Time to leave, Rahul

I say this as a former long-time Congress supporter/voter. Feel free to correct me, but I don’t believe that in 18 years as MP, Rahul Gandhi has given even one sensible, well-meaning, and crucial suggestion to the govt in power on any issue. All he has done is whine, complain and exaggerate. And the issues he has raised in parliament have usually been overshadowed by the blunders he makes while speaking. And when he’s not doing all of that, he’s holidaying.

Many of us then felt that if Rahul had to take over the reins of the country someday, he needed to understand how to run a state machinery. Becoming chief minister of a Congress-ruled state would be the perfect place to start. But the reason given against that was that Rajiv Gandhi also had no administrative experience when he took over.

The truth is Rajiv took over at a difficult time for India. Most Indians born after 1950 had never experienced the trauma of an assassination. Indira’s death affected the country deeply. For whatever reason, the Congress party decided to impose the son on us. The country was too shocked to comprehend then. It was just relieved to see the young man step up and accept the responsibility.

But as events proved, the Rajiv Gandhi charisma unravelled pretty fast. Rahul had no such encumbrances. On the contrary, he has had the collective experience of senior Congressmen and women around him from a 100-plus-year-old party, whom he could observe closely and learn. He could have studied the political nuances and the nitty-gritty of running a party and country. But he didn’t. He didn’t think he needed to understand governance for that.

He believed, and his fawning courtiers around him have made him think to date in the illusion that he is anointed to lead, first the party and then the country, because he is a member of the dynasty that ruled India the longest. And that probably would have happened if one Narendra Damodardas Modi hadn’t decided to storm the citadel, which was the preserve of the Congress and its well-cultivated ecosystem.

It has been eight years, and the Modi wave shows no signs of abating. The BJP has stated that it is no longer willing to play second fiddle. BJP has stamped its presence, and Modi has become this larger-than-life persona domestically and globally, who isn’t an aberration like the Gujrals, Deve Gowdas, Charan Singhs and Chandra Shekhars of the world. Or even a full-term PM Vajpayee. He’s here to stay. And neither the 137-year-old Congress party nor the dynasty that straddled it for decades can do anything to stop him.

But even as Rahul’s ardent admirers (yes, he still has many) have been drumming it into us since 2004 that he’s a better choice than Modi, he has been found wanting in every box where you want to tick ✔️ you can only tick X — Political acumen, commitment, long-term stability… you name it. He’s failed everywhere. Listen to his speeches and stage-managed interviews. They are bereft of facts, figures and substance.

Even in parliament, he has come across as a politician who is more interested in having fun than engaging in serious debate with facts and figures. More often than not, he ends up looking like a joke. In politics, it is not enough to be a nice guy, which I am sure he is. But, as pictures have proved, he comes across as a personable, affectionate man. But is that enough to beat a ruthless Modi or anyone else who comes after him? BJP has shown that it is here to stay, and the majority (no pun) would rather have them and Modi in power than Congress.

Can this Rahul Gandhi change that?

From a Nehru dynasty fan to a Modi ‘Bhakt’… it

I joined Twitter in December 2008 and till about mid-March of this year I had a measly 770 odd followers. Then one day that month I got the shock of my life to discover that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had started following me. Suddenly my twitter numbers began to rise and the fun tweets became serious business. And from being just another twitter handle I was labelled a Modi bhakt!

So, it seems, following the prime minister and being followed by him has become a crime and all the ‘nobodies’ and ‘busybodies’ on Twitter have a view on that. Worse is the fact that whether I write for or against the PM I am still subjected to abuse from both sides. I have been ridiculed, insulted, abused in a language used by alcoholic lowlifes, my mother (God bless her soul) has been abused because I tweeted something where I didn’t even criticise Modi but those who criticised demonetisation. But because I support Modi, people think I’m a khaki-wearing, trishul carrying bhakt who mutters “mandir wahi banayenge” even in my sleep! Honestly, I couldn’t care less, about khaki shorts, RSS, or a trishul. Although I daresay my views about the mandir have changed since I first wrote this blogpost. It seems today it is a fate worse than death for any Hindu and more so for one who supports Modi. It’s a double whammy.

My father, Bishweshwar Prasad Sinha, was a part of Mahatma Gandhi’s Non-cooperation Movement right from the 1930s as a youngster and while he didn’t agree with Nehru’s views he still regarded him highly. He even contested elections against the Congress from Phulpur and was the only candidate who didn’t lose his deposit. In those days, you could put up a lamppost as a Congress candidate and it would win. He was also a true blue Socialist like Ram Manohar Lohia, Madhu Limaye, Jaya Prakash Narayan and others. I remember my mother telling me how Lohia, who was a regular visitor to our home in Patna, would rubbish Nehru and his ancestry.

