Now, when did Rahul Gandhi, Congress heir and now gung ho politician go from being a breezy ‘liberal’ to becoming a gritty ‘progressive’ ? For over two decades, ever since he leapt on the electoral stage in 2004, Rahul Gandhi has come a long way from being perennially gone in a gap year, to swooping in to save the sacred hills of Niyamgiri tribes in Orissa, to riding on a bike to Bhatta Parausal in western UP at midnight to show solidarity with farmers who were killed by then Mayawati government; or spending a night with a tribal family in their mud hut in Bundelhand, UP.
Rahul has swung from slamming big corporations and crony capitalism to eco- austerity, religious faiths and inclusivity–and all the rest in between that so captivates liberal elites. Typically, they are mostly urban, upper caste, alumni of top dog league universities and have top jobs from multi-national corporations to policy institutes to pulpit journalism.
They’ve been mocked as Latte Liberals, Bollinger Bolshoviks, and a lot more, with a side of smashed avocado on sourdough bread and chocolate rubble. Their noble mission is to save the millions of poor unwashed and brainwashed masses from autocracy and dictatorship, even though ironically, as the just concluded election has shown that it was not the urbane city slicker who rejected the divisive BJP and Narendra Modi, but the poor and impoverished in the vast outbacks of the dustbowl of India, who cut Modi’s dream of yet another brute majority in Parliament.
This, despite the fact that they will be kicked in their stomach when booth wise results are released and their daily meagre sustenance stopped by a vengeful administration.
Yet, the lib will swoon at the thought of being, well liberal, as they return to their velveteen homes and swirl their Chardonnay, thrilled they’ve saved the country for the day. So, how is Rahul different today from the elite lib club of which he was the big honcho to being a dogged progressive?
As is oft pointed out, a progressive believes in institutional change and not saviour syndrome, forcing regulation in institutions and watchdog agencies, confrontation, legislation through government and activism:
Here are five ways Rahul has gone from drift to grit:
By accepting the LoP post and making it Rahul vs Modi in the parliament
First, he’s got a day time job now to pursue his agenda – after two decades of enjoying power without commitment and saying a big fat No all these years, Rahul has finally accepted the constitutional post of the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament, which the Congress finally clinched after getting 99 seats, more than the required 10 per cent of the strength of the House.
For starters, he will be pitched one on one against Modi in Parliament now, a position he has always taken on with aplomb, despite the propaganda of mockery and jeers from the BJP side. He will have cabinet rank, its status and perks, to selecting various parliamentary committees which were summarily junked in Modi’s last two terms, apart from being part of selection panels of crucial posts of heads of CBI, CVC, CIC, NHRC and the much-maligned EC.
More importantly, Rahul’s dogged and unrelenting election campaign which took on Modi on the latter’s hypocrisy, false promises on jobs and the economy and on safeguarding the Constitution, should be followed up by a combative Rahul chasing Modi in the House demanding answers.
The Congress leader has come a long way from publicly tearing up the ordinance by his own government that allowed convicted legislators to not be expelled pending a hearing on their appeal.
One can expect demands for legislation on his pet theme of jal, jungle and zameen (water, forests and land), economic rights and increasing reservation of SCs, STs and OBCs, livelihood and social justice issues such caste census among his other demands raised in the parliament.
The Bharat Jodo Yatra
Then came the yatras – Rahul’s ambitious Bharat Jodo Yatra, from Kanyakumari to Srinagar in 2023, of uniting the country with love and compassion through his slogan, Nafrat ke bazaar mein, Mohabbat ki dukkan (In the market of hate, a shop of love) was a first serious bid by any political leader to take on the RSS-BJP fuelled murderous and hate mongering politics.
It was also Rahul’s go for broke attack on Modi and the government, which not just catapulted him as the most raucous and determined national leader to take on the latter but also energised party cadre and voters and state leaders that he walked the yatra.
The second edition, the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, from Manipur to Mumbai, in March this year, was built on the theme of social justice, barely a month before the Lok Sabha election. It seems to have gotten the Congress electoral benefits.
More importantly, Rahul banished the here again, gone tomorrow politician image he’s courted over the years, not helped by a cloying media always ready to serve the Modi government. Instead, here was a legitimate and demonstrable commitment that went beyond helicopter appearances.
