Gandhis, Generation Next

So it8217;s not just an optical trick to captivate the aam janata, after all. Rahul Gandhi is to transmogrify into Rajiv Gandhi in real life and contest the coming Lok Sabha elections from Amethi, a seat his father won four times and his mother, once. Amethi is Rahul Gandhi8217;s pitrubhoomi and matribhoomi, in a manner of speaking, and Congress workers are still beating drums and distributing ladoos in exhilaration out there.

There are three ways to read this Fourth Coming within the Nehru-Gandhi family. The first is a shrug of the shoulders: It had to happen given the nature of Congress politics. The second is the table thumping dismissal: It had to happen given the bankruptcy of Congress politics. The third is one of unadulterated delight: Thank God, it has happened or the Congress would have gone down the tube. That one, rather callow, youth can evoke such negative and positive emotions on such an epic scale is, of course, a comment on Indian politics, and the politics of the Congress in particular. It underlines the fact that Indian democracy is still very much a work in the making. That in the absence of leaders who appear to represent the interests of large numbers of people, there is a tendency to deploy and employ institutions that appear to reach out to people on a mass scale. Political families are one such institution. They are power multipliers, in the sense that the appeal and influence of political ancestors merge seamlessly with that of their progeny aspiring for representation in the political space. Of course, such consolidation of power within a family can be regarded as profoundly anti-democratic, yet the appeal of such families ironically continue to stand up to democracy8217;s ultimate test 8212; the election.

Coming to the case at hand, there can be little doubt that Rahul Gandhi8217;s appearance on the political stage is the attempt of the Congress party, under Sonia Gandhi, to play its trump card in a crucial election. The Congress is conscious that it is pitted against a charismatic leader who is seen to be more popular than his party. In other words, this is an attempt to leverage the appeal of the Nehru-Gandhi family against that of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, with his over 50 years of presence in Indian public life. Will it work? Certainly, Rahul Gandhi8217;s entry and possibly that of his sister, Priyanka, later in the election campaign will enthuse party workers and help deflect the often ugly attention that has been directed at their mother8217;s foreign origin by her political opponents. But to expect the infusion of young blood from an old lineage to galvanise the party in a sustainable fashion in this age of splintered votes and coalitions, is a pipe dream. For that to happen, the Congress will have to do far more in substantive terms of articulating the aspirations of the people and actually fulfilling them, if and when it comes to power.