My mom Lakshmi, on the other hand, was a ‘dynasty fan. She was a diehard Nehru dynasty fan right from the days of Motilal Nehru. She would always speak glowingly of Jawahar Lal Nehru and how my father took her and my elder brother to meet Nehru in Delhi. Nehru supposedly hoisted my brother, who was then 3 or 4, on his shoulders and took him for a walk around the grounds of his home. Heck, she even named my elder brother Rajiv. When I was born, she was determined to name me Sanjay. Thankfully, my father put his foot down with “One Nehru/Gandhi in the family is enough!”

My mother’s family too seemed to have been big fans of Pandit Nehru and we even had Nehru staring down at us from our living room wall in our home in Pune, until, one day, I banished it into the storeroom where it stayed until it was packed and crated with the rest of the stuff when we shifted houses. I never saw it again. And in those times, a Freddie Mercury or a Gabriela Sabatini poster held more sway than one of Nehru!

Meanwhile, my grandparents, Barrister Valoor Krishna Menon (not to be confused with Nehru’s man V.K. Krishna Menon) and Janaki amma, in Thrissur, named their new home Gandhi Mandiram after the great man stayed there during his travails around the country when he launched the Quit India movement. (see attached image for story and pic of Gandhi Mandiram, which is today a Homestay).

It so happened that some Congressman (see attachment) asked my grandfather whether he

would have a problem if Gandhi stayed at their newly constructed home on Dewan Narayana Menon Road (named after my great-grandfather) in Chembukavvu and he was more than happy to oblige. Gandhi Mandiram also played host to Babu Rajendra Prasad, Madan Mohan Malavya, Pattabhi Seetharamiah and Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya. My mom, however, took her Nehru obsession a step further.

When my brother was getting married, imagine her delight when she heard the girl’s name was Sonia. She did something that she claimed was on a whim but I have my doubts. What she did a few weeks before the wedding was that she sent the wedding card to Rajiv Gandhi with a note “Somewhere in this world another Rajiv weds another Sonia. Won’t you grace the occasion with your presence and bless the young couple?” Expecting the PM to attend a wedding of a namesake was a far cry, I don’t think she expected even a response. When we returned from the wedding the maid told us the postman had been coming around and was refusing to hand over the letter to anyone but my mother. The next day the postman landed up and refused to hand over the letter without a hefty tip.

He said, “When I saw the Prime Minister’s seal there’s no way I could leave the letter here without a baksheesh.” The letter was a signed personally by Rajiv Gandhi. I was very impressed by the man’s class, but my mother treated the letter as some sort of proxy at the wedding reception!

Even in the elections in 1984, that followed the Delhi riots where Rajiv said those famous words, we still voted for the Congress. It was the first election I was voting and my mother made me promise I wouldn’t vote for anyone but Rajiv. Who could turn down a mother’s request, not that there was any other option in those days. So it was a custom in my family to vote for the Congress and all these years until 2014 I voted for the party. In 2014 too, I didn’t vote for Modi or the BJP/Sena candidate from our constituency. So what changed it?

In one para, the arrogance of the Gandhi family that they were above the law and above any regulations that governed this nation. That this family could do what it wanted, say what it wanted and like the royalty of old were protected by courtiers who would place a protective shield around them at all times, was something I found unacceptable. The fact was hard to swallow.

Then came the speech by Sonia Gandhi in LS on the Food Security Bill where she said: “I don’t care where the money comes from…” and then there was the Right to Education Bill and I decided I could do without the Congress brand of appeasement politics and reservations without a thought for the taxpayer, and promised I would NEVER vote again for the Congress party. Kapil Sibal said it well enough with his “They are the Gandhis, blah blah…”

Then post 2014 May, when became the PM I noticed an entire ecosystem that chanted ‘not my PM’. They were egged on by the Congress to oppose the PM and anything he did. They were finding it difficult to digest that they were out of power. That this lowly Gujarati could storm their citadel was unacceptable to them.

I think it’s clear as daylight that Rahul Gandhi just doesn’t have it in him to be an astute politician, and his sister even less. They are both living in their rarified ecosystem that fawns on them. Good for them! I’d rather vote for a Modi or anyone else this country can produce than a member of a family that believes it has the right to rule and is not answerable for its actions.

