Curiosity turned into admiration by the end of Rahul Gandhi's UP tour On the second day of his three-day tour of western Uttar Pradesh, over an impromptu lunch, for once it was Rahul Gandhi Unbound. After directing television crews to switch off their cameras, print journalists were asked to shoot. Questions came thick and fast and the Amethi MP had plenty to chew on. "While caste did have some role to play, it was our inability to create a new leadership that led to the Congress's decline in Uttar Pradesh," he said, reiterating what he had said at the Congress plenary in Hyderabad last January. He said the 1996 pre-poll alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party was a "total sellout". THE WEEK asked him about the Ayodhya demolition and the politics of communal mobilisation, discussed at length in Christopher Kremmer's just-released Inhaling the Mahatma. Unfazed, he promptly replied: "If any one from my family had been active in politics, the Ayodhya demolition would not have happened. This is what my father told my mother. He would have stood in their way. They would have had to kill him first." In a rare, candid moment in the book, Rahul tells the author: "I come from a Hindu background. But I don't see the need to use my gods to mobilise people. This is the same whether it's Muslim fundamentalism or Hindu fundamentalism or right-wing Christian fundamentalism in the United States. It's just people who are bankrupt of ideas.... "The BJP thinks that India can be ruled with a rigid ideology and it found out right now that it can't. When I heard about the demolition at Ayodhya, I really felt that the heart of India had been hurt. Literally I felt pain, not because you're hurting a group, but because you're striking at the core of what this country is. This country is built on inclusive foundations. Whoever wants to come can come and we'll adopt you. Hinduism is built on that. It absorbs ideas and concepts. So that's why when I heard about the demolition, I felt that it was wrong. My father would not have allowed that. No question of it. If any one of my family was in politics-I mean, just in politics, not even in power-at that time, it would not have happened." When asked how the BJP's rise impacted the Congress in the state, Rahul evaded a direct reply. On why the national media was not allowed such rare access to the MP's mind, he shot back: "I had told this [Babri assertion] to every one who came to me during the last elections."
The Babri statement, however, sent the media into a frenzy. Newspapers and their leader writers read motives in the statement-ranging from a "sizeable Muslim presence" in western Uttar Pradesh to the "arrogance and ignorance" of the dynasty to the "timing of elections". In all his election meetings and roadshows, however, Rahul steadfastly desisted from talking anything other than development. "Whether it is the freedom struggle, or our journey in independent India, Uttar Pradesh has all along been a leader. In the last 15 years, however, it has slipped on various developmental indices. Various parties divided you on religion and caste. Are you happy with your hospitals? Schools? Roads?" In fact, his speeches soon bordered on boring, much in contrast to the interactive and livelier roadshows. Ignoring the media focus on the Babri comments, Rahul stuck to the script of development during his Deoband visit, easily the highlight of his UP tour. Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee president Salman Khurshid had on many occasions told THE WEEK how the party had failed to connect with the Muslims in the post-Babri Uttar Pradesh. Rahul's Deoband visit, much against the wishes of a section of the party, was thus an attempt to renew the bond. While it was the curiosity element that greeted the Congress MP, it had grown into a silent admiration by the time he left. He told the pre-dominant Muslim audience in Deoband: "If someone hits at someone else, I'm always with those at the receiving end. But I'm blind to Hindu-Muslim, and other divisions. This is the only 'weakness' in this Indira Gandhi's grandson." The start to Rahul's yatra, kick-starting the party's election campaign, on March 18 was almost a damp squib with the local MP and party office-bearers vying to get their presence registered. The Muradnagar and Bareily meetings, too, fell victims to the intra-party squabbles. Even at the successful Muzaffarnagar rally, it was the same old Congress story. "For us, the local party unit, perpetually in fight with itself, is the real problem," said Bharatiya Kisan Union leader Rakesh Tikait, in front of squirming Congressmen. The BKU has extended support to the Congress in Ajit Singh's citadel.
The Mawana meeting stood out with the local Congress Dalit leader, Gopal Kali, putting up a super show. So impressed was the Congress heir with this new recruit (he was previously with the BSP) that he asked Kali to join him atop his SUV while interacting with the hoi polloi. Moradabad, too, attracted a fair crowd on day three. The roadshows, whether it was Mohan Nagar on the outskirts of Ghaziabad, or dusty hamlets of Sardana, Khatauli, Fatehganj, Meerganj or Milak, were winners all the way. With family loyalist Capt. Satish Sharma at the wheel, confidant Kanishka Singh, armed with itinerary details and plenty of ideas, and Khurshid in the backseat, Rahul used every opportunity to mingle with the aam aadmi, giving anxious moments to the SPG personnel. While his speeches would invariably begin with a 'namaskar' and a customary thanks, he was distinctly uneasy when asked to brandish swords, a de rigueur in political rallies. Accompanying party leaders often compared Rahul to God, and a future prime minister, but the young MP had a more earthly task at hand-that of re-establishing a rapport with the grassroots. If dynastic politics, to quote Rahul, is about "brand recognition", then the Gandhi brand is truly alive and kicking in Uttar Pradesh. The challenge, then, is to use this to rebuild the party by inner-party democratisation and decentralisation. Rahul's message to the youth, repeated ad nauseam, was: "The youth comprises 60-65 per cent of the state's population. You come and take up responsibilities. My job is to open the doors of the Congress for you." Would that mean a Dalit Raj Bahadur, or an OBC Ram Pujan Patel (two among the eight party zonal heads in UP) getting a level playing field with their more privileged colleagues in the party? Rahul often tells his friends to look "fifty years ahead". But what about the lessons from history? For instance, can the party disown its own former prime minister? Old-timers recall how Rajiv Gandhi spent almost 10 days preparing for his first press conference (held in Washington). So, could the interaction with the press have been handled differently? In all his speeches, Rahul made a solemn pledge to the people of Uttar Pradesh: "Elections or no elections, I'm here to stay." Would that then see an institutional reform, right at the grassroots level in the Congress?
