Son rises in UP

Rahul Gandhi took Uttar Pradesh by storm—and that’s the least of it. In a series of impressive roadshows, he used the largely issueless election to turn the spotlight on his family’s legacy. The more the Opposition parties railed against his so-called gaffes, the more they realised that he had, in fact, wrested the initiative from them. After the UP elections, Rahul is set to play a pan-India role with a position in the AICC.

By Asif Syed and Sanjeev Acharya

Rahul Gandhi has met the opposition on the battlefield. Admittedly, he is not a general; nor is he the most experienced strategist or tactician the Congress Party has in its ranks. But, at this point, he is their strongest warrior. Although he has fought and won skirmishes in the form of his own Parliamentary election and also as a co-organiser of his mother’s by-election along with his sister Priyanka Vadra, he hasn’t ever led divisions into battle. And even now, as he faces down the bastion of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), the vanar senas of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the seasoned pehelwans of the Samajwadi Party (SP), Rahul has no army to back him up—largely because, in Uttar Pradesh (UP), the Congress simply doesn’t have one. Apart from a few advisors and operations men who organise his meetings and roadshows, on this battlefield he is essentially alone.

To compicate matters, from the outset, he has done everything to draw attention to himself and to his inheritance of the Nehru-Gandhi legacy—and away from the recently-declining fortunes of the Congress party. Segments of the Opposition have termed his statements to the press and at public meetings hasty gaffes, reckless pronouncements, indicators of his immaturity and inexperience. But they have served their purpose.

In the early stage of his campaign, speaking to reporters on the road from Meerut to Deoband he said, “Had anyone from the Gandhi family been active then, it (the demolition of the Babri Masjid) would not have happened at all. I have heard my father telling my mother that he would have stood in front of the Masjid to protect it.” The statement created a stir not only amongst the Opposition but also within the Congress. Many media commentators said that his thinly-veiled criticism of former prime minister P V Narasimha Rao, during whose watch in 1992 the Sangh Parivar demolished the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya, was bad politics. However, the statement served the twin objectives of reaching out to Muslim voters in UP and distancing the Nehru-Gandhi family from a serious failure that was perceived by many Muslims as a betrayal of their years of unstinted
support to the Congress.

Rahul also came in for serious criticism when he claimed, “Hum jo kaam haath mein lete hain, usey poora kartey hain...chahe woh desh ki azadi ho, Pakistan mein batwara ho ya desh ko ikkiswin sadi mein le jana ho.... (We deliver what we promise, be it the Independence struggle, the dismemberment of Pakistan or leading the country into the 21st century....).”

The Opposition demanded an apology and a clarification from the government; political wags went around asking, “How does Rahul Gandhi walk with both his feet in his mouth?” Both statements stirred a hornet’s nest of political pundits, talking heads and frothing-at-the-mouth Opposition leaders who delighted at the opportunity to point out that if Rahul Gandhi wanted to credit his family with the dismemberment of Pakistan, then he should also be willing to blame it for the country’s partition in 1947. But the problem is that the more they talked, the more they criticised him, the more they questioned the “real” contribution of the Nehru-Gandhi family—the more they brought attention to the fact that here was a fresh, young politician who had laid claim to a legacy of four generations of public service, political leadership and sacrifice for the country. It is history: Motilal Nehru, Jawharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi—every time you criticise them for their mistakes, you also have to acknowledge and give them credit for their contributions.

Since politics is always driven by perception, not by parameters, it remains a fact tested in many election campaigns, whether in the Hindi heartland or with South Indian voters, that a well-timed, emotionally-resonant statement or a driving slogan can turn the tide. A single speech, a single issue that matches its frequency to the pulse of the nation’s voter, can create a wave that a political party can ride to victory. From Indira Gandhi to Atal Behari Vajpayee: they all have used this powerful weapon. In the 1980 election, when the opposition was shouting the slogan, “Indira hatao, Desh bachao”, she cleverly countered this with “Woh kehte hain Indira hatao. Main kehti hoon garibi hatao. Faisla apko karna hai ki kya zaroori hai. (They say remove Indira. I say remove poverty. You have to decide what is imperative.)”

