Abandoned Mocked Powerless Scion Cries Out For Western  Approval

When Napoleon lost to a coalescing of rival Western powers, in 1814, after failing to conquer Russia, he was forced to abdicate. The erstwhile Emperor was banished to the close-by island of Elba, from where he was able to make a comeback. When he lost again, after a brief season of 100 days in power, this time at the bloody battle of Waterloo, he was exiled to Saint Helena, a remote island in the Southern Atlantic. Napoleon Bonaparte could never leave Saint Helena. It was where he eventually died, at the age of 52.

The year 1815, when Napoleon fell for the last time, marked the end of French domination of Europe. 

In a very real sense, 2014 marked the end of Congress domination of electoral politics in India. But it consoles itself by saying you may have the government but we have the system. While this was largely true in 2014, it is less so in 2022, and if things go according to present indications, it will be quite untrue in 2029.

Subsequently, after May 2014, there was further decline. Congress lost power in most of the states, union territories and municipalities. It even lost most local body and panchayat elections. It lost the next general election in 2019 as well.

It has lost in all five states that went to the polls in 2022, and has bleak prospects for those going to the hustings in 2023. It is in no shape to challenge the BJP/NDA at the general elections in 2024.

If the Hindu Nationalist BJP wins in 2024, it will be for the third consecutive term of five years at the Centre.

There is a reason for the erosion of Congress credibility. It runs a narrative that suits itself. For example, it denies all culpability for China capturing large tracts of Indian territory under its watch. This, even while criticising the present government’s efforts at resisting further salami-slicing. Criticism of the handling of Covid stands in sharp contrast to most nations standing in admiration of India’s work on it. It has called Modi a thief, when its own corruption is legion.

The economic challenges being faced post-Covid and due to the pressures generated by the Ukraine war are again sharply criticised by Rahul Gandhi and Congress in a very selective manner.

Even an inflation attacking cut in excise duty by the centre on fuel, subsidy on fertilizer and cut in cooking gas prices for the poor, is seen as too little too late.

Rahul Gandhi, an improbable prime minister-in-waiting, will be 52 on the 19^th of June 2022. It has been eight years since the Congress Party lost power, reduced to a little over 40 seats in parliament.

Out of it since, unloved, mocked, powerless, Rahul Gandhi must feel enervated, betrayed by the people, wounded.  He is even challenged for fitness to lead by other contenders in the Opposition.

Though he has never held any public office other than that of Congress President, Rahul Gandhi, a probable Roman Catholic, is in a kind of purgatory even as he lives and breathes.

He is widely regarded as the politically incompetent scion of a storied ruling dynasty with no future in politics. But since Rahul Gandhi is unable to walk away from the politics, which is, after all, his inheritance, his public suffering is continuous. This, even as he makes do with his immense if mysterious prosperity, frequent holidays, a shadowy private life, and lapses into imperial remoteness. As an ostensible bachelor at 52, people sometimes speculate on a hidden family abroad. But again, if true, why hidden?

This being put out in political limbo without end, not just by opposing politicians, but the voting public of India, would tend to addle the most sophisticated of brains. But for a person of the calibre of Rahul Gandhi with his sheltered upbringing and early age loss traumas, it must be doubly difficult. The street-smarts and mass contact that is so much a part of democratic politics is alien to him.

The scion therefore seems to operate from a set script prepared by his handlers. They in turn cite extensive research but seem out of touch themselves. Take for instance, his sporting of a bandgala suit in sober grey-brown this time. It is an echo of his father from more than 30 years ago. Rahul may look uncomfortable playing this dress-up, but his handlers have prescribed it. They did likewise when they essayed his sister Priyanka Gandhi in Uttar Pradesh for the elections. They dressed her up to remind people of Indira Gandhi. It proved useless. Most of the present electorate has no first-hand recollection of Rajiv Gandhi or Indira Gandhi.

When you have old men who run your political image, this is what happens.

 But why do they put such terrible things in his mouth, or is some of it a requirement from a prescribed play book when you take money from Pakistan and China?

He called the IFS arrogant on the basis of his conversation with a few foreign diplomats. The foreign diplomats in question probably don’t like India’s neutral stance on the conflict in Ukraine. Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar reacted to Rahul Gandhi’s criticism by saying Indian diplomats look out for Indian interests and are confident, not arrogant. Others pointed out that diplomats today work for India, and not to arrange college admission in Oxbridge for undeserving candidates from the Gandhi family.

