Courtesy WestlandAarthi Ramachandran.Rahul Gandhi often seems to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time. On the television news channels, or in the Indian print media, Mr. Gandhi is ubiquitous, popping up at staged political events across the country, including recently when he donned a blue turban for an appearance in Chandigarh
Yet Mr. Gandhi is one of the most reclusive, private public figures in India, rarely directly addressing the media and never granting one-on-one interviews. For a man that many people believe could one day become India's prime minister, Mr. Gandhi remains a riddle, his vision for the nation unclear.
This presented a particular challenge for A arthi Ramachandran, a journalist who covered the Congress Party for several years before deciding to write a book about Mr. Gandhi. “Decoding Rahul Gandhi†was published in August and offers a well-reported account of Mr. Gandhi's career as a politician that is both sympathetic to him yet also tough-minded about his failings.
I interviewed Ms. Ramachandran while researching my own article about Mr. Gandhi, which documented how his star has seemed to fade since the 2009 national elections. I also e-mailed her a list of questions, in hopes that she could offer her perspective on Mr. Gandhi for readers of India Ink. Her answers, also by e-mail, are below.
Why did you decide to write a book about Rahul Gandhi?
I began covering the Congress Party as a beat around the same time Rahul Gandhi took the political plunge. Given his importance in the Congress hierarchy, it made sense to track his political progress fairly closely.
I had written several pieces on Rahul. It struck me that there is a good story to be told about an extremely reclusive young man who could one day be the prime minister. I felt it would be interesting to chronicle his early years in politics.
At around the same time in 2009, when this idea struck me, I had a chance one-on-one meeting with Rahul. This was the time when much of Rahul's rhetoric revolved around finding solutions for urban migration and deprivation. I had written to him as a private citizen, putting aside my journalistic skepticism, urging him to do something about the issue of child beggars in Delhi. Oddly enough, his office wrote back saying he would like to discuss the issue with me. I found him to be well intentioned, yet somewhat confused about his role in politics. He kept telling me that he needed to “focus†on fewer things.
He is one of the mo st private and secretive political figures in India. He does not grant interviews and rarely directly addresses the media. What do you make of this strategy? Do you think this is his decision or a decision made by party strategists?
Rahul has drawn an invisible curtain around himself, just as his mother, Sonia Gandhi, has. In this aspect, he has followed his mother's cue and cast himself in the role of the remote and inaccessible party leader.
This strategy cannot be the doing of party strategists alone because in the Congress nobody can determine how the Nehru-Gandhis choose to present themselves to the public on a sustained basis. While the strategy has worked to a certain extent in Sonia Gandhi's case - given her Italian roots, it has kept her from fumbling in public as she learned the ropes of Indian politics - in Rahul's case the strategy has boomeranged.
Rahul Gandhi comes across as an enigma, despite being in politics for over eight years. Because he does not give interviews or present his views on many issues affecting India, nobody really knows what he stands for.
People will not vote for something that they don't know and understand. The Gandhi name is no longer enough to make it in politics.
You write about how his experiences as a management consultant have influenced his approach to party work and politics. How has this approach been effective for him? And ineffective?
Rahul's ideas for improving efficiency and accountability in the functioning of political parties are important in their place. His zeal for more inner-party democracy, while a tad ironic, is still much needed.
However, there is no evidence yet to suggest that the approach he has chosen has worked so far. Neither has it succeeded in strengthening the Congress at the grass roots by bringing in people who are genuinely not connected to the prese nt system either through family ties or money; nor has it been able to enlist new voter support for the party or improve organizational efficiency in states where the Congress Party is in a shambles - U.P. [Uttar Pradesh] for example.
It has not worked because a political party cannot ape a corporate/manufacturing/industry model that seeks to improve efficiency in the most mechanical of ways. It needs a political program and sustained political engagement with issues. Rahul has failed on this count. No party can function on the basis of a rule book, or to put it in corporate terminology, work as per a standard operating procedure manual.
Do you think the Gandhi name still carries resonance with Indian voters that it once did?
