The timing couldn’t have been better. India’s prime minister gave India’s “future” a name this Sunday. Meanwhile, the “future” himself got caught up with the past by presenting such a bewildering set of propositions that even those who anchor history quizzes got into a twist. It was Karl Marx who wrote, “history repeats itself.” But the second half of the quote — not cited as often — is more interesting: “History repeats itself, first, as tragedy, and the second time as farce.” Rahul Gandhi’s tryst with history for the second time in his Uttar Pradesh campaign (the first time at a wayside UP dhaba two weeks ago) borders on farce — besides doing little for Indo-Pak relations! Barely weeks after Saarc and well into the campaign for trying to secure UP’s future, Rahul Gandhi’s sudden foray into history was clearly not the best way to elevate a state-level assembly election campaign on to a higher plane.This well-heeled, earnest young MP from Amethi has, according to his supporters, great potential. Never mind if he wasn’t in the business of asking questions in the House — it was thought that this serious Gandhi was learning, often humbly re-learning, what it means to be a Gandhi in 2007. Those who follow him said he was on the way to redefining his family’s relationship with the Congress. He is said to have firmly told a bunch of Congress sycophants who was trying to persuade his mother to accept the PM’s post in 2004, that “the family was not in public life to just rule as a right, but to serve”.It is useful at this juncture to consider, for a moment, Rajiv Gandhi’s own beginnings as politician. His memorable “hum haarein ya loose-ein” or “nani yaad dila denge.” phrases are now the stuff of legend. But to give Rajiv Gandhi his due, those phrases were, at worst, desperate attempts to speak the language of the aam aadmi — a yearning by a reluctant politician to connect with the people in the hinterland. The naive, fresh-from-the-cockpit Rajiv quite endeared himself to the people, and even these verbal indiscretions did not blot his copybook. The point is that these errors were charming rather than riling. They spelt no serious departure from established foreign policy principles, nor did they lay claim to the greatness of the ‘family’. Rahul Gandhi’s comments in Bareilly is of a different ilk. They jar in today’s times, given the complexity of a state like UP, given the grave organisational crisis the Congress party faces, given the intense media scrutiny. Even the Pakistan Foreign Office reacted to them within a few hours of the statement. In contrast, Rajiv Gandhi’s days appear like an abridged edition of Hans Christian Andersen.Essentially, Rahul Gandhi has a lot going for him. He clearly outshines the aging leadership within the party. Since a large chunk of the electorate was born after his grandmother’s (and even after his father’s) terms, he does not have to be defensive about their often controversial records in office. Also, unlike his father who started a party general secretary, Rahul Gandhi has not been shackled by a formal position in the party hierarchy. He has been given a clean slate and the freedom to plot his own way. But if he is to play the leadership role his party demands from him, it would require great maturity — a maturity that he has on occasion displayed. Rahul Gandhi must clearly start again and the first thing he should do is to shed his excessive attachment to the ‘family’ mystique. The electorate in UP is already characterised by caste loyalties which have shrunk to loyalties to sub-castes and kinship groups. Appealing to loyalty to one family, against such a scenario, is a recipe for disaster. It will, by no means, widen the Congress’s catchment area.The wise Doctor has again tried to show Rahul Gandhi the road ahead, by gently invoking the “future”. In fact, Rahul Gandhi himself talked about going “to the 21st century” in a speech in Badaun on Sunday. He should take a cue from that. A lot of Indians are still caught between the India of the medieval age and that of the 21st century. If Rahul Gandhi and his party are to gain in relevance, he needs to be serious about reading right that roadmap to take Bharat to the 21st century.
