More Rahul Gandhi's election than Modi's: The lad becomes a leader

The real test of Rahul Gandhi's political maturity, however, will come on May 23. If the opportunity to form a coalition govt presents itself, it would be interesting to see how prepared he is

In many ways this general election has been more about the arrival of Rahul Gandhi as a national leader than about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s re-election. Bean counters would say that such a judgment would depend entirely on the number of Lok Sabha seats that the Congress manages to win. To do that would be to miss out on Rahul Gandhi’s personal and political transformation. He has clearly shed the image of a novice and emerged as an indefatigable and dogged political campaigner who is here to stay.

He has shown focus in his campaign, combativeness in attacking the government’s record and cleverness in avoiding the traps set for him by Prime Minister Modi. And he has done so with dignity and grace, never crossing the boundaries of decency, successfully fashioning himself as a national leader of consequence. Unlike his political adversaries, who constantly and negatively reference his political pedigree and lineage, he has left the issue out of his political discourse. “I’m not obsessed with my family. I don’t think about my father, grandmother or great-grandfather as much as Mr Modi does,” he quipped in an interview to the Hindustan Times.

Rahul Gandhi faced a formidable challenge taking on a political leader who though dedicated to self-interest nevertheless brought a sense of self-worth to large sections of obscurantist, self-doubting, minority-loathing Hindus

Rahul’s display of empathy, self-effacement and refusal to respond to provocative personal attacks with vengefulness has taken out much of the sting of his chief opponent’s speeches. He is almost Buddhist in his refusal to be defined by “hate” when he says “The source of all negative emotions is fear. I will only hate things I fear. I don’t fear Mr Modi in the least, so I can’t hate him.” Before one dismisses this as pretentiousness, one should recall he along with his sister Priyanka Gandhi have publicly ‘forgiven’ their father’s assassins saying that they do not want anger, hatred and violence to drive their lives and they need to move on.

So much as Prime Minister tried to convert this election into 'Modi vs. Nobody', 'Modi vs. Dynasty' ('Kaamdar vs. Naamdar') or even 'Modi vs. Rajiv Gandhi' towards the end of the campaign trail, Rahul Gandhi has thwarted that rhetoric. He ensured that the focus remained on political issues.

Rahul Gandhi faced a formidable challenge taking on a political leader who though dedicated to self-interest nevertheless brought a sense of self-worth to large sections of obscurantist, self-doubting, minority-loathing Hindus. Confronting such a leader meant not only projecting alternative qualities of leadership but also taking on the ideology which underpinned him. It is significant that instead of who to oppose, he has learnt to focus on what to oppose.

His steady focus has been the unfulfilled promises of the Modi government, hammering on the damage wrought on the economy by eccentric and ill-conceived measures like demonetisation, a complicated GST (or Gabbar Singh Tax, as he mischievously termed it), rural distress, growing unemployment, the Rafale jet fighter scam, crony capitalism, and a deliberate attempt to rip apart the social fabric of Indian society through religious polarisation. He also brought a balance in the national discourse by moving it beyond the macho nationalism central to BJP’s ideology which got a new lease of life after the Pulwama terrorist attack.

Rahul Gandhi’s counter-narrative was bolstered by his party’s election manifesto where he sprang the proposal of a minimum basic income of Rs.72,000 per annum for the rural and urban poor, free and compulsory education till Class 12 and a promise of spending 6 per cent of the GDP on education. His promise of rolling out a countrywide loan waiver scheme had the government scurrying for cover with the prime minister announcing in the middle of the campaign at Nandurbar in Maharashtra how he would better it if re-elected. For once he was put in reactive mode as Rahul Gandhi stole the narrative.

Addressing the farm crisis was not the only issue in which Rahul Gandhi’s one-upmanship was evident. On the Rafale jet fighter deal, Rahul Gandhi almost alone among Opposition leaders put the Modi government on the defensive. The Bharatiya Janata Party had to mobilise a variety of legal and political initiatives to counter Gandhi’s 'Chowkidar chor hai' (watchman is the thief) slogan. However, these moves were unable to browbeat the Congress leader into abandoning the campaign. Attempts to turn the narrative around with a national 'Main bhi chowkidar' (I am also a watchman) campaign failed to catch public imagination.

Most importantly, Rahul’s credible and appealing counter narrative against the Modi government was based on strengthening his party. He did not act as many expected as the new broom dislodging old leaders, but carefully built bridges between them and a younger emerging leadership, focusing on the revival of the party. Had he had not achieved success on these fronts in the Gujarat and Karnataka elections and then again in the three state elections of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh in November-December last year, he could not stride the national stage as he has now done.

The failure to forge a more comprehensive pre-election alliance with the non-BJP Opposition parties cannot be entirely blamed on his leadership. Rahul was willing to subordinate his party’s ambitions to the larger objective of fighting the BJP unitedly but his hand of friendship was spurned by some Opposition stalwarts who saw the rise of the Congress as a threat.

The real test of Rahul Gandhi’s political maturity, however, will come on May 23. Should the opportunity arise for the Opposition to form a coalition government once the election results are declared, it would be interesting to see how prepared he is to help fashion that political formation. Would he at that time still listen to a larger ideological calling by subordinating personal and party interests as he did in Karnataka? And if he does, will he ensure that his party does not pull the rug from under the coalition government before its full term? Should he fail on either count, the demons he fought so valiantly this time around may return stronger and sooner than expected.

Twitter: @Bharatitis