Victory was hers. Vajpayee’s rhetoric has always caught the attention of the masses, and, in the 1990s, the Babri Masjid issue and the “Mandir wahin banayenge (We shall build the temple there)” slogan accompanied the BJP to power at the turn of the century. While the selection of slogans and campaign lines is important, a lapse of judgement on this count can be fatal. When the Vajpayee government went to the people with the slogan of “India Shining”, it backfired. India was shining for only a select sections of society. The masses India were still covered by the grime of poverty.

No one expected Rahul Gandhi to start testing his command on his political vocabulary so early in the game. Nor did they expect him to understand the nuances of time and place: his choice of Deoband to make the Babri Masjid remark, and then his visit to the Dar-ul-Uloom, the Deoband seminary—the first visit there by a Congress leader in many years—are indicators that he has begun his journey to political maturity at a fast clip. The Dar-ul-Uloom is considered to be the religious and ideological inspiration for the Jamait Ulama-e-Hind, one of the first organisations in the country to oppose the British dominion of India and a leader in the struggle for independence. Not only did Rahul visit the seminary, but he also interacted with the students. In his speech, he did not mention Ayodhya or any Muslim-specific issue.

He said, in fact, “In a sense, I am blind. I don't see caste or religion.” Pointing to people in the audience, he said, “I only see every individual here as an individual. You are all Hindustanis. Who is a Muslim, who is a Brahmin, who is a Thakur? I don't see any of this, I am blind.” He added, “To me all Indians are Indians. But if I see one Indian inflicting injustice on another, I will fight for the one who's being wronged. Please remember I am the grandson of Indira Gandhi.”

It was Indira Gandhi who was the last prominent Congress leader to have visited the seminary. Over the years, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the BJP had whipped up a campaign alleging that the seminary was a hotbed for the activities of the Students' Islamic Movement of India (SIMI). No politician had dared visit the school for fear of being branded “antinational”. Rahul’s visit to Deoband and his choice of words won’t in themselves win over the Muslim vote, but they are a beginning to carve away what until now was considered an SP bulwark.

Rahul Gandhi’s roadshows started reluctantly. He occasionally slipped into English, promising that he was in UP politics “for the long term”, but he has gained confidence along the way, as was seen in Bareilly where he eloquently declared, “Hamare parivaar ne jo bhi zimmedari li, use pura kiya (Whatever my family took responsibility for, it has fulfilled).”

In the years after Rajiv Gandhi’s death, Sonia Gandhi had kept herself away from the public glare. When she did join politics formally in the late 1990s, she kept the focus away from herself and more on the party, which was positioned as the repository of the Nehru-Gandhi legacy. Rahul is doing just the opposite: he is bringing attention to himself, his bloodline, and his position as the rightful inheritor of his family’s legacy.

Rahul Gandhi and his sister, Priyanka Vadra, must have always known that many in the Congress see them as the last hope to revive and maintain the fortunes of the party on a more sustainable basis. The question was never whether or when they would take the plunge into politics: the real question always was which of the two siblings would take on the mantle. That was settled, for most people, when Rahul Gandhi stood for the Parliamentary elections. If, for some, there remained the shadow of a doubt—because he was not given a place in the Union Council of Ministers or a post in the All-India Congress Committee (AICC), it has been effectively dispatched with his star turn in the UP Assembly election campaign.

Before his decision to single-handedly take on the responsibility of turning around the Congress party in UP, Rahul Gandhi was the much discussed and debated about trump card of the Congress. When would he be made general secretary? When would he be projected as prime minister-in-waiting? Should he be saved for the bigger game of the Lok Sabha elections or be spent on the unwinnable UP election? The discussion and the debate were taken out of the hands of party functionaries when Rahul decided to put himself on the table. But, while doing so, he has sent a message—that, for him, politics is not a gamble or a game to be played but a lifelong commitment.

