27 January 2013, 12:47 PM IST
Rahul Gandhi's coronation at the Chintan Shivir intrigued me. Apart from the noisy fire crackers, and the equally noisy TV debates that followed his appointment as Congress Vice President, nothing has really changed. Rahul remains exactly where he has been for 8 years, No 2 in the party run by his mother and pretty much owned by his family, ever since his great great grandfather Motilal Nehru was elected to preside over the Amritsar Congress in 1919.
Ten years later, Lahore 1929 saw the first transition of power from father to son. Jawaharlal was appointed Congress President. And thus began the tradition of passing on power from one generation of Nehru to another. Nehru installed his daughter Indira. She groomed Rajiv to succeed her, which he did, somewhat reluctantly when she was assassinated. When Rajiv was assassinated, Sonia inherited the Congress. Over the past 8 years Sonia has been waiting for Rahul who seemed at first to be as reluctant about joining politics as his father was. That he is still seen as The Great White Hope of the party, not its Supreme Leader is because he has failed to deliver the miracles the party expected of him.
But what can Rahul alone do for a Congress wracked by corruption, ineptitude, lack of talent and imagination?
No wonder, Rahul chose to stand apart from the system, criticise it from the outside. His father did exactly the same. In fact, Rajiv went a step further and publicly snubbed the old style leaders of the Congress who were forever bowing and scraping before him. A much reported incident was when, as General Secretary, Rajiv publicly ticked off T Anjaiah, then Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, who went to receive him at the airport. Anjaiah, in the tradition of all sycophantic Congressmen, fawned all over Rajiv much to his disgust, till unable to bear it any more, Rajiv strongly snubbed him. Some say he was about to give him a kick. This incident became a matter of Telugu atma gauravam and led to the rise of NTR who ended Congress rule there.
But this is not about history. Nor sycophancy. In politics, the more things change, the more they remain the same. Call it continuity if you will. Or celebration of the moribund. It depends on how you look at it. Many things around us have changed. Geo-politics of the region. The nation's demographics. And, if we are to believe our leaders, our economic compulsions. Cynics disagree. They say nothing has changed except the limits of our patience. The Hindu rate of growth we were once so embarrassed about, actually gave us a more stable, more affordable economy than the past few years of rising GDP that has left 75 per cent of India untouched by what we call the rising standard of living. But that is another debate.
The question is: Can the new, repackaged, relaunched Rahul live up to the euphoria of his promise? Tough. No one man can change India. No single party. Only that Government will best serve India that has ranged against it a strong, credible, intelligent political Opposition. In short, what we need is not just a better Government but also a stronger, more credible Opposition that can act as the nation's watchdog, not just as a nagging critic. For several decades now, we have had poor and corrupt governance. But the greater tragedy is that we have also had a foolish, self serving Opposition that never figured out what its role ought to be. All we have come to expect from the Government's critics is provocative rhetoric and angry speeches, not the ability to stand up and force true change.
The reason is simple. The best talent in any nation migrates to the Opposition. In India, neither the Government nor the Opposition attract talent. They attract people whose only skill is that they can fit in with the system, play it by its rules. What we actually need today are disrupters. People who can disrupt this cosy relationship that exists between those who govern and those who are supposed to challenge them. Only then will there be real, sustainable change.
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