Nehru-Gandhi & Sons Pvt. Ltd aka Congress (I)
Well, its about dynastic politics of Congress and you may argue that, "Whats the matter, almost every party in India has its share of sons and daughters, so why single out Congress alone?". But, wait a minute, it might be true to a large extent, but still there are differences in Congress.
Take any Indian party, which has more than one member from the same genetic backgroud - NC & PDP in J&K, Shiv Sena in Maha, JD(S) in Karnataka, DMK, PMK in TN, BJD in Orissa, the list probably could never be exhaustive. In all these cases, you will find that, the individuals will always be referred by their party past or by their role in the government, as the case may be. For example, in TN, Stalin refers to Karunanidhi as either chief minister or party president or leader and NOT as my father. Look at the NC, Omar Abdullah is not the son of Farooq in the party forum, but a leader of the party and ditto with the Mufti family of PDP. The same is the case of Shiv sena or JD(S) or any other political family.
But, the mother of all dynasties - the Nehru-Gandhi lineage is different from that all. During and after the Rae Bareli by-election, we were given minute details of brother Rahul working really hard for ensuring huge victory margin for mother Sonia. Not to forget that daughter Priyanka worked as the election agent for her mother assisting the brother. If you don't remember these, just look at these reports in IBNLive, ET, IPS and its all about the tale of a family and not of the party. Not even a single time, I have heard Sonia being referred as party president either by Rahul or Priyanka. For the family, the contributions of other leaders in Rae Bareli (or to the party) or Rahul's own contribution outside Rae Bareli are insignificant.
This is the classic case of manufacturing a leader out of Rahul, even though there might be better qualified or deserving youngsters in the party. Consider this, Rahul never stepped out of Rae Bareli - a family fiefdom, when elections were also on in 5 states having about 116 parliamentary seats and about 800+ assembly seats between them. Rahul was never sent to campaign in any of these states, despite the fact that party was in trouble in Kerala, TN and WB - the three crucial states. He was not utilised for campaigning for other Congress candidates or to boost the morale of the cadre in these states, even when the mother was busy touring these states.
Well, lets now consider just the case of Rae Bareli and see how big the victory is. The 2004 elections saw about 48% voter turnout and this time, it was pegged at 43.34%, down by about 5% and all this after the hardwork of the son, whose sole aim was to encourage the women folk to come out and vote in large numbers. With close to 57% of the people staying away the polling booth either due to Sonia's assured victory or due to disenchantment, why such a fuss about the huge victory margin? And, if you don't know something, here is a trivia - none of the five assembly segments coming under Rae Bareli is represented by Congress, so much so for the influence of the family and party.
Comparing Rahul with other sons is becoming inevitable for me. Most of the sons or daughters of the political heavyweights, at one time or the other, have proved their abilities or leadership qualities (probably the only negative aspect would be, they are being projected overlooking the other able and deserving leaders in respective parties). They had invariably spent years in party and worked at various leves, interacted with grassroot workers and public, have lead agitations and other political movements and participated in assemply/parliamentary debates.
This is true with most of the heirs in Congress too, whether it is Sachin Pilot or Milind Deora, but Rahul is not only different but gifted too (so is Anbumani Ramdoss of PMK, who suddenly emerged from nowhere to become a cabinet minister) in that despite not being participated in parlimentary proceedings except for twice (in two years) his voice was never heard on any of the burning national issues. And whenever, he did spoke, it was like neither here nor there, displaying either utter lack of knowledge on the issue or reluctance to speak up his thoughts, if at all he had anything. To prove this, I needn't go much farther than the reservation issue: when asked for his opinion on the raging reservation debate, gem of words emerged from his mouth, "both sides have valid points". Amazing clarity, isn't it?
If you think about that, the logic is simple. Use Rahul in Rae Bareli and then project the assured victory to the charisma and hard-work!?!? of Rahul, the dedicated son or brother, as you want to look at it. This is what I call as manufacturing a leader out of a person having a specific six-letter surname and born in the family.
If the EC doesn't have any objections, the sycophants can get the name of the party changed to the one I've suggested in the title above, which will suit it more.
Take any Indian party, which has more than one member from the same genetic backgroud - NC & PDP in J&K, Shiv Sena in Maha, JD(S) in Karnataka, DMK, PMK in TN, BJD in Orissa, the list probably could never be exhaustive. In all these cases, you will find that, the individuals will always be referred by their party past or by their role in the government, as the case may be. For example, in TN, Stalin refers to Karunanidhi as either chief minister or party president or leader and NOT as my father. Look at the NC, Omar Abdullah is not the son of Farooq in the party forum, but a leader of the party and ditto with the Mufti family of PDP. The same is the case of Shiv sena or JD(S) or any other political family.
