Rahul Gandhi’s comments in London are not criticisms, but cynical rants of a bitter, frustrated, hopeless man

What is wrong with Rahul Gandhi? I ask this as someone who is reasonably convinced that the Congress MP from Wayanad will never be able to assume the prime minister’s chair, the office that Gandhi believes he is entitled to since birth. That, however, could be anyone’s assessment, right or wrong. But surely the Gandhi scion himself hasn’t started believing that leading the nation is well beyond his reach? Success takes time, patience, and resolve. From just two seats in 1984 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP now dominates Indian politics. It wins elections, sets the agenda, controls the narrative, wields hegemonic control over political discourse and forces the Opposition to play on its turf. This ascent hasn’t come about in a day. This current dominance is the result of years of hard work, sacrifice from a generation of leaders who toiled without tasting power, remaining focused on an ideological agenda — and this is crucial — never losing hope in either the polity or the electoral system. The BJP has been fortunate in being led by Narendra Modi, a once-in-a-generation mass leader who also has deep administrative acumen. He has entrenched BJP’s core base, and transformed the party into the juggernaut that it is by making it acceptable and even attractive for new voter bases. The BJP might be the Colossus, but the point about being in politics is never say never. Or one might as well leave the arena. If the Congress is going through an existential crisis, it is imperative that the party’s top leadership gets down to business. From chalking out political programs to keep the rank and file motivated and hungry, to working towards developing a distinct and clear ideological agenda, from propagating its own socio-economic development vision, to negotiating, cooperating and coordinating with other parties in the Opposition space, from doubling down on strengths to scrutinising weaknesses and removing the deadwood, the Congress — the only Opposition party with a national footprint — have an awful lot of work ahead. The Congress’s position has been made even more precarious by the results in North East. The grand old party has been wiped out from its former bastions. In the three north eastern states of Tripura, Meghalaya, and Nagaland, the BJP has got clear majority in Tripura and will return to power as a junior partner in the other two. Faced with vanishing footprint, low morale and a bleak electoral prospect in 2024, what does Rahul Gandhi to? He visits universities abroad and issues bitter diatribe against India, Indians and Indian institutions before a carefully curated crowd in closed-door events. According to Rahul, the string of defeats that Congress has been subjected to for nearly a decade since 2014 under his ‘inspiring’ leadership is down to the fact that “democracy is dead in India.” In his latest trip to the UK, where Rahul visited the Cambridge University and attended a session with Indian Journalists’ Association in London, the Congress MP came across as a bitter, frustrated, despairing, disconsolate, defeatist politician who seems to have given up on India. In Cambridge, Rahul claimed that “Indian democracy is under attack”. In London, Rahul claimed again that “democracy in India is under brutal attack,” and said that the “surprising thing is that the so-called defenders of democracy, the US and Europe, seem to just be oblivious that a huge chunk of the democratic model has come undone,” that there is “no reaction” because of “trade” and monetary considerations. This isn’t the first time the Gandhi scion has done this. Rahul had called for foreign intervention while speaking to Nicolas Burns, US ambassador to China and a former under secretary of state for political affairs at US State Department. Rahul had then said, “I don’t hear anything from the U.S. establishment about what’s happening in India. If you are saying partnership of democracies, I mean what is your view on what is going on here…” to a visibly uncomfortable Burns.  https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/rahul-gandhi-questions-us-silence-on-happenings-in-india/article34226862.ece Does Rahul even pause to reflect before opening his mouth? These are not the words of an Indian politician who is part of the cut and thrust of Indian politics. It is the nature of democracies that parties are at each other’s throat. Climate of polarisation and partisanship are common. But these take place within the constitutional framework. India remains a robust, cacophonous democracy where parties suffer electoral reverses but the fulcrum of peaceful transfer of power is never questioned. The Congress party itself won the Assembly elections in December last year. In 2021, BJP suffered a humiliating defeat in West Bengal, and may lose Karnataka in the upcoming polls. No party that hopes to remain or come back to power in the Indian democratic framework will make the cardinal error of insulting the country in foreign land. Rahul’s comments in London were not criticism, but the resentful rant of a cynical, hopeless man who has started fearing that he may never attain his “birthright”, and is blaming everyone around him, including the Indian electorate, for not smoothening the path to his entitlement. Does Rahul truly believe that he can win over the Indian electorate — members of a postcolonial society — by going to the land of the power that had once colonised India and seeking foreign interference? His words betray the assumption that western powers should intervene and help his family regain power if the Indians don’t elect him to the office. This is delusional politician who has gone batty at repeated failures, and surrounded by a coterie of ‘yes-men’, has been led to internalise the belief that “democracy must have collapsed in India if Indians aren’t choosing him”. Rahul made grandiose claims in London that the Opposition has laid an “inclusive vision” of India on the table, and are apparently “conversing among themselves” but those with even a passing familiarity of Indian politics would know that Opposition parties cannot even bring themselves together on a common agenda, leave along conversing. Eight Opposition parties recently wrote a letter to prime minister Modi alleging “misuse of central agencies”. Congress wasn’t a signatory to the letter. Neither was the DMK. Ahead of the elections in north-east, Rahul went to Tripura and launched an attack against the TMC, accusing Mamata Banerjee’s party of ‘aiding BJP’, and got a mouthful in return. This was just one day after Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge’s call for a ‘united Opposition’. All that Rahul is doing with his tantrums and paroxysms of acidity abroad is driving the nail deeper into Congress’s chances of returning to power. 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