Et tu Rashid Alvi, Manish Tewari? Decline of Rahul Gandhi nearly complete

Rahul Gandhi exercises as much control over the Congress today as Asrani did on the jail in Ramesh Sippy’s Sholay. With a fight for supremacy going on between its old guard and the youth brigade, one can almost imagine Rahul trying to exert his control by asking the two factions to go in different directions—aadhe idhar jao, aadhe udhar jao—and the rest to follow him. Since nobody seems to be following him, just like in the film, somebody may soon put a gun to his head and attempt a jailbreak. You can almost see it coming. History tells us that all empires, states, dynasties, however big and powerful, come to an end. The Roman Empire, the Ottoman Turks, The Third Reich and even the powerful Mughals looked infallible once. But all of them disappeared. [caption id=“attachment_1714301” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  PTI[/caption] Unless the incumbent is thrown out in a coup, the decline is a slow process. But one of the signs that an empire is declining is that the fear of the leader disappears and everybody around him starts fighting shamelessly with each other. When the leader can do nothing else but just look on, you know it is time to write an obituary. Consider the ongoing fight between Rashid Alvi, Manish Tewari and Ajay Maken today; or the extempore outpouring of sympathy and support for the BJP by senior leaders Sheila Dixit and Digvijaya Singh. What do you think would hae happened to them if Indira Gandhi, or even one of her sons, were still alive? On Indira’s advice, RK Dhawan or ML Fotedar would have summoned all of them to the party office, made them wait under the scorching sun for several hours and sent them back. Tewaris and Dikshits would have got the message and their new next three generations would have stayed away from public-speaking. Rahul may be a Gandhi but he is neither Indira nor Sanjay/Rajeev. People may feel a variety of emotions for him—from abject scorn to pity—but fear is not something you would associate with the amiable, smiling scion. So, everybody is having a go at it, convinced the high command would do nothing except pray that the fire of dissent dies down on its own. There was a time when Rahul could have stamped his authority on the party. He could have done it by publicly disciplining the first person to speak out against him, as an old saying goes, you have to kill the cat on the first night. But most of the early dissenters are still meowing in the party and the others have learnt the moral of the story: when the lion begins to purr, even cats begin to roar. That said, the important question here is should Tewari and Alvi be put on mute? There may be some logic in the argument that only those authorized by the party should speak on important issues. But the problem with the Congress is that nobody knows what its leaders think. Worse, nobody is sure if Rahul and Sonia share the same thoughts. For obvious reasons, Rahul doesn’t speak to the media; he rarely graces the Parliament with his considered opinion and, it seems, social media is something that he has not heard of. He is neither seen nor heard. Rahul has almost turned into an ambiguous faith open to several interpretations. Can you really blame the Congress leaders for speaking in different voices? The minions around Rahul can issue a million diktats, several warnings and gag orders; nothing is going to work since nobody takes empty threats seriously. The more it tries to assert itself, the greater would be the number of the defiant and the dissenters. Congress has just two options now: the discipline-enforcers should shut up. And Rahul should speak up. Unless this happens, the cacophonous comedy will continue.