It was an earnest bid to build a counter narrative of unifying the country while celebrating its pluralism, as opposed to a monolith Hindutva Rashtra, a political purpose for the party and for Rahul in particular. While the end of the first yatra saw Rahul as a shaggy Majnu with his flowing grey beard in the Mohabbat ki dukan (love shop), the second Nyay yatra was a walking-talking pragmatic demo of the Congress’ election manifesto of justice for all, to raise the voice for social, political and economic rights and empowerment for farmers, Dalits, OBCs, minorities, jobs and all in his 10,000 km-long two yatras.
All this while Modi and his dutiful followers were running in the other direction to Ayodhya for the consecration of the RSS Ram temple.
Rejuvenating the party cadre through the Bharat Jodo Abhiyan
Now, what could be more authentic to instil the demand for rights and justice among the cadre than the BJA or Bharat Jodo Abhiyan, under the umbrella of civil society. It was decided in February this year that the BJA will take the help of civil society and rights activists to train party workers and cadres in states where the Nyay yatra was traversing (which covered a 100 targeted Lok Sabha seats from east to west in Mumbai) and clone it in other states too.
It was adopted in the Bharat Jodo yatra too, and all state units were instructed to participate in the workshops conducted by the BJA henceforth. Party workers were instructed to collaborate with state teams of the BJA on door-to-door campaigning, constitute communications teams to counter government propaganda, promote political coordination among INDIA allies, and take on the « BJP’s troll army with the truth army, as BJA convenor Yogendra Yadav had said.
Rahul’s refusal to be pulled into the are-you-a-true-Hindu trap of the RSS-BJP
In fact, ahead of the Ayodhya consecration, the BJA launched a campaign for communal harmony to counter what it said was a brazen attempt to polarise voters on religious sides.
Here was another attempt by Rahul who refused to be pulled into the are-you-a-true-Hindu saffron rag waved by the RSS-BJP Modi government when it sent an invitation to the Congress troika of Rahul, Sonia Gandhi and party president Mallikarjun Kharge for the consecration of the newly built Ram Temple in Ayodhya, built on the ruins of the 16th century Babri Masjid torn down by kar sevaks.
After days of suspense and irresolution, Rahul and the rest declined and rightly said they would skip the celeb-studded temple opening as it was a ‘political project’ of the BJP and RSS. All this knowing full well that it could be political suicide for the Congress in the run up to the general elections, and gold for the Hindutva BJP which did not hesitate to scream minority appeasement on the Congress’s part.
It was a calculated gamble played by Rahul and the party, and they had come a long way from being jeered at as the B-Team of the BJP for peddling soft Hindutva and to shake off the allegedly pro-Muslim tag over the years, including Rahul’s publicised feeble attempts at being a Shiv bhakt to a janeudhari (thread wearing) Kashmiri brahmin in his many Hindu avatars.
Did the new resoluteness pay off? Yes, in Modi’s and the RSS-BJP’s embarrassing defeat in Ayodhya a few months later.
The five pillars of justice and 25 guarantees of the Nyay Patra
And finally, Rahul has shown his true grit by installing all that he now believes in, in the Congress’ Nyay Patra or justice paper or the party election manifesto, which Rahul says was gleaned from his conversations with thousands of people.
It focusses on the five pillars of justice and 25 guarantees – from demanding a caste census (2021, under Modi rule was the first time the population census conducted every 10 years, was postponed in 150 years) to the promise that the 50 per cent cap on reservation in jobs and education will be removed as 85 per cent from underprivileged category, to filling up lakhs of government jobs that have been left out by the Modi government, guaranteeing personal freedoms, right to education, press freedom, et al.
Already Rahul’s vociferous attack against the corruption in NEET, his vow to revisit NEP in consultation with state governments, his caustic remarks about the fair and impartial role of the Speaker in the House in his first speech in Parliament, to registering his protest with the Speaker for reading a resolution after the latter took over the post, condemning the Emergency of 1975, saying it was a deliberate political snipe, is a beginning to bring institutional change.
And, please spare the country the cordiality and pleasantries with the ruling BJP, because the people voted the Congress this time for an alternative vision that came from the party’s aggressive, combative style.