(Updated on Jan 12, 2024)

A voyeuristic view of the First Family

“What puzzled me about Sonia in those early days was her complete lack of interest in doing something worthwhile in response to the dreadful poverty she saw everyday in her husband’s country… The only comment on politics I remember her making was on a night when Rajiv and she were dropping me home after a dinner party. I asked her if she would like her children to be in politics some day, and she said, ‘I would rather my children begged in the streets than went into politics.”

Engrossing, and voyeuristic, is how one could describe Durbar, well-known political journalist Tavleen Singh’s book on the Indian political scenario since the Emergency. And if you’re a Nehru-Gandhi family basher, you’ll love the book!

Tavleen Singh began her career with The Statesman as a junior reporter in 1975 and within five weeks of that she witnessed post-independent India’s most turbulent period. On June 12, 1975 the Allahabad High Court annulled the election of Mrs Gandhi from Rae Bareli. And around a fortnight later, on June 26, claiming the country was being destabilised, she declared an Emergency.

Tavleen’s account of the days during and after the Emergency details the rise of Sanjay Gandhi as a political force, his five-point programme that was meant to make India a better place, but which, she says, only ended up doing more harm than good. Her description of the events that led to the demolition of Muslim settlements at Turkman Gate and the subsequent riots that broke out resulting in the deaths of a number of Muslims, make for avid reading, especially if you’re, like me, interested in politics and politicians. Quite a few incidents she has written about are, as she herself claims, hearsay, but since she has made them public, we’ll take her word for it.

However, what held my interest was her description of Operation Bluestar, the ascension of Rajiv Gandhi as prime minister on the assassination of his mother, and his refusal to stop the riots that followed, resulting in the cold blooded murders of countless Sikhs on Delhi’s streets. Having been a part of Sonia Gandhi’s circle of friends, Tavleen gives us a pretty unflattering view of India’s Camelot. It is something loyalists of the First Family might find hard to digest. Rajiv, according to her, is a “comical, half-witted prince with no idea of the country he was ruling or its problems” – the charm notwithstanding.

There are other incidents she describes that show Rajiv in very poor light. The Indian Airlines hijack incident, the much publicised visit to Kalahandi in Orissa, his public sacking of the foreign secretary, his reluctance to order a probe into the Bofors deal, which did make people wonder whether he was shielding anyone specific, his role in the problems in Kashmir which India is still paying for, his disastrous forays into Sri Lanka (the IPKF) and Nepal, his inner circle of advisors, and the stranglehold of the bureaucracy and the power brokers over the late prime minister, once the corruption charges began to flow thick and fast, all portray Rajiv as an incompetent leader with little understanding of ground realities.

Sonia is portrayed as a warm, friendly person at times, but indifferent to India’s problems, at others. She is caring towards her family and friends but contemptuous towards her husband’s political advisors and politicians. One senses that Tavleen is bitter at being dumped by Sonia Gandhi, even though she feels she was only doing her job, and ‘Durbar’ seems to be a way to get back at the First Family. But look at the bright side. If Tavleen had remained one of Sonia Gandhi’s close friends, I doubt if we would have got an almost voyeuristic account on the role of India’s First Family, so up close and personal, in India’s recent history.

Blundering along….

Nice guys don’t make good prime ministers – Rajiv Gandhi and Manmohan Singh are good examples of this. Would the Bofors deal have dragged Rajiv down if he had been careful about what his ministers and bureaucrats were up to? And Manmohan Singh?

To me the Prime Minister, more and more, is beginning to resemble a cross between Roman Emperor Nero and the fictional character Chief Inspector Jacques Clouseau. On the one hand his government is in trouble and he fiddles, while on the other just like the comic French detective, he stumbles from one controversy to another, completely oblivious to the mess he leaves behind.

Honesty and decency are not enough to run a country of one billion people when one is dealing, day in and day out, with a bunch of crooks masquerading as honest politicians. Efficiency, competence and ruthlessness are also mandatory requirements and the PM seems to be way off the mark with these attributes.

He and his government are blundering along from one disaster to another, with the latest one being the Nira Radia phone tapping scandal involving a couple of media personalities and the names of industry stalwarts being dragged in. But we don’t hear anything from the man himself, while his office tells the media that he is clean and doing the best he can!

We hear that the PM is just a rubber stamp, and that the real power lies elsewhere – which may be true to some extent, but I don’t think that’s the case when it comes to the running of ministries. Had that been so, Singh would have quit a long time back. He’s too decent a bloke to allow himself to be led around by a chain and leash by the Gandhi family. Some politicians in the chain-and-leash category spring to mind – Giani Zail Singh, DK. Borooah, V.C. Shukla, R.K. Dhawan, S.S. Ray, H.K.L. Bhagat, M.L. Fotedar and Sitaram Kesri – but Manmohan Singh?

