From Everyone’s Leader To No One’s: The Congress’ Slide From Nehru To Rahul

If you think about it, it would appear as if the Indian state, as imagined and spelt out in the constitution, was made to manifest itself in Jawaharlal Nehru and his lineage. Representative of all citizens, biased towards no community, and yet having a benign and protective approach towards the minorities. At least that is how Nehru and his descendants were perceived by many people over many years. Just like Nehru, the Indian state didn’t speak for any single religious, linguistic, or ethnic group; like Indira Gandhi, it pledged to strive and provide equality and justice to its most downtrodden citizens; and like with Rajiv, Sonia, and Rahul, its workings are far better understood in English than in any language of Indian origin.

If you think about it a little longer, you’d realise that in public perception, the Nehru-Gandhis aren’t really associated with any community. It is as if they, by the simple accident of being Nehru-Gandhis, are apart from, and above, all other Indians. Uncontaminated by marks of identity, innocent of the ‘plebian’ persuasions of community. Really, the public images of Nehru, Indira Gandhi, and even those of Rajiv, Sonia, and Rahul, can be collectively described as representing the quintessential statist kitsch. They were not meant to be seen as Hindus, or Kashmiris, or Roman Catholics. They were Indians, proudly so, and had to be seen as such only.

Nehru, and Indira after him, could carry this public image and make it seem all natural. He, because of his deeply-held beliefs and also because he was the inheritor of the aura of the freedom struggle; and Indira—who inherited this image from her father—because of her singular commitment to power.

But by the time it is passed down to Rahul Gandhi, we have a problem, or to be specific, problems.

Electoral victories in contemporary India are earned by first creating a staunch and loyal support base, and then adding other groups in smaller numbers to it. Mayawati did it in Uttar Pradesh (UP) in 2007. She enjoyed steadfast Dalit support since the 1990s; in 2007, she managed to gather other castes around her core Dalit vote. Same for the Samajwadi Party of Mulayam and Akhilesh Yadav in 2012. Since the 1990s, the party had garnered large shares of the Yadav and Muslim vote in all elections. In 2012, it added other communities in relatively smaller numbers to this support-base and seized power.

Lalu Yadav in Bihar has his nucleus of Yadav and Muslim vote; Sharad Pawar has his Maratha support; Yeddyurappa, Lingayat. Why, even when Arvind Kejriwal formed his first government in 2013, before any other group’s, he could claim the unflinching backing of sections of the very angry middle class.

Narendra Modi too, has what can be called as his core support, around which he coalesced other groups to deliver the ‘Wave of 2014’. The Hindutva vote, that would be. The reason the BJP and Narendra Modi could run the 2014 campaign almost entirely on the issues of development and corruption was that with Modi as the leader, Hindutva was implicit and implied.

To create these cores of support, all these leaders had a core identity to begin with. Mayawati was the ‘daughter of the Dalit’; Mulayam and Lalu were the champions of the OBCs and the protectors of minorities; Pawar, the Maratha stongman; Kejriwal, the crusader for the common man; and Narendra Modi, the face of Hindutva.

Today, when Rahul Gandhi, under instructions from Prashant Kishor, is criss-crossing UP in a bid to revive the Congress in the state, it is pertinent to ask: what is the core identity of Rahul Gandhi as a political leader?

The obvious answer, and the considered answer, are the same: as a political leader, Rahul Gandhi does not have a core identity. There is no electoral community in India which would claim that Rahul Gandhi was their leader before he became anybody else’s. In turn, Gandhi, too (apart from platitudes) has not demonstrated that he considers the issues plaguing any one community to be more important than the issues faced by others. In today’s politics, that is a bad idea.

But then, he has the Nehru-Gandhi identity, doesn’t he?

He does. But here are the issues with that. One, that image of the Nehru-Gandhis as representing the interests of all communities equally has been damaged irreparably in recent decades. What with years of pessimistic appeasement-politics, and capitulating at the slightest murmur from some communities?

Two, very simply, the pull and charisma of the family have plummeted since the time of Rahul’s grandmother and are very likely to continue on their descent. While back then the Nehru-Gandhis could claim to represent all communities in the fashion of benevolent sovereigns, in 2016, they represent none.

Three, if you would forgive the truism, Rahul is not his great-grandfather, grandmother or father. Nehru and Indira Gandhi, more than Rajiv, were mass leaders in their own right. Rahul Gandhi, not so much. Even if the Nehru-Gandhi image had been passed on unblemished, it would have been way too large for the political persona and abilities of Rahul Gandhi.

As this piece is being written, he is once again on a campaign to revive his party in UP. He has visited temples in Ayodhya, met Shia leaders in Lucknow, lit candles in a church, and bowed down in prayer in a gurudwara.  For anyone who is aware of the the history of the Nehru-Gandhis and their politics, all of this comes across as simply more of the same. Maybe, in a moment of silent prayer, it would help him if he asked himself—who do I speak for?

The political identity he inherited is now of no use. And in the 12 years that he has been in electoral politics, he hasn’t created an alternate one for himself.

Through his yatra, which is passing through spaces of all religions, Rahul Gandhi seems well on his way to repeat a ‘2012‘ in the UP of 2017.