Rahul’s mysterious ways

Usually, sabbaticals are rewards that come at the end of hard work. They could also be a means to escape the tedium of daily routine — an opportunity to revive interest in work. Like in every profession, in politics too, multiple reasons could prod politicians into seeking temporary leave from the party: political success, failure or even intra-party differences. For instance, former Prime Ministers Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, at different historical junctures, had considered taking not just temporary leave from the party, but quitting politics altogether. They were persuaded by Congress party workers to stay on.

These examples come to mind because of the recent and abrupt decision by yet another member of the Gandhi-Nehru family to proceed on leave. On the eve of the Budget session of Parliament, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi has decided to take a break — apparently — to mull the state of his party which has been losing ground pretty much everywhere across the country. But beyond a family thread, not much — politically at least — connects Rahul with his grandmother and great-grandfather.

Much as one may wish for Rahul’s high-voltage political lineage to have transferred the coveted political gene to its family descendant — that does not seem to have happened. If anything, Rahul’s continued ill-at-ease political behaviour, in evidence for over a decade, his erratic style of functioning and lack of communication with media and people at large, have proven him to be a politician tone-deaf to the realities of modern politics. In other words, despite feeble and now increasingly audible protestations from Congressmen and women, Rahul has proven to be a liability rather than an asset for his party.

Yet, if Congress veterans are to be believed, the Congress vice-president has no intention of calling it a day. Family loyalists like Mani Shankar Aiyar maintain that frustrated by the opposition from old-timers within the party, to the changes that he wants to bring into the Congress, Rahul has taken time off. We are made to understand that Rahul has chosen solitude to put together a better and more effective party strategy. Such high-sounding motives — given Rahul’s political track record — indeed are hard to believe. 

So far the politician has appeared to be a man driven by momentary impulses: recall his stunning tearing up of the Ordinance granting immunity to tainted legislators or his sudden forays into the movements against land acquisition in Niyamgiri forest and Bhatta Parsaul, and equally sudden exit from these spaces. Rahul, so far (and it surely has been sufficient time,) has shown no signs of coming to grips with the demands of the political situation. Or seriously heeding the needs of his badly-scalded party in recent times. Sloughing off the burden of leading the Congress, Rahul appears and disappears as and when he wants to. 

Despite mounting criticism about his lack of intervention — his long absences in the Lok Sabha — the Congress MP continues to play the political dodger. He has been caught napping in Parliament while a debate on price rise was underway. No political adversity — and there have been plenty striking the Congress — seems serious enough to jolt Rahul into proactive action.  

The timing of his latest decision to exit the political scene once again confirms this temperamental frailty. Just when the political nerve centre of the Delhi durbar — Parliament as well as the site of protest Jantar Mantar — are beginning to resonate with issues which Rahul claims are close to his heart, he has removed himself from the scene. Next to the protests organised by Anna Hazare and other peasant organisations against the Land Acquisition Bill, the Congress party too, led a protest meeting on Wednesday. Ironically, one of the party’s leading pro-poor and pro-farmer faces was missing at the meeting. Has absenteeism become a political leitmotif for the Congress vice-president?  

After all, the Land Acquisition Bill that is presently being negated by the BJP-government was brought by Rahul’s own party which was then leading the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government. As a self-avowed champion of the underclass, Rahul should have taken the lead in and outside Parliament against the attempts by his adversaries to kill the Bill. Instead, he has hardly spoken on the issue.  Senior party leader Digvijaya Singh once said that Rahul Gandhi, by temperament, is “not a ruling person.” “He is by temperament someone who wants to fight injustice,” added Singh. His conduct, so far, has hardly borne out that charitable description.  
Strangely, Rahul never thought it fit to take his colleagues into confidence before taking off — presumably — to the hills. In an interview to Karan Thapar, Digvijaya Singh said that it was from mediapersons that he came to know about Rahul’s sudden leave. All of a sudden, Congress leaders have begun to speak about the difficulties of organisational functioning due to the dual centres of power split between Sonia and Rahul. Senior leader Kamal Nath, in media interviews said, “There have been times when I told Sonia Gandhi something and she says I should talk to Rahul Gandhi; sometimes I talk to Rahul and he says he needs to talk to Sonia Gandhi because she’s party president.”

None of these explanations — even if true — justify Rahul’s leave at this point. In sharp contrast to Rahul’s erratic politics is the example of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief and the recently elected Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. The AAP was washed out in the Modi wave of the 2014 general elections. Media lost interest in Kejriwal and his badly mauled party. But the AAP kept its head down and worked at the grass roots — organising mohalla meetings, jan sabhas, touching base with the people: silent, invisible work. 

Even then few could have anticipated that the hard work would pay such huge electoral dividends in just nine months. Especially since Kejriwal had to battle the anger of the electorate in Delhi for quitting his Chief Ministership. But Kejriwal apologised to them for what he described as his error. He also admitted to hubris creeping into the party following its meteoric electoral success in Delhi. The voters agreed to give him yet another chance in office.

In the aftermath of its humiliating defeat in 2014, the Congress could also have come clean on its wrongdoings — particularly the string of scams that hung over its head like Damocles’ sword. In the Congress’s historic tradition, Rahul, could have embarked on a journey of people-to-people contact. The now much talked about resistance to his organisational reforms should not have driven him into a sulk. That is not how good politicians act.

Yet none of these shortcomings are likely to come in the way of stalling Rahul’s election as Congress president — a charge he may take over from his mother at the All India Congress Committee session in April.  Even after the party elevation, if Rahul continues with his political sluggishness, the Congress party has only itself to blame for its misfortune.

The author is national editor, dna of thought