He then spoke of how the BJP has sprinkled kerosene all over the country and all it takes is a spark. He said the situation is not good in India. He called for a mass movement to oppose the Modi government. He said the government does not brook any criticism nor allow anyone to speak. What he might be trying to say is that he speaks and speaks and still nobody listens.

Rahul Gandhi is often called stupid. But this time the commentary on his pronouncements called him dangerous. Some even called for punishment.

Once again, Rahul Gandhi, sitting in London, trotted out the semantic cue card he had first used in parliament, the one on India not being a nation, but a ‘union of states’.

All this runs tonally to the script of joining hands with Leftist, Islamic, Anti-India forces that want to see it crash and burn. The cheerleader meanwhile wears a grey-brown bandgala like his dear dead dad, whose death anniversary was on the 21^st of May. Rahul pointedly called Rajiv Gandhi a great visionary.

Home Minister Amit Shah, a little exasperated with all the erratic babbling, suggested Rahul Gandhi take off his Italian glasses, at least when he is abroad.

This kind of attention-seeking jamboree, in different foreign venues, one recalls Singapore from a few years ago, has become a trademark of Rahul Gandhi’s time in the political wilderness. What has it achieved so far? Greater marginalisation of the Congress Party certainly, and contempt for his thoughts. He cannot be an intellectual using cue cards written by others.

The rest of the line-up for the portrait photos in England, were also mostly dressed in throwback sarkari gear.

They included former Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid (Oxbridge), Communist supremo Sitaram Yechury, who goes to London every summer anyway, familiar Rahul Gandhi handler Sam Pitroda, from the Gujarati end of Chicago, Trinamool Congress’ fluent English speaker Mahua Moitra, former deputy Chief Minister of Bihar Tejaswi Yadav, Telangana Minister KT Rama Rao, and a collection of other, not directly political, odds and sods.

Amongst the others was the desi CEO of British charity Oxfam’s India operation. Several Indians connected to Amnesty and its subsidiaries, recently discredited for money laundering and FCRA violations, with over rupees 17.66 crores in seized assets. A junior partner from the Congress promoting digital publication Newslaundry. The Congress-backing Samruddha Bharat, with several of its trustees/members who are direct beneficiaries of the Grand Old Party.

It was possibly an effort to mimic the very successful events routinely organised around Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s official visits abroad. But those are force multipliers, for both Modi’s image and that of India.

Here it is an annual (Covid disruption apart), facile, anti-national bad-mouthing of not only the Narendra Modi administration, via audacious lies, unsubtle euphemisms and blunt inuendo, but a trashing of the country as well.

The United Kingdom, on its part, seemed to officially ignore the events, first in London, the ‘Ideas for India’, and then at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge University, for ‘India @ 75’.

On May 23^rd Rahul spoke to one Dr Shruti Kapila, a Congress favouring Associate Professor of Indian History and Global Political Thought there, in a closed-door ticketed event for Cambridge members and students only. In addition, Rahul interacted with members of the Indian diaspora, bandhgala style, both in London and Cambridge.

The invites went out from an outfit called Bridge India, a non-profit think-tank, again with strong links to Oxfam, Amnesty, Congress, and others. 

Meanwhile, back home, in Congress, there is dissidence and abandonment, empty coffers, and a broken election machine, that a recent Chintan Shivir at Udaipur did little to fix.

But it was not always like this. It almost reads like a soap opera. Rahul’s mother, the Italian born Sonia Gandhi, widow of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, had been ruling via remote control. There was a highly biddable Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, nominated by her to the gaddi, for the decade from 2004-2014. 

While it lasted, the Gandhi dynasty could do no wrong. Ranging from Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, Indira Gandhi, Rahul’s grandmother, father Rajiv, it had directly and collectively ruled for four decades. Include the Sonia remote control years, and it is nearly 50 years out of India’s 75 years since independence.

Meanwhile, on May 23^rd- 24^th, on the other side of the world, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is attending the in-person QUAD Summit in Tokyo and has been holding the requisite bilateral meetings as also quite a few with Japanese business and industry.

(1,667 words)

May 23^rd, 2022

For: Firstpost

Gautam Mukherjee