi not on offer in the recent Assembly elections or in the Gujarat election campaign of November-December 2012, where he was clearly the underdog, taking on the incumbent, Narendra ModiIJ
Perhaps Mr Gandhi felt the need — even the imperative — to appear bold and angry because he was addressing his party colleagues, workers and functionaries from Congress units across the country and those most likely to be worried about the 2014 election. In that sense, he was talking up the party’s mood, or at least attempting to. This called for a new form — new “packaging”, to use an expression Mr Gandhi did in another context — even if to camouflage old content. After all, what Mr Gandhi spoke of was not new. Consider the dhobi list: A repetition of the UPA Government’s welfare legislations of the past 10 years; an invocation of Panchayati Raj and the role of his father, Rajiv Gandhi; the push for new anti-corruption laws; the promise of women’s reservation in Parliament; the right to housing.
About the only new point Mr Gandhi made was the specific reference to a new section of the Indian population — those below the traditional middle classes and above the absolutely poor. This section has been ignored in the UPA years and by Mr Gandhi’s own rhetoric of “two Indias, rich and poor”. This is an India that is neither rich nor poor, that cannot shop in malls and is too well-off for accessing school admission under economically weaker section quotas or for seeking a dole under the national rural employment guarantee programme. This is the section Mr Modi and the BJP refer to as the “neo-middle class”. This is the section that has thrown up support, and even Ministers, for the Aam Aadmi Party. This is the section the Congress didn’t even mention till Jaipur 2013.
This section of the population will be critical in the 2014 election. It cannot deliver a majority for any one party but it can ensure enough seats for either of the national parties to run a coalition to its liking and its comfort. This group, especially when it intersects with two large social forces that are changing India — urbanisation and dependence on the urban economy; and a youth bulge that is sometimes called the demographic dividend — has been left cold by the Congress and its messaging in recent years.
This segment is restive and impatient; it is defined by impatience and ambition, aspiration and occasionally razzmatazz — including the sort of “politics as theatre” idiom Mr Gandhi mocked. In more substantive terms, this segment is looking for jobs — a four-letter word Mr Gandhi barely mentioned in his address to the AICC delegates —and not for hand-me-downs and free gifts that may or may not translate into lasting benefits. This segment sees itself as the underdog, seeking to take on a system of privilege. This segment is not going to be comfortable with a line that begins “We gave you the power …” Using an expression such as that — and presenting democracy and its instruments as a largesse — represents a disconnect and a condescension, even if those sentiments are not intended.
Democracy is inclusive and bottom-up, rather than top-down. Paradoxically, governance is rigorous and authoritative, rather than loose-limbed and going all over the place. In his speech, as in several interventions in recent times, did Mr Gandhi confuse theseIJ Having a manifesto written by popular suggestions and demands and promising to uncritically implement these in Government may sound dramatic. Yet, it ignores the one virtue voters search for in an election, and that Indians are awaiting so deeply in 2014: leadership.
This a huge vacuum in the Congress platform as the countdown begins to voting day. Behind the insistence that the Constitution does not allow for the naming of a prime ministerial candidate and behind the machismo of Mr Gandhi’s speech, lies this defensiveness, this realisation that the party is bereft of a strong voice, a compelling leader and a voter magnet, somebody who can galvanise the neighbourhoods and mohallas.
If the Congress had such a leader or if it thought its vice president could bring in an incremental appeal and win it the election, there is no doubt it would have named Mr Gandhi as the prime ministerial candidate.
As it happens, Rahul Gandhi prefers to cast himself as the insurgent, not the helmsman He wants to be Arvind Kejriwal. His party would prefer if he were Narendra Modi. Unfortunately both positions are taken. For all its points, Friday's speech can't change that reality.
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(The accompanying visual is of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress president Sonia Gandhi and party vice president Rahul Gandhi at AICC meeting in New Delhi on Friday. PTI photo by Atul Yadav)