After his marathon poll campaign, an almost non-stop journey into the heart of the Hindi heartland, Rahul Gandhi has broken the image of a foreign-returned sophisticated prince who visits his constituency and the state from where he was elected as a tourist. He has not only carried out massive roadshows but also touched all the politically-important corners of the state. His efforts are beginning to pay off, the first signs of which are the number of party functionaries from UP saying that the comatose Congress organisation has begun to show signs thawing to life.

“He is very hardworking and inspires the entire rank and cadre of the party. We are sure that, in future, our party will have gained its lost ground everywhere under the dynamic leadership of Rahul Gandhi,” says Jatin Prasada, the young Member of Parliament from Shahjahanpur in UP. Prasada also has no hesitation in accepting that it was Rahul Gandhi's tour to his Constituency in the previous Lok Sabha election that helped him win.

The moribund and hopeless atmosphere in the UP Congress circles is beginning to change. An important barometer of change is the reversal of attitude of those state-level politicians who chose not to contest the elections. Some of them had—probably out of dead habit—earlier lobbied for tickets to contest the Assembly elections. However, when the lists were being finalised and the tickets were about to be allotted, they had taken a reality check and had evaluated the party’s prospects to be dire indeed. Some had estimated that it would be difficult for the Congress to even reach a double-digit score of seats. Not wanting their names to be counted in the list of victims of the ‘impending’ rout, they had then lobbied once again—only this time to make sure that they remained out of the fray. Those very politicians are now admitting, with grudging admiration, that Rahul’s efforts have paid off and will show results of about 40 seats.

His attacking speeches, especially targeting Mulayam Singh Yadav and his SP, and also Mayawati and the BSP, have cheered the once-nervous cadre of the Congress party. The SP and the BSP are the two parties that have gobbled almost the entire Muslim and Dalit vote base of Congress in UP. The Congress lost its organisation as well as committed voters to these parties because it essentially lost the initiative. It lost the upper caste voter to Hindutva and the BJP, and when it tried “soft Hindutva” in the late 1980s, it began to alienate the Muslim voter whom it completely lost to the SP after its failure to the prevent the demolition of the Babri Masjid and the ensuing riots. In Rahul Gandhi’s words, it lost the Dalit voter to the BSP when the 1996 alliance with the BSP “destroyed the party in the state. This alliance was not an alliance but a virtual sellout of the party in the state.”

In a campaign that banks on his charisma, Rahul Gandhi’s appeal is mainly to the youth. The hope is that his fresh and grassroots approach and commitment to stay the course will cut across caste and religious divisions and pull in the younger voters. Introducing Rahul Gandhi before a public meeting, Salman Khursheed, the UP Congress Committee president, makes it a point to say, “Rahul Gandhi will remain associated with affairs of Uttar Pradesh until such time that the state's past glory is restored and the Congress is brought back to power.”

Banking on his appeal to the youth and reaching out to the large numbers that flock to his meetings, Rahul Gandhi focuses on his target audience: “The Uttar Pradesh youth is doing wonders in states like Karnataka, Punjab, Haryana and Maharashtra but are unable to get things moving in their own state because the government of the day has been tying down their hands instead of setting them free.” All this has to change, he says. The youth constitute about 60 per cent of the state’s population and Rahul urges them to “assume responsibility as the drivers of this process of change”. He will be with them and work with them, he assures the crowds: “I will stand by you shoulder-to-shoulder in this task.”

