2014: The Election That Changed India by Rajdeep Sardesai Page B
Authors: Rajdeep Sardesai
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with Rahul. ‘No, I am not an adviser or mentor to Rahul, I am only a
colleague,’ is how he described the equation. He claimedthat Rahul had
‘genuine empathy and goodwill for the poor’ and was looking to provide them with a
dhancha
(support). ‘Long before Aamir Khan discovered Bezwada Wilson and the
safai karmachari
s in
Satyamev Jayate
, Rahul was already in dialogue with them on
what needed to be done for manual scavengers,’ claims Gopal.
I wondered whether the kurta-clad Gopal had drawn
Rahul into the NGO–
jholawallah
circuit, in a sense, and thereby retarded his
political growth. ‘I think that is a spurious argument. Don’t forget, a political party
is also an NGO that is meant to serve the aam aadmi,’ he countered.
Rahul, though, clearly seemed to lead two lives. In
the day he would engage with thinkers and activists, but at night he seemed to draw comfort from
being in the company of family friends from the glamorous Page Three set. Perhaps the
India–Bharat divide was most in evidence in his own personality, a split he was perpetually
trying to reconcile both with himself and with his view of India. Delhi’s gossip bazaars would
endlessly speculate on who his latest girlfriend was and on the mysterious foreign trips he would
often take off on. I found it amusing that every year in June when Rahul celebrated his birthday,
the Congress faithful would line up outside his Tughlaq Lane residence with cakes and garlands. Only
the birthday boy was never there—he was beating the summer heat abroad with undoubtedly much
more fun folk than Congress netas!
Rahul, it appeared, had very few close friends in
politics. There were a few MPs who the media scornfully referred to as the
babalog
MPs (the
word ‘babalog’ was first used for Rajiv Gandhi’s coterie, his Doon
School–Cambridge buddies like Arun Singh, Suman Dubey, Vivek Bharat Ram and Romi Chopra) whom
he would occasionally hang out with. The likes of Jyotiraditya Scindia, Milind Deora and Jitin
Prasada were in the same age group as Rahul Gandhi. Like him, they, too, came from illustrious
political families, spoke fine English, were educated abroad, and had perhaps similar cultural
tastes and hobbies. Jyotiraditya’s father Madhavrao had been a close family friend and a
Cabinet minister in Rajiv Gandhi’s government. Deora plays a rather swinging rock guitar and
Rahul Gandhi hasbeen spotted at Deora’s gigs. His father Murli was a
Rajiv loyalist who had stood by the Gandhi family. Prasada’s father had fought for the
Congress presidency against Sonia Gandhi in 1999 and lost. The shared past perhaps made it easier
for this Congress Generation Next to bond with one another.
One of the few exceptions to this ‘people like
us’ syndrome encircling Rahul was Meenakshi Natarajan, a rare young Congress leader to rise in
the party hierarchy without a famous surname. Natarajan who won the Lok Sabha elections in 2009 from
Mandsaur was proof that Rahul’s experiment to break the Congress’s traditional
structures could work only if it was pushed through with firmness at every level. Sadly, that did
not happen.
Perhaps, Rahul Gandhi needed that comfort factor in
being surrounded in his private life by people with similar values and upbringing. He was happiest
in the company of those with whom he could be himself, with whom he could go gymming, cycling and
biking (he has a fascination, I am told, for Harley-Davidson bikes). After witnessing terrible
tragedy within the family at an early age, he had lived a sheltered life and had spent an extended
period of his early adulthood out of the country. He had every right to his privacy, but forgot a
cardinal principle of contemporary politics—a full-time politician has almost no private life.
Genuine mass leaders will keep their doors open for one and all round the clock. I once sat with
Lalu Prasad in his bathroom while he was shaving, while Mamata Banerjee will SMS you at 2 a.m. with
a news
colleague,’ is how he described the equation. He claimedthat Rahul had
‘genuine empathy and goodwill for the poor’ and was looking to provide them with a
dhancha
(support). ‘Long before Aamir Khan discovered Bezwada Wilson and the
safai karmachari
s in
Satyamev Jayate
, Rahul was already in dialogue with them on
what needed to be done for manual scavengers,’ claims Gopal.
I wondered whether the kurta-clad Gopal had drawn
Rahul into the NGO–
jholawallah
circuit, in a sense, and thereby retarded his
political growth. ‘I think that is a spurious argument. Don’t forget, a political party
is also an NGO that is meant to serve the aam aadmi,’ he countered.
Rahul, though, clearly seemed to lead two lives. In
the day he would engage with thinkers and activists, but at night he seemed to draw comfort from
being in the company of family friends from the glamorous Page Three set. Perhaps the
India–Bharat divide was most in evidence in his own personality, a split he was perpetually
trying to reconcile both with himself and with his view of India. Delhi’s gossip bazaars would
endlessly speculate on who his latest girlfriend was and on the mysterious foreign trips he would
often take off on. I found it amusing that every year in June when Rahul celebrated his birthday,
the Congress faithful would line up outside his Tughlaq Lane residence with cakes and garlands. Only
the birthday boy was never there—he was beating the summer heat abroad with undoubtedly much
more fun folk than Congress netas!
Rahul, it appeared, had very few close friends in
politics. There were a few MPs who the media scornfully referred to as the
babalog
MPs (the
word ‘babalog’ was first used for Rajiv Gandhi’s coterie, his Doon
School–Cambridge buddies like Arun Singh, Suman Dubey, Vivek Bharat Ram and Romi Chopra) whom
he would occasionally hang out with. The likes of Jyotiraditya Scindia, Milind Deora and Jitin
Prasada were in the same age group as Rahul Gandhi. Like him, they, too, came from illustrious
political families, spoke fine English, were educated abroad, and had perhaps similar cultural
tastes and hobbies. Jyotiraditya’s father Madhavrao had been a close family friend and a
Cabinet minister in Rajiv Gandhi’s government. Deora plays a rather swinging rock guitar and
Rahul Gandhi hasbeen spotted at Deora’s gigs. His father Murli was a
Rajiv loyalist who had stood by the Gandhi family. Prasada’s father had fought for the
Congress presidency against Sonia Gandhi in 1999 and lost. The shared past perhaps made it easier
for this Congress Generation Next to bond with one another.
One of the few exceptions to this ‘people like
us’ syndrome encircling Rahul was Meenakshi Natarajan, a rare young Congress leader to rise in
the party hierarchy without a famous surname. Natarajan who won the Lok Sabha elections in 2009 from
Mandsaur was proof that Rahul’s experiment to break the Congress’s traditional
structures could work only if it was pushed through with firmness at every level. Sadly, that did
not happen.
Perhaps, Rahul Gandhi needed that comfort factor in
being surrounded in his private life by people with similar values and upbringing. He was happiest
in the company of those with whom he could be himself, with whom he could go gymming, cycling and
biking (he has a fascination, I am told, for Harley-Davidson bikes). After witnessing terrible
tragedy within the family at an early age, he had lived a sheltered life and had spent an extended
period of his early adulthood out of the country. He had every right to his privacy, but forgot a
cardinal principle of contemporary politics—a full-time politician has almost no private life.
Genuine mass leaders will keep their doors open for one and all round the clock. I once sat with
Lalu Prasad in his bathroom while he was shaving, while Mamata Banerjee will SMS you at 2 a.m. with
a news
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