India is in the midst of its annual election season. In the current round, the states of Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Pondicherry are going to elect their state assemblies besides the usual round of bye-elections to both Parliament and the state assemblies in different states. Each and every political leader worth their salt are busy engaging in campaign across the states. Despite the second wave of COVID-19, the political discourse doesn’t seem to have been affected. While the election campaign is on a crescendo, the Gandhi siblings seem to be missing in action barring a few photo-ops here and there. In fact Rahul Gandhi’s campaigns have more to do with selective interactions rather than public meetings. Apparently, it is a ploy to avoid campaign to avoid the calumny of defeat. Yet on the other hand, in the last few weeks or months, Rahul Gandhi has been busy engaging in experts from policy and academia both in the West. He seems to be more enthused by those meetings rather than public meetings which he should have been addressing these days. Therefore, it might be a sort of mystery why Rahul would spend more time with these so-called Western experts when their vote contribution in marginal terms is zero.
There are journalists who are raising their voice against Rahul. The same seems to be in a section of the academia. They seem to be coming to a view that Rahul Gandhi is no longer a person around whom they can revolve in their campaign against Modi. Given the fact that Modi has stopped their gravy train and seems entrenched fairly robust in power at the current moment, they have to discover their new VP Singh or Anna Hazare. The farm protests were supposed to the Anna moment for Modi but they seem to have withered out. If Rafale was their attempted moment of Bofors, it withered out. There were and are too many pretenders for VP Singh but none have added a single vote to the opposition electoral kitty. In this context, those opposing Modi and his politics seemingly have no option but to find their own path and leader. In this context, it might be puzzling to decode Rahul’s behavior. Contrary to belief, Rahul is not acting irrationally. In fact, it seemingly points out to some rational moves from Rahul in his pursuit of his objectives. At this moment his objective is not power through electoral victories. He wants to be projected himself as India’s Nelson Mandela or an Ang San Suu Kyi in his endeavor to protect India’s democratic ideals that apparently are under threat from Modi’s governance. It does not matter what the facts are but apparently what matters is what he believes in.
Rahul is convinced deep down that he is very popular just that Modi through his anti-democratic means is preventing him from coming to power. In Rahul’s mind, maybe its crystal clear that he had won the elections in 2019 but for the manipulation of electronic voting machines (EVMs). It doesn’t matter that he was rejected twice by the electorate. It doesn’t matter that he hardly commands the trust of the people. They hardly see in him a leader who can take India to places or even at least a credible alternative to Modi. His trustworthiness is perhaps low. The Congress victories can be attributed to local leadership and issues than the Nehru-Gandhi family per se. To others, it might seem that he is under deep hallucinations but that doesn’t matter. To him, what he believes is right. Apparently, there was an occasion, when told of about Modi’s probity being his strength, he had challenged his supporters that he will be able to destroy Modi’s image. Conceivably that was Rafale and Chowidar Chor Hai genesis. Even Congress party leadership knew it could not stand, but did not prevent Rahul from pursuing that.
Rahul has perhaps moved into next orbit where he wants to destroy the credibility of Modi government in the eyes of the Western world. All that matters is the image in US, Canada, Britain, some countries in EU (especially in the Western Europe). He wants to destroy that. He wants to project India is not a democracy. He wants to project there is an institutional capture across the country that prevents any sort of opposition from claiming power. He seems to stress that he is a deep thinker with great and novel ideas for India just that the anti-democratic nature of the India republic as it exists in Rahul’s mind is conspiring against him. He wants to project himself as a crusader in defence of the Indian ideas of democracy and free speech that were supposedly hallmark of his great grandfather’s times. It does not matter that Indian democracy is perhaps more strong than ever before. It doesn’t matter that Rahul’s defeats are more to do with himself rather than institutional conspiracies. But facts would not come in the way of projecting a certain line before a Western audience which is only too eager to lap it up.
The Western think tanks, academia, policy bureaucrats are essentially familiar with the Congress ecosystem in India. To them a Narendra Modi government is something new. Hinduism is a sort of racism to many of them. Many of the Indians in influential positions have family linkages with the Congress ecosystem. They have been fairly ensconced in the US system and can influence thinking about India at least with respect to the noise. US might not take any steps to move against India, but the noise would be sufficient to destroy the credibility. Rahul seems to project himself as someone with deep learning and commitment to ethos though in reality it is very different to say the least. It however doesn’t matter to the US influencers since he gives them what they want to hear. With passage of time and constant reinforcement, the US will begin to believe that India is not democratic and rather an elected autocracy. They would place Modi on the same pedestal as any other dictator. He believes that at some point this would come in handy to enable him to run against Modi with an advantage and maybe a Nobel Peace Prize to boot. All he wants is a Modi to put his family behind bars so that his arguments get reinforced. Every effort is going waste on the part of Rahul Gandhi and this too would go in a similar way in India unless his objective is not to win elections but claim himself as genuine Indian leader overseas, a thought or even a belief that stands on very weak foundations. It is just a hallucination at the moment.
Thoughts on Theory and Practice 