However, even as Rahul has definitely made a dent against the SP with his efforts to win back the Muslim vote, and his frontal attack on Mulayam Singh and the failings of his government, he is yet to do anything about winning over the votes of the Dalits and the Backward Castes. This is where his managers and advisors have failed him. There is no clearcut plan to approach and win over this very important section of the state’s population. The lack of a strategy to target the Dalits and the Backward Castes is a glaring gap, and potentially a factor that may spell the undoing of his efforts.
Of the United Progressive Alliance government at the Centre, there is a perception that the bill to increase reservations was pushed through because of the pressure from the other constituent parties and not from an innate desire of the Congress to do so. Even on the election field, the Congress is being seen as not having done enough. So-called Dalit leaders like Meera Kumar (daughter of the late Babu Jagjivan Ram), Susheel Kumar Shinde and Mahaveer Prasada are conspicuous by their absence in the UP battlefield. However, it is a fact that neither they nor the younger Dalit leaders in the Congress, such as Mukul Wasnik, can make any real difference in the fight against the formidable Mayawati. It seems that Rahul Gandhi has, therefore, decided to carve out his own path to winning over the Dalit and the Backward Castes and making his voter base more inclusive and representative: there is little else to explain the absence of the Congress’ Dalit faces in the UP battlefield.

The other obvious lacuna—and the one that is probably the most damaging—is an absence of committed and organised Congress party machinery. There has been no cadre-building in the Congress for years: the once-elaborate multitiered system now appears to be a dusty and mothballed enterprise. But every exit poll that shows a downturn in the numbers for Mulayam Singh has to acknowledge the impact of Rahul Gandhi’s campaign.

On the other hand, the benefit of Rahul’s campaign have largely gone to the BSP and the BJP because no one herded in the departing SP voters. After the public meetings winded down and the roadshow entourages drove off, there was no one left behind to convert the supportive crowds into hard votes.

This is why Rahul Gandhi’s real job, at least as far as UP is concerned, will begin after the Assembly elections are over. He will have to make good on his commitment to rebuild the party in UP for the simple reason that if, as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh put it, “Rahul is the future”, then for Rahul Gandhi the future is Uttar Pradesh. The political mathematics of UP, the sheer numbers of everything political, the number of MPs and the number of people ensures that without a future in UP, the future of the Congress will always be unstable. The road to Delhi indeed goes through Lucknow.

At the end of the day, although the man himself is still in UP, focused on maintaining the remarkable tempo until the fag end of campaigning, Delhi is already set to receive him. The Congress headquarters at 24, Akbar Road is abuzz with the imminent arrival of the next generation Nehru-Gandhi to take charge of the party. There is talk of the political managers of the Nehru-Gandhi family having already charted a roadmap of how to project Rahul Gandhi as the next prime minister.

"He is the natural leader of the party,” says Digvijay Singh, former chief minister of Madhya Pradesh and presently the party general secretary. He is not the only party leader praising Rahul Gandhi. A veteran of the old guard, Motilal Vora, is a step ahead. “He will change the political scenario with his presence and hard work very soon." The young leaders of the Congress are more enthusiastic about Rahul Gandhis’ emergence. “Only he can fulfil the dreams of the late Rajiv Gandhi,” says Jatin Prasada. R P N Singh, former secretary of the AICC who is contesting the UP Assembly election, says, “Not only is he the hope for the Congress workers but also for the young generation of this country, which is frustrated and upset with the politics of caste and religion. The new generation wants education and social harmony, which can provide a platform for growth, which, in turn, is crucial for providing employment and better livelihood.”

Rahul has dominated the headlines and occupied more column space than any other leader of any party in this round of the Assembly elections. People are speculating about who’s who in his team of advisors and organisers. The names of Kanishka Singh and Sachin Rao, both US-educated and tech-savvy and from families close to the Gandhis, have acquired a certain flavour and that pass from lip to ear tinged with curiosity and envy.

The change can be seen even amongst Congress stalwarts who are now very cautious in their acts and deeds. They suspect that after the results of the UP elections come in, the party organisation will be overhauled according to Rahul Gandhi’s directions. Sources close to the Gandhi family say that the entire structure of the office-bearers will be changed and more than a dozen permanent but ineffective and useless faces will be removed. So, it is with hope and anticipation that the young faces and the old guard wait for the next generation of the Nehru-Gandhi family to return from his campaign. They wait for a man who left as a political novice and returns as their leader.