By Justice Markandey Katju–
(Justice Markandey Katju is a former Judge, Supreme Court of India, and former Chairman, Press Council of India. The views expressed are his own)
Rahul Gandhi is on an extended visit to the United States, where he has been speaking to audiences, mostly of NRIs, but also others.
I have heard him on several YouTube videos. You can view them here, here, here, here, and here.
The sum and substance of his speeches can be summarized into one phrase: “Nafrat ke bazaar mein mohabbat ki dukaan.” (An outlet for love in a marketplace of hate)
Rahul also often criticised and ridiculed Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP. Again, you can view the videos here here and here.
I am no supporter of Modi and the BJP, and have often criticised them for polarizing Indian society and increasing communalism for vote
banks.
I have repeatedly said that unity and communal amity is absolutely essential if India is to progress. Therefore, I agree that instead of ‘nafrat ka bazaar’, we should have ‘mohabbat ki dukaan’.
Having said, what else do we find in Rahul Gandhi’s speeches? I am afraid I find nothing but platitudes and homilies.
India’s basic problems are our massive poverty, record and rising unemployment, appalling level of child malnutrition (every second child in India is malnourished, according to Global Hunger Index, and we have slipped from position number 101 to 107 out of the 121 countries surveyed, behind neighbouring countries). Proper healthcare and good education are almost absent for our masses.
Does Rahul Gandhi offer solutions to these mammoth problems? I found nothing in his speeches to show that he did.
The 2024 parliamentary elections are approaching. Let us assume the Congress with some allies win and form a coalition government. What
will happen then? There will no doubt be a scramble for lucrative portfolios, but will it create even a dent in the massive problems mentioned above? Not at all.
I have repeatedly said that the test of every political system and every political activity is one, and only one : does it raise the standard of living of the people? Does it give them better lives? From that viewpoint, I am afraid Rahul Gandhi, who is being hailed by some as a kind of Moses who will lead the Indian people out of their captivity, has really nothing to offer. There is really nothing in his head. Even his talk of spreading ‘mohabbat’ sounds hollow when we recollect that in the 2017 Gujarat elections he visited temple after temple, his followers called him a ‘janeudhari shivabhakt‘ (Lord Shiva devotee who wears the sacred thread) with no refutation from him. He went to Mansarovar, all to placate Hindu votes.
Indians love to follow a Pied Piper of Hamelin. When Indira Gandhi gave the slogan ‘Garibi hatao’, they voted for her en masse. When Anna Hazare called for end of corruption they flocked to him. When Modi proclaimed ‘Vikas’ they did the same. And now when Rahul Gandhi
talks of mohabbat they cheer.
When will Indians realise that the solutions to their problems lie outside the system of parliamentary democracy, for parliamentary democracy in India largely runs on the basis of caste and communal vote banks (the Karnataka election results was only due to a shift in the caste combination, not a sudden love for secularism as some people imagine)? Casteism and communalism are feudal forces that have to be destroyed if India is to progress, but parliamentary democracy further entrenches them.
So we will have to create an alternative system under which we get modern minded leaders determined to rapidly industrialise and modernize the country (like Mustafa Kemal in Turkey in the 1920s, or the Japanese leaders who came to power after the Meiji Restoration of
1868), for that alone can abolish poverty, unemployment, malnutrition, and the other curses which plague our nation.
To achieve that goal we have to use our creativity and find out the real solutions. Thinking of short cuts like making Rahul Gandhi our leader is an inane idea which will only result in jumping from the frying pan into the fire.
