Rahul, the politician
By S Viswam

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The difference between a politician and a statesman, it is said, is that while a politician always talks without thinking, a statesman never talks without thinking. Mr Rahul Gandhi, Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s son, is currently being groomed in politics. He seems to be adapting himself quite well to politics considering that he has begun talking without thinking. Whether he will ever prove to be a statesman is in the realm of conjecture and wishful thinking.

Mr Rahul Gandhi, who is expected to rehabilitate the dying party in Uttar Pradesh by unleashing his charisma on that hapless State, is fulfilling the role of a politician to the hilt. He chose the Lucknow based Deoband Dar-ul-Uloom, the Islamic seminary, as the venue for a little bit of self-glorification of the Nehru-Gandhi family. What is more, after encountering wrathful criticism for naming his family as the only champions of Muslims, he told the media that he was sticking by his statement. Both are typically a politician’s play.

Alluding to the destruction of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992, Mr Gandhi declared that the event would never been allowed to happen if the Nehru-Gandhi family had been active in politics at that time. The implication clearly was that had any member of the family headed the government in those days, the Babri Masjid would have been protected.

Mr P.V. Narasimha Rao was both the Congress president and Prime Minister on that fateful day when karsevaks of the Bharatiya Janata Party, Shiv Sena, Bajrang Dal and the Rashtriya Sevak Sangh brought down the Babri structure brick by brick. Mr Rao, of course, was not a member of the Nehru-Gandhi family, but he was a senior Congressman and a duly elected Prime Minister. It may be that not all in the country would support his handling of the explosive situation on December 6, 1992. Indeed, even during his life time he faced flak for it, like the famous Nero fiddling while Rome was burning.

Mr Rao was having his afternoon siesta when the monument was being brought down, and all those who telephoned him to implore his immediate intervention, like the former prime minister Chandrasekhar, for instance, were told that he could not be disturbed. But, even so, he was head of a Congress government and the party was obliged to stand by him. In hurling a broadside against Mr Rao and his own party’s role in the masjid’s destruction, Mr Gandhi has shown a lack of political finesse and sensitivity. He has implicitly if not explicitly accused Mr Rao of failure to protect Muslim interests.

This is bad enough, but worse, he has quoted his father, the late Rajiv Gandhi, as telling him that had he been at the helm of affairs he would have never allowed the masjid to brought down. This is again typical of a politician who speaks before thinking. Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated three years before the Babri event and could not have discussed the event with anyone, leave alone his son. Dead men do tell tales in some form or the other, as we all know, but not the tales of which they knew nothing when they were alive.

Even if he missed the point of his late lamented father not being in a position to share confidences, there was an element of crudity in the manner in which Mr Gandhi was recalling an event which has ceased to be a reference point in any agitated discourse on the Babri issue. If it was Mr Gandhi’s intention to befriend the Muslim voters ahead of the impending elections in Uttar Pradesh, he chose an inappropriate issue to claim championship by the Nehru-Gandhi family of the Muslim cause. By visiting the past, which both the Hindus and Muslims feel is best forgotten, he has hit a raw nerve of both the communities, and he has generated a fresh round of controversies when the earlier ones were just fading away.

The fact, if he had taken the trouble to read up history, is that Muslims felt particularly let down by the Congress government at the Centre. Mr Gandhi obviously has not had a feel of the pulse of Muslims in UP despite his initiation into UP politics at least five years ago. They still feel let down because the Congress, neither at the Centre or at the State-level has taken any meaningful initiative to settle the Babri matter to the satisfaction of both Hindus and Muslims. Hindu-Muslim equations constitute a sensitive subject of public discourse in India, and calls for a high level of maturity and forethought in offering comments or criticisms. This is particularly so presently when the UP Muslims have no love lost for the Congress and the party is desperately wooing them to regain their support if not uncommitted loyalty as in the not-so-distant past.

So, why did Mr. Rahul Gandhi rake up the Babri issue at all and try to use it as an important factor in the Congress electoral strategy for UP? Not certainly to “expose” Mr Narasimha Rao’s failures since the Congress has nothing to gain by creating the impression that partymen can back-stab top party leaders and seek political advantages. Second, was he trying to get into the good books of Muslims by telling them that his family is the only one that can protect their interests? This is barely possible, since, Mr. Gandhi has yet to provide any reliable evidence of his interest in the minorities from the time he started learning the ropes of politics through political activity and training in the Amethi constituency.

Thirdly, if he has still not understood that Muslims need something more than mere assurances for returning to the Congress after hobnobbing with the Samajwadi Party after 1992, then he has a lot of catching up to do. They want tangible action. You don’t make or win Muslim friends in UP by disowning your own party or its erstwhile leaders. You win them back by interesting them in a new agenda which addresses their specific grievances. The UP Muslims know that the past has dealt them a raw deal. What they want to be reassured about is their future. Has Mr Gandhi something to offer them other than the leadership of the Nehru-Gandhi family? Has he any thoughts to share with them about the most acceptable means of re-building the mosque or building the Ram temple?

In brazenly entering a political minefield about the explosive potential of which he has no clue, Mr Gandhi has managed to re-open an issue which had gone dormant. He apparently wants to bait the Bharatiya Janata Party and put it on the defensive during the campaign. If this is part of a calculated electoral strategy approved by the Congress central leadership, then it makes only partial sense.

The BJP and its saffron allies undoubtedly must take the blame for destroying the Babri masjid, but the Congress too cannot escape responsibility for inaction to protect it. By raking up the issue at this stage, he has injected a dose of guilt in both the Congress and the BJP. This is unlikely to help the Congress win back Muslim support in the polls. The BJP is unlikely to benefit by charging him and the Congress with minority appeasement. The real beneficiary is likely to be the Samajwadi Party. The Muslims may decide to stay with it rather than stray away from it for no real purpose.