Ravi Shankar EttethFirst Published : 14 May 2011 11:12:00 PM ISTLast Updated : 15 May 2011 01:25:00 AM IST
Is Rahul Gandhi the Abhishek Bachchan of Indian politics? Both big flops, they keep getting big roles. However, Abhishek has worked with many directors, Rahul has only one—Digvijay Singh. Abhishek also has a beautiful wife, while Rahul has Digvijay Singh. Abhishek is versatile; the smouldering cop in Dhoom2, the brooding desi Michael Corleone in Sarkar, the adorable rogue in Bunty aur Babli, the earthy, swaggering tycoon in Guru. But Rahul? A sleepover in a farmers hut when starvation grips rural Maharashtra; a sleepover in a Dalit farmer’s hut to try upstage the BSP; a sleepover in a farmer’s hut to give British Foreign Secretary David Millbrand a taste of the bucolic life; a sleepover in a farmer’s hut as Mayawati cracks down on agitators in Greater Noida.
To cultivate both farmers and fans, the constant gardener of zeitgeist needs to gauge popular appetites right. When Raavan flopped, Abhishek was devastated because he had “put his heart and soul into it.” Maybe the young Gandhi does too—but politics is not about heart and soul alone, it is about the brain as well.
So, what does this young man, whose good looks have failed to translate into charisma do? Like a schoolkid at a frat party, Rahul repeats his favourite party trick—he gives bodyguards the slip (by now renamed Rahul’s ZZZZZZZZ-Class Security), rides pillion on a mobike and lands up in Bhatta-Parsaul village in Greater Noida—where agitating farmers have been taken away by UP cops—for a pajama party in a farmer’s hut! True to script, Mayawati contemptuously arrests him—Varun or Rahul, all Gandhis are the same in UP. “Our slogans come from the villager’s hut,” is Rahul’s warcry, “and not from TV studios.” Meanwhile, TV cameras show the ‘arrested’ Rahul driving away smilingly in the backseat of a Scorpio as the camera pans out. It is a bizarre male version of The Princess Diaries.
The lessons of history are learnt in the solitude of introspection and application. Before M K Gandhi took on the British Empire, he had already experimented with satyagraha in Durban. Gandhi understood the mythos of eternal India; the acceptance of destiny and passivism as a virtue, which he turned into a powerful new weapon called non-violence. Unlike Rahul, the Mahatma was a natural politician who innovated ways to connect with people—he walked for miles to Dandi and Noakhali, he rode second class in trains and went on fast in public to enforce his will. Rahul is presumably borrowing passages from the dog-eared book of Indian politics called Gandhigiri; disappearing into tribal villages in Orissa, hitchhiking on a train, partaking of the spartan hospitality of the Indian poor. Unfortunately, all this comes across as unreal and unidimensional; the reason why the current state election results are a profound rejection of Rahul’s politics.
Both Rahul and the Congress should realise that the Crown Prince simply doesn’t make the cut. The nephew hasn’t even inherited his uncle’s scorching aggression—when the Janata Party arrested Indira Gandhi in 1978, it was Sanjay Gandhi’s public belligerence and organisational skills that made Morarji Desai look like a wimp. Going by the poll wind in Bengal and Tamil Nadu, the Virgin Queen of Uttar Pradesh is likely to sweep young Rahul off his feet the way a duststorm will. Meanwhile watch out for Bol Bachchan, all set to hit theatres this year.
ravi.shankar@newindianexpress.com
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