Lost in Waiting

 

 

It’s not like we’re frantically looking for a Jeremy Bentham, the English jurist and philosopher from the 1700s who studied Latin at the age of 3. Or even for a Tiger Woods, who won his first Golf tournament at age 8 playing in a higher age-group because there were no tournaments for eight-year-olds. All we’re looking for is some evidence that the DNA and the skills, imparted purely by the chance occurrence of being born in a particular family, are coming to fruit. Like, for instance, what, probably, would have separated a three-year-old Rahul Gandhi from, say, your precocious three-year-old nephew? Going by available evidence, not much. Not being prodigies, both children would have given joy and exasperation to their parents in equal measure. But today, the only thing in common would be age. Rahul Gandhi has grown into the biggest Indian political story under the age of 40. He’s become the man of the future for a Congress party that is raking in the unexpected profit of ruling from New Delhi. Rahul Gandhi is, says a senior Congressman in the party’s tradition of anonymity, “The man who will shut out any Opposition to the Congress and will rule the country for 20 years.” Hmmm.

That, of course, is a best-case scenario, which rarely happens in Indian politics. But there are many others like Rahul Gandhi, with varying degrees of political pedigree who’ve been born into powerful families and who are loosely described as Gen Next politicians. Jyotiraditya Scindia (son of Madhavrao Scindia), Sachin Pilot (son of Rajesh Pilot), Milind Deora (son of Murli Deora), Jitin Prasada (son of Jitendra Prasada), Naveen Jindal (son of O.P. Jindal), Ajay Singh (son of Arjun Singh) Nakul Nath (son of Kamal Nath), Priya Dutt (daughter of Sunil Dutt), Supriya Sule (daughter of Sharad Pawar), Omar Abdullah (son of Farooq Abdullah), Mehbooba Mufti (daughter of Mufti Mohammed Sayeed), Amit Jogi (son of Ajit Jogi), Manvendra Singh (son of Jaswant Singh), Dushyant Singh (son of Vasundhara Raje Scndia). This is a shortlist, there are many more.

Life has laid out for each one of them a path that is considerably easier than for most struggling Indians. All of them have made the choice of taking up politics as a career. The very least you’d expect them to do is try and be good at what they set out to be. Let’s look at this in the current perspective. Elections are due in four States, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand and Manipur. As always, Uttar Pradesh will be a humdinger, taking up reams of newsprint and long audience hours on television. Punjab is not a pushover. Manipur is still a very complex State and Uttarakhand is on its way to being a chaotic State. The Gen Next politicians pride themselves on being ‘different’. They say they are well-read, cultured, clean and sober people who have the good of the country at the top of their minds. It shouldn’t be too difficult then to deduce that Manipur is a very sensitive and important State in the Indian context. Imagine the electrifying effect it could have if, say, Rahul Gandhi were to make a splash in Imphal, talk to Irom Sharmila (the woman who’s been on fast for six years seeking a repeal of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act), and generally galvanise the State into a rush of positivity that could make it one with the rest of the country. Imagine what it could do if Rahul Gandhi were to talk to the militant groups and reach a common point that treachery is a very low human act and that guns were never meant to solve anything.

Imagine.

It would be the making of a hero. But, all we get is a hesitant Rahul Gandhi who for some as yet unfathomable reason thinks the time is not right. Some such thought appears to be influencing the otherwise brilliant Jyotiraditya Scindia as well. People who know him say he is even better than his father. Some fear that this brilliance may be his undoing as no Congressman in 10 Janpath (the headquarters of the Nehru-Gandhi family) would want Jyotiraditya to outshine Rahul. That is neither here nor there. The last time the two came head-to-head was in the Congress Plenary at Hyderabad a year ago. Rahul swept them off their feet as thousands clamoured for him to take a bigger and more formal role in the Congress. Jyotiraditya stunned them into silence with a brilliant speech on the economy. But neither of them has done much since.

“Well, I can’t really say why. Maybe it depends on the strategy of the concerned parties. And maybe we would see them campaigning and running for seats. The process has yet not started (for the four States). Not many parties have announced rallies or started active campaigning. And I think they might be running for elections. I feel we have a very talented lot of young MPs. I have heard them in Parliament and they are very good speakers – very clear on the issues they are talking about,” Mehbooba Mufti, President of Jammu and Kashmir’s People’s Democratic Party (PDP), told TSI. That’s the thing. They are ‘very good’, and yet, nowhere in public consciousness. Worldwide, decision-making is getting younger by the day. Barack Obama, the charismatic Democrat Senator from the US, is 46 and not wasting time. He has just begun his campaign as a potential Presidential nominee for 2008. He talks ethics and Martin Luther King, is a Black, and is supremely confident, busy and trying to shape public thought and debate. There’s nothing reluctant about Obama.

Back home, there was nothing bashful about Indira Gandhi (longtime Prime Minister of India) and Atal Behari Vajpayee (former BJP Prime Minister) either. Indira started her career with her father Jawaharlal Nehru, an iconic Prime Minister, and acted out from a young age all she was learning with Nehru. Vajpayee was spotted by a perceptive Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh leadership and pitted against Nehru. One of Vajpayee’s first brilliant speeches was as a young man in Parliament when he criticised Nehru.

“Those days were different. Today, everybody has ambitions and people are not fooled easily by dynastic pretensions. So the young generation of MPs will have to work,” says D. Raja, National Secretary, Communist Party of India. True.

This is not to suggest that a sluggish start means trouble all the way. India has often seen champagne careers, which tend to get better with time like those of Morarji Desai or even Vajpayee. There’s plenty of time, but every passing day is dimming expectations. Uttar Pradesh is Rahul Gandhi’s self-announced battlefield. This is where he wants the Congress to return to its glory days. A proud young man who believes he will carry the destiny of the nation ought to be salivating at the prospect of a challenge in Uttar Pradesh. What a story it will be, of getting shaped by the grime of India, in her crucible, as she exerts her right to test you.

But that’s not happening. Pablo Picasso was believed to have fathered a child at the age of 90, so there’s always time. But then, Picasso began painting at 8 (Picador). The canvas waits for our Gen Next. The earlier they start the strokes, the better. YOUNG GUNS WHO DARED



MICHAEL COLLINS

Commander-in-Chief, Irish Free State Army

1890-1922

Only 32 when he died, Collins was a founding father of the Irish freedom movement. Was recruited in his 20s and began to lead when 27. He was assassinated after he proclaimed, “They wouldn’t shoot me in my own country.”

JOHN F. KENNEDY

President, USA

1917-1963

Also of Irish descent, was the youngest US President (44) and the youngest to die (46). Delivered the most memorable line by an American President (ask not what the country can do for you…). Was also assassinated.

VLADIMIR LENIN

First head of USSR

1870-1924

Was already being expelled for his radical politics even as he was getting into his 20s. Lenin is a pseudonym he adopted in 1901 after his exile in Siberia ended. Changed world history by the time he was in his early 40s.

BHAGAT SINGH

Freedom fighter, India

1907-1931

India’s most romantic revolutionary. One of the first Marxists in India, he began taking part in Gandhi’s movement when he was barely 13. Hanged at an age when most begin to start their political career. Still revered.