Barely three days out of surgery, with that thing called stents, happily placed within the body of my wearing pump set, it’s indeed curious that the first thing my eyes should have fallen on was a statement by one of Narendra Modi’s favoured Hindutva men, a Minister to boot in his cabinet, giving his venomous mind a free rein to pile up the choicest racial abuses on Sonia Gandhi, still hanging on to the fading star of her party.
Men, Matters & Memories
M L Kotru
The Modi Minister’s wrath against Sonia directly arose from the colour of her skin. She would not have been accepted by the Gandhis were she of a darker hue, the colour of the skin brought to the fore again by another saffronite stalwart who asked what if it was a Nigerian bride for the Gandhi parivar. Would she be acceptable to the Gandhis?
He raction from the congress party chief, Sonia Gandhi was remarkable for its contemptuous tone. Only a sick mind could entertain such crudeness, she noted. So far so good and my ailing heart went out to cry for her.
But what followed next,on Thursday,when upon hitting my home base – what a cosy feeling it is – I came upon this gem from the aching heart of his mother : Rahul will be back very soon.
Nothing new about that. Any mother missing hers on-on-a-lam would have said the same. Look at it this way : Sonia obviously knows where Rahul Baba is gone, yet, can’t tell because that would be intrusive. You would be transgressing into the private life her designated heir as the party chief.
Heratless people like you and me asking all those silly questions abiout baba. Is he on a vacation (where?). Is he admitted to a rehab? (how dare you ?). Does he have a family secretly tucked away in some remote corner on God’s Earth? (the usual bakwas !)
There is no end to the gossip flooding the bazar and I can’t blame Mr. Modi and his men if tongues keep wagging. Or, if Rahul’s constituents in amethi put out public notices declaring their mp missing. There is another school of thoght which believes that Rahul is meditating in the high Himalayas (his NSG guards kept at bay), awaiting divine light for him to lead his party reduced to wreched rags in the Lok Sabha.
Have faith, Rahul Baba, says the mother. The light is about to dawn.the brave new world of the rahul era is about to unleash itself. If only wishes were horses. The wipeout in Delhi Assembly election was the last nail in the Congress party’s coffin, climaxing earlier debacles in a two-year-old campaign headed by Rahul, a series remarkable for a string of earlier defeats in U.P., through the Lok Sabha poll and on to the Delhi farce. And prior to that the disaster in the states.
All these are factors that point in one direction only : a need for organ implants, a new energy and a new leadership. Sonia has of course sought to work the road these past few weeks after her son formally formally announced his sabbatcal (from what?).
Sycophants see him a buddha-like figure in search of divine light except for the fact that the Buddha did not seek light to attain power. What, though, of the very many who believe Rahul is not the deliverer of his party retainers’ imagination. They actually see him as the problem.
A former Minister in the UPA has publicly expressed the view that Rahul has led the party to the most humiliating defeats in Uttar Pardesh, Bihar and the Parliamentay polls. It is unfair perhaps he says to blame him for defeats in haryana where he did not campaign actively but in other places, like Bihar and up, he campaigned actively but without luck.
He says too much reliance was put on the magic of his good looks,youth and the Gandhi name. All of these put together did not make for campaign strategies. The former Minister tries to gloss ovber the fact that Gandhi had treated party senior partymen as pariahs, depending instead on his whiz kid coterie which in the event had proved to be ineffective.
All said and done the lack of strategy cited by some of his sytcophants did not most glaringly work in the states where he took upon himself to lead the party. All of that now seems in the past.
The party’s worries now are centred on its furture, not on i its present or the glory that was the past. Whether he is out to get rid of the old guard, whether he is emotionally disturbed or psychologicaly battered he has a problem to confront and his proneness to disappearances is going to be no help.
How exactly does he explain to the people that he doesn’t believe it is necessary for him to attend Parliament’s budget session and this from a partyleader who barely escaped being undone in his family constituency.
The question is directly asked : the nation wants to know where the hell are you, are you suking because you are unable to get rid of the old guard. And if the old guard really bothers you that much, who is this old man from Gujarat whom you see as a counterpoint to Narendra Modi, the man you had put him incharge of the U.P. campaign where hardly knew anyone and the partymen even unaware of his name not to speak of his uninspiring visage.
The other question arises, has Rahul lived upto his party’s image of him as the its next big hope, an effort that began a decade and more ago. The question has remained unanswered even as the man has led the party from one disaster to the other.
To my mind Rahul Gandhi is trapped in a job that he has been told is a historical duty he must perform, when he really does not have the skills to do anything else.
He might be able to lead a more robust life should he choose to tell his mother that he doesn’t feel quite upto the job and suggests that she chart out the party’s future against the backdrop of rahul not being there. A harsh statement to make but there is not much left to lose.
And, historically, it is after great crises that old structures are smashed and new created. The Congrss Party has to look at its own resurgence in a state like Rajasthan where a young Sachin Pilot, the State party chief, has recovered substantial ground lost to the BJP in that State.
Let young state leaderships emerge, help them grow with or without the shadow of the old guard. Not all of the old guard may after all be so much dead wood. Indira Gandhi, after she split the grand old party, had a lot more use for the old coteries and it worked for her, until his younger son, Sanjay stepped in very abrasively. There is a lesson in it for Rahul Baba – the young man who obviously doesn’t trust anyone else other than his inner voice. Sadly that voice too seems to have given into the virtue of remaining silent.
Follow our WhatsApp channel