Men, Matters & Memories
M L Kotru
Rahul Gandhi was at it again- this time over it was to be on the last working day of the Lok Sabha before it adjourned sine die, after its short winter season. How does Rahul figure in my tale? His unabashed endorsement of Anna Hazare and the Lokpal Bill, just before it was adopted by parliament that day, Rahul displayed the kind of nimbleness that one normally associates with a mind willing to read the writing on the wall. He may have looked a bit maladroit the day he stormed into his party spokesman Maken’s Press Conference to dramatically denounce the convicted MPs (legislators) ordinance and the proposed bill to legitimize the same to undo an apex court judgment which put a bar on criminals seeking elections to legislatures.
Rahul described the move as “nonsense” and “a piece of paper that belongs to a waste paper basket”. The government took hardly any time to fall in line and that was the end of the ordinance.
Speaking in parliament this week he spoke in equally strong terms in favour of the Lokpal Bill which had caused Hazare to stage a momentous fast-cum-rally in Delhi. His party colleagues had not hesitated to dismiss Anna as a maverick, an attention-seeker which, as events unfolded, he was not. Out of Hazare’s ‘satygraha’ was born what is now known as the Aam Admi Party led by Hazare protégé Arvind Kejriwal.
Anna may have washed his hands off the AAP because it was not in accord with his objectives but Kejriwal proved a point by creating his party as a very serious candidate for power in Delhi, the city-State witnessing a badly fractured verdict; the BJP ended at the top but must significantly it brought AAP in as the second largest party, high above the Congress which, at the time of writing, has offered its unconditional support to Kejriwal to form the government in the State ruled by it for 15 successive years.
Rahul was once again impressed by the charge of the AAP youth brigade and must indeed have wondered why as the head of the youth Congress and before that of NSUI he had not used the two youth wings of his party to similar effect. The difference though lies in fact that the AAP youth were imbued by a different kind of fire that cared not a fig for the established parties nor for records. To achieve similar or identical objectives the Rahul youth were never similarly motivated, their addiction to political patronage always taking the front seat, an attitude that has been the bane of the two Congress youth bodies; they have been more content to be seen as goons enjoying official patronage. In the AAP like organization the youth brigade was fired by an unprecedented sense of mission, a goal they believed in.
Coming back to Rahul’s brief but decisive intervention towards the end of the debate on the Lokpal Bill, it was sharp and pointed indeed but then, as with most Rahul forays, he was dead set on keeping the focus on the Gandhi family, party came second. It may not have been of a piece with his staccato speeches at election rallies in which he unabashedly credits his parivar for all that might have been achieved since the dawn of freedom. Not to forget the dismal record of the nine years of the UPA rule, on which the sun is about to set in a few months time.
Remember his “we gave you the right to information”, “we gave you MNREGA”, “we gave you right to education”, “we gave you the right to food security”…….we…we….we…… Who is the “we” he talks of. He doesn’t keep you waiting. My grandmother and my father and my mother who defied ill health to steer the Food Security Bill in Parliament have sacrificed their all for the betterment of the country.
I can’t imagine modern Indian young man, with access to knowledge, to history so obsessed with his own family’s “achievements”. So that’s why I have mentioned the slight change in Rahul’s style, if not substance acknowledging nevertheless that merely harping on the family and its sacrifices/ achievement cannot help him lead a successful poll campaign.
To recall the storm that he raised on the convicted MPs ordinance he did send out a warning signal to his party bosses or any dark horses that might emerge post 2014 poll. By openly endorsing Hazare and identifying the “positive” points in Kejriwal’s poll campaign he has sent the message that a imperious decision-making style is not a solution to problems; he questions the way his own party establishment handles serious issues. It is an admission also, one hopes, that no politician however great can decide the nation’s future without wide-ranging consultations.
There is caution in this for Mr. Narendra Modi as well; he may get away with humiliating a Keshubhai Patel or a Kashiram Rana in Gujarat, but in a highly fractured parliament, high-handedness will back-fire. If it be true that Rahul has undergone a change of mind on his strategy it is a good thing for him. Time he got away from his one-liners and meaningless symbolism of having broken bread with the Dalit woman Kalavati during the UP Assembly poll campaign.
And one is told Rahul was made to speak out on the convicted MPs ordinance because he had not been taken aboard on a crucial issue, one on which President Pranab Mukerjee had raised questions and sought clarification from three Ministers. With the Congress Vice-President in the dark, other senior leaders could not have been in the know.
In case of Lokpal bill and the AAP campaign it was only natural for a living political animal to draw the right conclusions.
Unfortunately despite all the talk of inner democracy et al the Congress Party does not seem to have a forum for free expression of views, where the discourse can be informal as opposed to formal discussions and debate in parliamentary committees or on the floor of the House. The truth is, under UPA, Congress MPs have no forum for honest expression.
Rahul did indeed play a positive role in the case of the Lokpal bill but look at how the convicted MPs ordinance was handled : the core group which took it up with many other issues approved it very casually. The same cold ritual was repeated at the party meeting.
Absence of inclusive deliberations has been the bane of the UPA. Favoured projects are rarely opened to wider dialogue; they are referred to expert panels which make predictable recommendations. These are cleared by a Group of Ministers and the Cabinet, Decisions have been pushed through by coercion or stealth. Critics, even if they be Ministers are kept away from the process lest they oppose. Indeed even more direct interventions from Rahul may become the norm in the pre-poll months left to the UPA.
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