How the unimaginable becomes a hard fact.
A recent post-poll survey done by the reputed CSDS in the game-changing Uttar Pradesh, shows, among other things, that David has now surpassed Goliath in the prime-ministerial choice of UP-ites.
The survey results show that while 32 per cent of the respondents rooted for Modi, 36 per cent wished to see Rahul Gandhi as the executive head of the republic.
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty
If the loss in the temple-town of Ayodhya, and Modi’s humiliating scrapping -through in Varanasi have been clear signs of Lord Ram’s chagrin at the businessification of his identity, pushing the Pran-Pratishtha-doing Modi four percentage points below his chief nemesis, namely, the erstwhile ‘Pappu,’ Rahul, must surely rank as the ultimate coup d’ grace administered by the right-wing’s very own Ram.
On a mundane level, if this new finding is testament to Modi’s fall from common approval, all chicaneries notwithstanding, it is simultaneously a tribute to the persistent application of mind and body that has characterised Rahul Gandhi’s politics, especially over the last grueling five years.
Even more subtly, the dethroning of Modi from the common man’s heart has come from a complete disenchantment with his elaborately constructed sophistries and fake day-dreams sought to be sold as performance and caring.
Rahul’s rise has been the story of a dogged young idealist reaping the fruit of his refusal to deviate from the truth of things. Having suffered derision for long, from friend and foe alike, for his ostensible lack of tact in addressing the immediate moment, Rahul’s exemplary persistence in articulating issues that bear on the macro-ideological depths of what has been going wrong with India have palpably found space in the popular psyche of citizens, both among the rural masses and considerable sections of young urban Indians.
In this protracted and often frustrating process, the patchwork and rude cleverness of the Modi-led right-wing have finally come to be found out; and the realisation, even if late in coming, promises to return the soul of the republic to matters of substance and egalitarian probity.
An important part of Rahul’s learning over the taxing years has been that listening is of greater value than blabbing, and a transparently visible honesty of purpose and sharing are the most rewarding attributes of a democratic personality.
As everybody could see, Rahul’s interactions–and they have been many–with the media have contrasted starkly with Modi’s desire to be heard in perpetuity and not to be questioned, even by crony journalists.
There is an aspect of Rahul’s persona that bears comment of a different kind.
Much like the writer, he has seemed most at home in opposing excesses rather than taking on the onus of authority. This will of course sound blasphemous to many who accuse him of being at bottom the chief lord and master of the grand old party.
There comes a time when protagonists in public spaces must need to assume the onus.
To that point, as of the present moment, it will not but seem a cop-out should Rahul refuse to occupy the position of the Leader of the Opposition in parliament.
Concomitantly, nothing may prepare a young leader as soundly for a larger onus than a tough grind in the legislature, where homework and articulation must come together to form a fulcrum of influence comparable with the office of the prime minister.
The nation will await Rahul Gandhi’s decision with interest.
This, now is a moment in the fraught history of the republic, especially over the last hurtfully brazen decade, when ordinary women and men who rejected appeals both to sectarian identity and claims of divine entitlement, opting for the common human need, will want to see if a new leadership emerges that is equipped to deliver that promise of common human need when in authority.
That reality makes the further shape of Rahul Gandhi’s career a matter of great national interest.
Caveat
Finally, a caveat that one hopes the young Gandhi will take in a positive spirit:
It may not have been politic to say what he said about a hypothetical Priyanka Gandhi Vadra vs Modi contest.
For someone whom the party worker holds in high esteem, and for good reason, given that he has had the most to do with the resurgence of the Congress organisation, the wiser thing to do may have been to laud candidate Ajai Rai for very nearly getting the better of the great Modi.
That Rahul Gandhi is now four percentage points ahead of the ‘world’s most popular leader’ in the all-important Uttar Pradesh suggests that he has crossed a watershed Rubicon.
The thing to do is to keep building on that merited advance.
Badri Raina taught at Delhi University.
