DNA Edit | Mr Gaffe: Gandhi scion refuses to learn

One can invariably count on Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi to embarrass himself and the Congress party. While answering a question lobbed at him by an audience of students from the University of California, he said that dynasts are commonplace in Indian politics and that he shouldn’t be singled out for his inheritance. Rahul’s statement is ill-thought-out and sketchy.

Though it purportedly speaks about the entire political milieu in India, Rahul has never been able to carve out a significant political standing of his own without the Congress label. It was irresponsible of him to make such a blanket comment. Had he taken the trouble, he would have come to learn about the luminous personalities who have beaten staggering odds and crippling social discrimination to become, for instance, India’s President and Vice-President. India’s current Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also risen from a humble background, having forged his way forward by doing odd jobs at one point for a livelihood. Obviously, none of these success stories inform the political vision of the Congress vice-president, who was born with a silver spoon and was afforded the privilege of looking at the levers of power from such close quarters that one could possibly mistake it as one’s birthright.

However, for the faceless millions in India, securing power has been no less than a gritty, no-holds-barred, arduous fight that has come at costs so patently prohibitive that one wouldn’t wage these struggles if one had any other option. It is only when power is achieved at so high a cost — of tears, toils and a thousand troubles — that the great responsibility accompanying great power can be shouldered adeptly. When it comes to one as his inheritance, it is but natural to be cavalier about it; only but natural to assume it will be theirs for the taking forever; and only but natural for one to squander it away. Perhaps, this is why the Congress’s star in India has been waning.

Meanwhile, Rahul is on a two-week study tour of the United States, which is being dubbed by his party as preparation for the general elections in 2019. It does not take a political expert to realise that embarrassing India on an international platform is not a respectable way to win over future voters. Further, what lessons the US polity, which is starkly different from the chequered Indian political landscape, can offer Gandhi is anyone’s guess? If the Congress’ second-in-command is really interested in reviving the fortunes of the dying party, he should first instil a democratic culture within the Congress. This would entail pushing the clutch of Delhi elites to the party’s periphery.