Rahul Gandhi's only claim to fame is his surname
Eleven years after Rahul Gandhi officially entered politics there are suggestions that the party might anoint him the party president sometime this year. There is just one problem - the generalissimo doesn't want to lead. In fact, at a time when the party desperately needed him to lead the charge against the Modi government in Parliament, Rahul decided to take a sabbatical and meditate on his future. And things have now come to such a pass that even members of the party close to the dynasty have started wondering if Rahul should indeed be their leader.
"I am yet to meet anybody who has any critical remarks to make about the leadership of Sonia Gandhi. I can say it with absolute confidence. Whereas (in case of) Rahul, of course, there is a question mark, there is scepticism because you have not seen him perform as yet," former Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit and a close confidant of the Gandhis said earlier this week. Other leaders including Amarinder Singh and Sandeep Dikshit have also expressed similar views. Singh has argued that Sonia Gandhi must continue as the party chief and Rahul Gandhi must bide his time "gain experience, spend time with the party workers and learn the ropes before he takes over as the party chief".
Such is the state of confusion within the party about its future that no one seems to know when their dear leader might return from wherever it is that he is meditating. There are suggestions that he might be back by April 19 to address the Congress rally against the Land Bill. But who knows?
In the past few years, senior party leaders have been falling over themselves in demanding that Rahul should be given a greater role in the party. But now there is a real divide. It is a tribute to Rahul's own ineptitude that he has been able to divide his own party on the question of his elevation to the top. For a long time he had seemed reluctant to join the fray, although there has never really been any doubt about the true power centre in the Congress, and even in the government. His dithering about officially acknowledging his role was seen as doing great harm to the party. So he was elevated to the number two position in January 2013. But it has all been downhill since then.
The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) is widely viewed as one of the worst governments India has had in recent memory. The party was under attack for the past several years from an increasingly vocal middle class and youth who have been demanding greater accountability across India's political system.With the elevation of Rahul, Congress had hoped that it would be able to convince the electorate that the party was fresh and ready to relaunch itself.
Instead the opposite happened. It turned out that Rahul neither had the political sense nor the leadership ability of his main rival, Narendra Modi. Ironically for the Congress, who had tried to conjure up the image of Rahul Gandhi as the nation's youth icon, it was Modi who attracted most young voters. India's increasingly aspirational young find the idea of a dynastic endowment anachronistic, while the story of a backward caste tea-seller working his way to the highest office in the land seems inspirational. It resonates with that basic democratic ideal that every Indian can aspire to the office of the prime minister, whereas in the Congress party that privilege remains reserved for the Nehru-Gandhi family or their chosen ones.
The Congress has become a party completely out of touch with the aspirations of ordinary Indians, and seems bereft of new ideas. Today's India is not the country of the 1980s, when the fresh face of Rajiv Gandhi was enough to give a new lease on life to a doddering old party. India today is an impatient country, demanding good governance and resolute leadership - not the qualities that have been the hallmarks of Rahul Gandhi's vision so far. As a result, the Congress party finds itself in a pitiable situation where it will either continue to function under a tired Sonia Gandhi or it will have Rahul Gandhi as its leader with no hope for its future.
In his speech to the party in January 2013, Rahul had suggested that the extant "system" in the country was designed to keep people with knowledge out of power and promote mediocrity. He is so right. It is indeed a tragedy for India that a person like Rahul, whose only claim to fame is his surname, is the nation's most influential leader today. The best shock that he could give the system would be for him to graciously bow out of politics altogether, thereby ending the culture of dynastic politics in India's Grand Old Party, a culture that has so besmirched the reputation of Indian democracy. This will also save him and his party this constant ridicule and will allow the country to talk about issues that really matter.