Rahul Gandhi has emerged as a strong voice against Modi government
[Editor's note: The author wishes to withhold his name after writing the article.]
I will not bore you by saying that Rahul Gandhi is 46 years of age and keeps fit by regular visits to his homegrown gymnasium. There is more to him than that.
I am writing this piece because today, for the first time, I am highly impressed by him.
I was not impressed as much when he took a month-long Kisan Yatra in Uttar Pradesh. I was not impressed as much by the success of the yatra. I was not even impressed by his speech at Jaipur Chintan-Shivir when he was anointed the vice-president of the Congress.
But I am impressed today by his speech at the party's Jan Vedana Sammelan, when he made a clear distinction between the Congress and its opponents.
In his words, the Congress's main aim is to remove fear from the hearts of people, whereas PM Narendra Modi, the BJP and RSS just want to root in fear among the public, be it judges, the RBI governer, businessmen (via tax notices), people from the media, as well as common people like you and me.
But who is Rahul Gandhi? And why do I need to educate my friends about him? So here it is.
Rajiv Gandhi was killed in 1991 by terrorists from the LTTE. Rahul was then just 21. The LTTE at that time was on a mission to kill and vanquish the whole of the Gandhi family.
Rahul was then studying at Harvard University under his original name. He had to shift to Oxford because of security reasons. In Oxford, he took a pseudo name and earned an MPhil degree.
Going further down the lane of history, Indira Gandhi was killed by her own bodyguards in 1984. At that time, Rahul was just 14. He was in a school.
Remember the Khalistan movement? Remember Operation Blue Star? Those were horrific times, but the need of the hour was to not let India go into the hands of terrorists. They had to be flushed out. Bold decisions had to be taken.
But it led to some segments wanting revenge. Due to security reasons, Rahul along with his sister Priyanka were home-schooled in those times. All this would surely have taken a toll on a child of Rahul's age. Nevertheless, all that is in the past.
The situation is different today. If you go in public and say you are a supporter of Rahul Gandhi, people will laugh at you and ignore you. And not many people will believe me, but Rahul's current image has been created by the BJP, especially a social media team led by the party's top leaders.
Perhaps you will also not believe me if I tell you that there are skilful PR-team campaigns run against Rahul every day and every second, and even against his recent speech.
At the Jan Vedana Sammelan, the Gandhi scion drew a sharp difference between the Congress and its rivals, who he said were promoting fear. If you were at the Talkatora Stadium, you could feel that here was a leader whose time has come. Rahul's speech drew an animated response from the audience. But what did his opponents do?
They became nervous and decided to run a campaign against it. Their team comprises popular Twitter handles who charge on per-tweet basis, sometimes running into tens of thousand rupees per tweet. They ran a campaign, followed it up with media reporters' coverage of the campaign as website news (of course paid, and none of them will appear in print). And that is how you turn perception against correct news and create false propaganda.
Today, hundreds of videos are created and uploaded on Youtube every month. They are then linked to websites, increasing their viewership. Once that increases, Google does the rest of the work by pointing other viewers to the same videos, as Google work on trends and what is trending.
Remember the scores of videos poking fun at Rahul? For instance, the one where he says, "this morning I woke up at night!"? Isn't it understandable that he means he woke up before sunrise?
I would also invite my friends to watch the full video of his speech at Jaipur Chintan Shivir in 2013. His opponents have put it up in a way that pokes fun at him.
The same goes for his "aloo ki factory" comment which was trolled all over, without people understanding the context behind his statement. Rahul was talking about why FMCG companies do not come to Uttar Pradesh and had said that when the Congress would come to power in the state, it would put up adequate infrastructure so that "aloo chips' factories" can come up.
Today, the Congress is at a historic low. But the way the current government is demeaning institutions is also historically of the lowest level.
Jawaharlal Nehru was the first PM but he never bypassed the laws laid down or India's institutions. He could have even done that with the legislative might he had, but didn't.
Modi, despite his clear majority, is stooping to the lowest level. In his case, nothing is important. He and his government are constantly working towards managing headlines, even at the expense of institutional freedom.
In all this, Rahul has emerged as a strong voice against the Modi government. He is showcasing it through public rallies across India, through Congress meetings and press conferences. And perhaps, his opponents will not be able to manage headlines against him anymore.
I want you to remember what Gandhiji said: "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."