It just seems Singh is totally ineffectual and prefers to do nothing as his ministers and his allies, use their proximity to either Sonia or their own party chiefs and run riot. Raja is a good example. He used his proximity to DMK supremo Karunanidhi to loot the ex-chequer, secure in the knowledge that he could always hide behind the Tamil patriarch’s dhoti, in case the government decided to ask him uncomfortable questions.

Drawing parallels with the Raja case, if you see a man about to steal something or in an extreme case jump in front of a running train, what would you do? Politely tell him not to, or physically stop him from doing so? Was the written nudge to Raja enough? Shouldn’t he have stopped the former telecom minister, before things got out of hand? If Singh’s office says Raja was told to revamp the bidding process, it also means Singh knew all the facts. And if that be the case, the guy is an accomplice and guilty as hell along with his former minister.

More importantly, did the PM need to wait so long before asking Raja to quit? Strangely, this has been the case in every controversy this government has been involved in. Take the case of Tharoor and his tweets, the Commonwealth Games fiasco or even the Adarsh scam. In all these cases, the PM allowed things to drift till they reached a stage where he had to step in douse the flames. And is the Prime Minister a fire fighter or worse, a hostage negotiator, that he stalls for time, till the commandos reach the place and neutralise the criminal?

Now, even the Supreme Court is asking the PM the same question that we are. Let’s wait for the answer when Attorney General GE Vahanvati represents the P in the Supreme Court and, hopefully, clears the air.

In the meantime, step aside Chief Inspector Jack Clouseau, you’ve got competition!

Did Rajiv know or…who cares anymore?

Trust the politicians to indulge in their silly games of one-upmanship and buck-passing over the Bhopal gas tragedy. When they should have been going after Union Carbide and Dow Chemicals, they’re going after each other. While the farce continues, over whether Rajiv knew or didn’t know about Anderson’s flight out of India, the real issues – proving succour to the sufferers and extradition on Anderson to India – has taken the backseat.

Rajiv Gandhi is up there with Him (or down there, as some others would have us believe), so even if he did, does it really matter, anymore? The two people – one being Rajiv himself and the other P.V. Narasimha Rao – who knew the answer to this question, are both dead. So you can interview all the bureaucrats who served under them and unless someone actually says he informed the prime minister, it’s always going to be hearsay. Of course, when did that stop the politicians from flying off on a tangent?

If Rajiv really didn’t know, it casts him in even poor light – that of a prime minister who didn’t know what his chief ministers and bureaucrats were doing. Even worse is the fact that the CMs took decisions without informing him or even taking his permission. It doesn’t do much for Rajiv’s credibility as a leader of the largest democracy in the world.

I’ve always been an admirer of Rajiv – not because he was Indira Gandhi’s son, but because I think it took guts to take up the job of running the country, post the riots. And the fact that he was an honest man-made it all the more difficult in an environment where a lot of people didn’t care too much for the basic tenets of law and justice.

Compared to his mother, who was in every sense a politician – cunning, conniving and crooked, Rajiv basically seemed an honest guy and a gentleman. The problem was a lot of the people around him were leftovers from his late mother’s regime, and all just like her. They – the politicians and bureaucrats – who branded him a crook, didn’t do so because they knew he was one, but probably because they knew that once branded a crook, he would spend his time fighting off the allegations. It would ensure that he stayed out of their way and allow them to pursue their one-act agenda of making money. That is exactly what happened, till he was cleared of all charges on the floor of the Lok Sabha.

In that scenario to run a country, must have been a difficult task. As the Bofors deal proved after doing the rounds of the various inquiry commissions and being flogged to death by the media these 25 years or so, was that Rajiv had not taken a penny in the deal. So while he was basically an honest man, or at least so it emerges from various accounts heard and read, he was pretty naive and inexperienced in his early years as Prime Minister. And by the time he figured out a few things he was gone.

While I agree that the manner, in which the events that occurred after the Bhopal gas disaster were handled, was very amateurish, nailing Rajiv is hardly the solution. To first arrest Warren Anderson and then escort him out of the country was one of the dumbest things to do – especially, when he was assured safe passage into and out of India by the government. But, it still wasn’t as dumb as the NDA Government’s decision to allow the terrorists in IC 814 to refuel and then let them fly off to Kandahar!