But, the mother of all dynasties - the Nehru-Gandhi lineage is different from that all. During and after the Rae Bareli by-election, we were given minute details of brother Rahul working really hard for ensuring huge victory margin for mother Sonia. Not to forget that daughter Priyanka worked as the election agent for her mother assisting the brother. If you don't remember these, just look at these reports in IBNLive, ET, IPS and its all about the tale of a family and not of the party. Not even a single time, I have heard Sonia being referred as party president either by Rahul or Priyanka. For the family, the contributions of other leaders in Rae Bareli (or to the party) or Rahul's own contribution outside Rae Bareli are insignificant.
This is the classic case of manufacturing a leader out of Rahul, even though there might be better qualified or deserving youngsters in the party. Consider this, Rahul never stepped out of Rae Bareli - a family fiefdom, when elections were also on in 5 states having about 116 parliamentary seats and about 800+ assembly seats between them. Rahul was never sent to campaign in any of these states, despite the fact that party was in trouble in Kerala, TN and WB - the three crucial states. He was not utilised for campaigning for other Congress candidates or to boost the morale of the cadre in these states, even when the mother was busy touring these states.
Well, lets now consider just the case of Rae Bareli and see how big the victory is. The 2004 elections saw about 48% voter turnout and this time, it was pegged at 43.34%, down by about 5% and all this after the hardwork of the son, whose sole aim was to encourage the women folk to come out and vote in large numbers. With close to 57% of the people staying away the polling booth either due to Sonia's assured victory or due to disenchantment, why such a fuss about the huge victory margin? And, if you don't know something, here is a trivia - none of the five assembly segments coming under Rae Bareli is represented by Congress, so much so for the influence of the family and party.
Comparing Rahul with other sons is becoming inevitable for me. Most of the sons or daughters of the political heavyweights, at one time or the other, have proved their abilities or leadership qualities (probably the only negative aspect would be, they are being projected overlooking the other able and deserving leaders in respective parties). They had invariably spent years in party and worked at various leves, interacted with grassroot workers and public, have lead agitations and other political movements and participated in assemply/parliamentary debates.
This is true with most of the heirs in Congress too, whether it is Sachin Pilot or Milind Deora, but Rahul is not only different but gifted too (so is Anbumani Ramdoss of PMK, who suddenly emerged from nowhere to become a cabinet minister) in that despite not being participated in parlimentary proceedings except for twice (in two years) his voice was never heard on any of the burning national issues. And whenever, he did spoke, it was like neither here nor there, displaying either utter lack of knowledge on the issue or reluctance to speak up his thoughts, if at all he had anything. To prove this, I needn't go much farther than the reservation issue: when asked for his opinion on the raging reservation debate, gem of words emerged from his mouth, "both sides have valid points". Amazing clarity, isn't it?
If you think about that, the logic is simple. Use Rahul in Rae Bareli and then project the assured victory to the charisma and hard-work!?!? of Rahul, the dedicated son or brother, as you want to look at it. This is what I call as manufacturing a leader out of a person having a specific six-letter surname and born in the family.
If the EC doesn't have any objections, the sycophants can get the name of the party changed to the one I've suggested in the title above, which will suit it more.
posted by Baskaran Sankaran @ 00:14
4 comments
4 Comments:
Very interesting blog and you language is great. But, you may want to focus and not deviate while writing a post.
Dei Baskaran,
I know that you oppose the congress for its dynastic culture. This is good one da and to me it looks unprofessional, when they refer each other as 'my mother', 'my brother' etc.
But, it seems that ever your favourite BJP is also in a very bad state, with absolutely no leadership or vision or coherent functioning.
Why no blog about reservation?
Why specifically pick Congress for dynastic politics? Every party follows it and it is just more pronounced in the Congress because of its longevity in national politics.
If Rahul is a manufactured leader, what about Stalin, Uddhav, Akhilesh Yadav, GK Vasan, Rahul Mahajan(in the process, i must admit) and the like? They too have never illustrated any profound understanding of the issues plaguing the country whatsoever. Their rise is also purely due to their father being a supremo in the party.
A token naming of someone as a "president" instead of "mother" does not cure any ill. I think you are being partial.
Ganesh,
I've all mentioned about other sons in the post. But, the difference in Congress is that it lacks professionalism in these matters. There will be a difference in the way people address each other.
For example, think of a student who is actually the son of a professor in the same institution. How will it look if they address each other as father and son inside the class? What message do other students and faculty get in such case?
In professional world, what matters is your merits/work and not personal relations. And my point is that, this is less likely in other parties.
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