Opinion| Rahul Gandhi: a democratic liberal?

Rahul Gandhi seems more resolute now in his rejection of the Prime Minister appropriating all power.

Rahul Gandhi, if his interview with Hindustan Times is any indication, comes across as a democratic liberal but is averse to being ideologically bracketed. His self-description of being a pragmatist was that of one who’s willing to take the best out of all books: left, right and centre.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi during the Budget Session of Parliament on February 5. (PTI Photo)

The Gandhi family scion, who is president now of the Congress party, spoke on a slew of issues: his plans to reorganise and revive the Congress while keeping intact the Opposition unity, his understanding of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh agenda and what he called the Bharatiya Janata Party’s decisions under Narendra Modi that “divide the country”.

Read between the lines, his remarks on his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra’s role in the Congress were indicative of the duo playing “mixed doubles” in the long haul, to recoup the party’s lost ground not just in UP but also in West Bengal, Bihar and Tamil Nadu. “As a general secretary of the party, she has, by definition, a national role.... I’m reorienting the party towards successful completion of jobs. I give a job and then I give another job based on the success of that job.”

Gandhi recognised that the BJP had to be countered in tandem with other parties, but he was clear that the Congress cannot abandon pushing for its ideological space while cooperating with regionally dominant non-BJP forces. Towards that end, he expected Priyanka and Jyotiraditya Scindia, given charge of eastern and western UP, to lay the structure for the party’s revival in the key state.

Gandhi seems more resolute now in his rejection of the Prime Minister appropriating all power: “I believe fundamentally in India.... everybody here, from the biggest industrialist to the weakest person, has a role to play. The most important thing is that the leadership in this country should make them feel and believe this.”

The template of tolerance, equity and accommodation he proffered by walking across and giving Modi a hug in the Lok Sabha, was the leitmotif in his formulations to tackle the agrarian crisis, joblessness and social upheavals on divisive issues. The line he drew was against hatred and violence. “That’s my main issue with the RSS - you are spreading hatred and violence, you are creating an atmosphere that is weakening India. I will fight you for it.”

At the same time, Gandhi wasn’t apologetic about his rounds of temples, widely seen as the Congress’s bid to counter the BJP-RSS on the majoritarian pitch that they’ve curated for themselves. He rubbished the description of it as a Right-wing recipe of soft Hindutva: “Soft Hindutva... Where did you get the idea? If you asked Buddha or you asked Mahaveer or you asked Guru Nanak, or any of the great people of this country to go to a temple - do you think they would decline? Guru Nanak went to Mecca.”

The grounds on which Gandhi targeted Modi weren’t dissimilar to the reasons he cited for his rejection of the RSS agenda. He showcased his recently-mooted “minimum guaranteed income” for the weaker sections as an antidote to the social unrest - rooted in farmers’ distress and unemployment.

Painting the BJP as a party in which the PM embodied all hierarchy, Gandhi rationalised the Opposition’s unity as a bulwark against the BJP and the RSS’s bid to undermine institutions. He said the fear of Modi was keeping divisions within the BJP, over his leadership style that left space for no other party colleague, from spilling into the open: “The entire party is waiting for the day they can push him aside. That day isn’t far away.”