The era is far past in Indian politics when Indira Gandhi could win her way back into the hearts of voters who had deserted her after the Internal Emergency (1975-1977), by riding on elephant back to reach Belchi in Bihar, where Dalits had been killed in a horrific caste clash.
The Gandhi family name no longer automatically evokes the same blind faith from voters it did a few decades back. People want their politicians to be able to deliver things to them now. Rahul Gandhi and his mother, Sonia, might have a head start over other politicians because of the instant recognition that the Gandhi name brings, but they still have to present voters with a sensible proposition election after election.
Rahul Gandhi's inability to rescue the Congress in Uttar Pradesh in the 2007 and 2012 state elections shows people will no longer vote for the Congress only because a Gandhi happens to be in charge of the campaign.
In the book, you say that Rahul Gandhi is not a natural politician, as far as having an intuitive grasp of politics. Where did he go wrong in the U.P. elections this year? And do you think he has the abil ity to improve in this area?
There were several reasons for Rahul's defeat in the 2012 U.P. elections. To enumerate just a few, Rahul's election strategy of accumulating noncore and peripheral castes and communities into a single solid vote bank for the Congress failed badly. The Muslims, who had voted for the Congress in the 2009 general elections, were not taken in by the Congress's election-eve offer of a special “sub-quota†for minorities in central government jobs and education out of the 27 percent earmarked for Other Backward Classes.
Then there was the Akhilesh Yadav factor. The Samajwadi Party leader and former chief minister Mulayam Singh Yadav's son was seen as no less a “yuvraj†(prince) than Rahul, but he came across as accessible and, more importantly, belonged to the state. In comparison, Rahul only came to U.P. to do his politics; he did not live it.
To answer the second part of the question, it would be i mpossible to write off anyone in politics. The U.P. campaign itself showed that Rahul was willing to work on his public speaking skill in order to connect better with the electorate. It won't be easy for Rahul to shed the tag of not being a natural, but similar things were said about his grandmother, Indira Gandhi, who was famously described by the socialist Ram Manohar Lohia as “goongi gudiya†(dumb doll).
With good advice and a reorientation of his attitude to politics, Rahul could be a different politician. The question though is, whether he wants to change.
There has always been a question of whether Rahul is animated by politics, whether he has the fire to win and succeed in this realm. Is he competitive in this way? What do you think motivates him?
As I said in the previous answer, Rahul's attitude to politics could do with reorientation. He is confused about the role he wants to play - it is not clear yet whether he sees himself as a political activist who wants to ring in fundamental changes in the system or whether he wants to gear his politics toward keeping the Congress electable. This confusion has meant that he has not really shown a willingness to take on the risks and rewards of realpolitik.
But if the U.P. polls of 2012 is a pointer, then we have seen the first glimpses of Rahul's competitive streak. He went all out in that campaign in a way he has not done before. That said, even that effort was not motivated by a desire for political power alone (which in itself may not be a bad thing, but that is a separate discussion). He had a point to prove there since he has been associated with U.P. since 2007. The need to prove himself motivates Rahul primarily, in my opinion. He wants to be seen as deserving of the mantle bestowed on him for no reason other than his ancestry.
There is always lots of gossip that Priyanka is the more talented politician of the pair. Is this fair?
Priyanka is spontaneous, charming and appears far more at ease with politics. She has in the past displayed the ability to connect with people and party workers in Rae Bareli and Amethi, the parliamentary constituencies in U.P. which have been with the Gandhi family for years. Her biggest asset is her resemblance to her grandmother and former Indian prime minister, Indira Gandhi. Congressmen and women, especially from U.P., yearn for a Gandhi family nominee as formidable as Indira.
The Congress has been unable to reclaim the position it enjoyed in national politics after the Indira Gandhi era. Nostalgia for the Indira era, therefore, at least partly explains why Priyanka is seen as more promising of the brother-sister duo. This is accentuated by Rahul's awkwardness as a public speaker, his inability to connect with crowds and lack of communication with party workers.
But to be fair, we don't know what Priyanka's ideas are. We don't even know as much about her as we know of Rahul. The call for Priyanka is also a sign that, at least, some in the Congress are looking for a quick fix since Rahul Gandhi has not been able to meet their expectations.
