With a powerful speech in Parliament, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has stirred the nation’s conscience. He spoke some home-truths and targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the ‘omissions and commissions’ of the BJP government. He made headlines in a spectacular manner – after long years of being in a state of stupor as far as his parliamentary interventions are concerned. His speech has gone viral on social media and is being praised for its tone, tenor and content. He’s known for his one-liners, but never in the past for the eloquence of his speech. In a way, he has come of age; and he bears the symbolic weight of generations. On close scrutiny, some of what he said however lacked credibility. The ghost of the past comes to haunt his utterances. A taunt to the present government was that “there are two Indias today – one of the rich and the other of the poor.” His own Congress party ruled India for nearly sixty years and raised the slogan, ‘Garibi Hatao’ (Banish Poverty) and won national elections on that plank only to ignore the gargantuan task of poverty alleviation.
Modi and the BJP picked up the thread from where the Congress left it in 2014. The Congress cannot escape blame. However, Rahul Gandhi rightly said the small and medium industrial sector is down in the dumps. The manufacturing sector as a whole has progressively lost its verve. This resulted in lack of jobs for crores of youths; meaning also that the nation is sadly and criminally failing to harness their productive energies. The scenario had never been impressive under the Congress rule too. Mouthing socialism, the Congress party promoted elitism; the BJP does it blatantly, seeks to fool the poor and keeps winning their votes by fuelling their religious and communal sentiments. There’s merit in Rahul Gandhi’s argument that the BJP brass divided India. Unity is not their mantra.
Another of Rahul Gandhi’s jibe at Modi is that he acts like a king, while the Congress banished royalty. But Indira Gandhi was more dictatorial than any PM. Modi’s famous 56-inch chest boast perhaps has no bearing on his performance which is at low-key. Both on the domestic front and in confronting external rivals, there is a sense of hesitation. The government vacillated often and even bent over backwards as in the case of the farm laws. As for Centre-State relations, there is nothing confrontational yet about Modi’s style. States are not supreme. A touch-me-not attitude by regional chief ministers in the name of federalism, as is seen now, and curiously backed by Rahul, is the other extreme. They thrive when the Centre is weak.
