Rahul can script new narrative for Indian politics

“Arrogance of people in power and their disconnection with the masses led to the party’s defeat…Excuses like lack of resources are totally unacceptable. The Congress was very much in the power in the state. It had to manage its resources for the poll, not looking up to the party. The Congress high command can only fund the states where the party is not in power.” If there has been a wake-up call for a political party from its top leadership, this was it! And the speaker was none other than the newly-named president of the Congress Party, Rahul Gandhi. He was speaking to party leaders of Himachal Pradesh where the Congress suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in last month’s assembly polls. Gandhi’s audience included Virbhadra Singh, the 84-year-old party veteran who lost his chief ministership.For sure winning and losing are part of electoral politics. And in the Indian scenario the loser usually whines about how he/she has been short-changed by the winner. The Aam Aadmi Party’s complaints about electronic voting machines is a case in point.But quite refreshingly, Rahul is beating a new path. Instead of blaming the BJP or the Election Commission of India or some such third agency, the Congress president had decided to point the finger inwards. In the 19 years that Rahul’s mother Sonia Gandhi had led the party, she had hardly spoken such strong words to her partymen, leave alone the top leadership of a state.The Congress had lost the elections in Gujarat too but had managed to put up a brave fight and had even seemed to be on the cusp of victory for much of the counting day. The creditable showing was attributed to Rahul’s tireless campaigning, including his visits to 27 temples across the state. But when eventually the results left the Congress Party in the second spot, Rahul was quick to accept the defeat and congratulate the BJP.When the Gujarat campaign was reaching its crescendo, Gandhi acolyte Mani Shankar Aiyar described Prime Minister Narendra Modi as ‘neech’, which is the Hindi word for ‘low-born’ and is associated with the much-maligned caste system of medieval India. Although hailing from south India, Aiyar, a former diplomat of many years’ standing, has been a North Indian for all practical purposes and is regular on Hindi news television channels during their evening political debates. But when the BJP protested Aiyar’s use of the unparliamentary word to describe the prime minister of the country, with the clear intention of gaining much sympathy in Modi’s home state, and with public opinion also seeming to turn against him, Aiyar tried to wriggle out of the situation by claiming his Hindi was poor. However, Rahul, who honestly cannot lay claim to being proficient in Hindi, would not have anything to do with Aiyar’s shenanigans. He promptly suspended the veteran from the party. Modi’s remarks about his predecessor Manmohan Singh and former vice-president Hamid Ansari on their dinner meeting with a visiting Pakistani politician had also created much furore.In fact, the Congress stalled parliament for the entire opening week demanding Modi apologise for attributing ulterior motives to the two senior politicians.As the BJP also stood its ground refusing any statement from the prime minister  - one came from Finance Minister Arun Jaitley explaining that Modi held his predecessor in high esteem - Rahul apparently advised his senior colleagues not to make too much of the incident. A truce was called and parliament functioned thereafter.Compared to the rest of the established politicians on both the ruling and opposition sides, Rahul is quite young, He has time on his hands. If he sets out on a path of conciliation and discussion, instead of confrontation and disruption as has been the experience these past few years, India’s politics, and therefore India as a whole, has much to gain. Simultaneously, Modi and his party chief Amit Shah, who is the latest entrant into parliamentary politics having been nominated to the Rajaya Sabha, also should not spare the rod when their party leaders stray off course. A functioning parliament is the primary responsibility of the government of the day. Reaching out to the opposition before major bills are presented and keeping in check the tongues of some of the more virulent examples of Hindu firebrands that populate parliament would do the BJP’s cause a world of good ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. At least one such example has been put in his place when Ananth Kumar Hegde, junior minister for skill development, was asked to tender an apology in parliament for his wayward remarks about the government preparing to change the Constitution.There is much at stake for all politicians as eight states will witness elections to their respective assemblies this year before the all-important Lok Sabha polls in May 2019. Politicians must realise that business as usual will not work with the Indian voter any more. As Rahul rightly said, arrogance of power and disconnect from the people will only lead to electoral defeat. It is not as if elections are won and lost during the space of a 30- or 40-day campaign. Five years of misrule cannot be set right in one month of speech-giving. Voters make up their minds much before elections are even announced. Even the so-called votebank politics has a ‘sell-by-date’ that, as witnessed in the past three years, has expired. The fact that many Muslim-dominated constituencies voted for BJP candidates in both Gujarat in December and Uttar Pradesh in February-March last year busts the myth that the minority community is a captive of the Congress or the Samajwadi Party or the Rashtriya Janata Dal.Aspirational India of the 21st century is a far cry from the feudalistic, ghettoised India of Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and others. If, eventually, the scion of that Nehru-Gandhi family has realised this plain and simple truth and, therefore, takes his party in a new direction, there is scope and deliverance for the Congress. Rahul will know that in this fight the BJP is perhaps not his worst enemy. The bigger demons are within the Congress party. If he succeeds in conquering them, the Congress can return to power one day, though perhaps not in 2019. And if he fails…History favours RajinikanthLife imitating art has the perfect example in Tamil cinema and Tamil Nadu politics, the latest chapter of which was written earlier this week when superstar Rajinikanth declared his intention to float a party that will contest all 234 seats in the next state assembly elections.For decades ‘Thalaivar’, patriarch or chief, as he is referred to by his myriad fans, had been hovering around the political spectrum without taking the plunge. His one statement that nobody can “save Tamil Nadu if Jayalalithaa returns to power” was said to be the reason for her All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam’s miserable defeat in the 1996 elections. Such is the power of the man on whom legends and myths have been created that even the far-out jokes on his invincibility have a ring of seriousness about them.So, is Rajinikanth and his yet-to-be-named party going to win the next elections? These are early days yet and the plot is sure to thicken in the weeks, months and even years to come. The next elections to the assembly are not due till 2021 but everyone feels these could come by much earlier as the ruling faction of the AIADMK is a marriage of convenience that can end up in divorce any time. And then there are the Lok Sabha elections that will force Rajinikanth to commit himself to one party or the other though his own may not contest.History is on the side of ‘Thalaivar’ as far as fortunes of film stars in Tamil politics are concerned. While Tamilians have somehow not taken kindly to their very own stars in politics - late Sivaji Ganesan (Congress) and Vijayakanth (Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam) are  prime examples - imports from  other states have had stellar political careers from Madras/Chennai. Both Marudhur Gopalan Ramachandran (MGR) and Jayalalithaa Jayaraman were born outside Tamil Nadu but had huge fan following which they astutely converted into political base. Rajinikanth, whose real name is Shivaji Rao Gaikwad, is a Maharashtrian born in Bengaluru, Karnataka, but made his mark in Tamil cinema like few others. His legion of fans too can rival those of MGR and Jayalalithaa. But will he make it count? No wager on that one.