Liberals given to image-worship have gone with gusto into the question of what has changed in and for Rahul Gandhi.I believe the more important question is how the change has come about and in what respects.A lot depends now on these changes and it is well worth discussing them.
It is not at all a question of changes in his character or of the image,something of consuming interest to hero-worshippers. Rather it is a matter of change in outlook and orientation.He has now a mission or rather he has found himself entrusted with a mission.And that has happened as a result of his own initiative and quest.It is the resumption of the responsibility for the poor and the down-trodden,that Indian National Congress had inherited and borne down to early nineteen seventies.
Neo-liberalism has unleashed upon the masses of working people of India the crushing burden of unbearable poverty, aggravated existing levels of social injustice and thanks to the policies of its most determined and doctrinaire exponents,exacerbated social divisions with toxic propaganda in the name of race and religion.
It is a cruel hoax to administer more doses of the same medicine.A very different antidote alone can bring relief to groaning millions and Rahul has promised a different approach,a different regimen,though he has yet to explore its full implications.
It was the Bharat Jodo Yatra, something he has thought on his own and which had brought him out of the cocoon of a mere heir to a mantle.It was an initiative in the great tradition of Mahatma Gandhi’s marches which had brought Congress out of parlours and pulpits of complacent middle-class lawyers and professionals and into the company of millions of wretchedly poor and oppressed working people.The country has been torn into broken pieces by unkmaginable levels of inequality, total breakdown of social security and inflamed by what appeared to be an inferno of hate and spite towards minorities.Only a return to Mahatma Gandhi’s motto of love ranging from social and economic to spiritual expressions could provide a succor from such horrors.The grand marches were rituals avowing such a resolve and spreading the message throughout the country.Thousands of common people had come out into the streets to meet Rahul,talk to him about their woes and their hopes and to be reassured that there was a way out of the vast dungeon.
It was a punishing 4000km march with Rahul belting out 25 km per day,with the toughest companions dragging themselves way after him tired and short of breath.So the shell of the pampered prince,stuff of abusive propaganda,was rent and a tougher new Gandhi,man enough to handle challenges emerged.
It was both credible and creditable.The impact on elections was at once apparent.It was both the man and the message that had changed ,through both action and word.Not a mere image make-over. But it is most certainly not the end of the journey,only the beginning.It is not impossible that in the middle of it he might lose direction and flounder in the miasma of Indian politics.The usual crowds of touts,toadies and flatterers self-seekers and representing vested interests might overwhelm his good sense and decency.So he has to pass more tests in days to come.
He has stepped out of the shadow of Sonia Gandhi who had held aloft the torn banner of Congress in the midst of such crowds and kept the flock together with tough discipline and the somewhat fragile links of personal loyalty.It must be kept in mind that her advisory council with the aid of conscientious and socially aware experts had moved such flagship projects as MGNREGA scheme.Still that kind of politics had become obsolete and a new initiative was overdue.The notorious ‘high command’ style of politics has outlived its usefulness.And Rahul has become concerned at its fall-out.Especially,it sponsors a feudal bond out of sync with the modern ethos.Present conditions in India require a radically different form of relationship between leaders and rank and file.Rahul had insisted on a modern organization and elections to leadership positions at state and district levels. But that has not borne a bumper harvest as top tiers are formed largely through selection.
He had inherited his present pre-eminence but has graduated into his present prominence by propounding a new programme directed to specific target populations.By and large it is what economic observer Thomas Piketty calls the Precariat,the millions of harassed and expropriated millions from many areas of a ravaged society.
But that is by no means plain sailing and it demands grim and sustained commitment in a field crowded with arch-enemies and saboteurs.It is good that he has met students left prostrate by a corruption-ridden NEET catastrophe,but there are so many more such victims in such a variety of social strata.Constant feedback from the ground level is vital and the mammoth organization is not yet geared to it.Besides,with the motley assemblage of parties he now leads he now has to watch his back and flanks every so often.
The danger is that the more he gets absorbed in minutiae parliamentary politics and the extraordinary situations arising from the ruling party’s cavalier attitude to time-honoured parliamentary practices and norms he might get detached from the life-giving contact with toiling and suffering people.For without that politics is only soulless manipulation.
Apart from the political outfits and parties he needs to keep in touch with the vibrant farmers’ movements like SKM which has progressed under the compulsions circumstances into a bulwark of secularism and popular solidarity and reach out to friendly trade unions as well as civil society groups that have backed him to the hilt.This will turn into a formidable popular front that can defeat conspiracies against democracy sure to be mounted by enemies at some time or other.The country is not out of the woods yet and times demand constant vigilance and preparedness.Complacency may lead to high costs and heavy losses,since the forces for real democracy are not as yet organised,united and alert enough to easily overcome their any determined and well-funded campaign by fascists.
Lastly,and most sensitively,one has to pose the uncomfortable question as to the stance towards the engine of neoliberalism, the alliance of monopoly capital and high finance.It can hardly be expected that Rahul will take up arms against this fateful cartel.
But there will have to be in place a policy initiative on how to blunt their attacks on people’s livelihood and a council of democratic economists who can devise ways to save jobs and work out new openings for employment,schemes for upgrading skills and expanding the domestic market for goods escaping the drag-net of monopoly capital.Income from imperilled jobs must be made to climb in stead of dwindling.The state must be made to render such services to the people and not go on catering to the billionaires alone.Climate change is already upon us and billionaires and their political friends are heedlessly destroying the environment,in the event ruining lives and livelihoods of thousands in the span of a few weeks.This suicidal mania for profit at any cost to the people has got to be stopped as otherwise it will spell common ruin for all.
Hiren Gohain is a political commentator
