Author: Swapan Dasgupta
Publication: Free Press Journal
Date: February 10, 2009
The 'cool' Gandhi and his equally cool band
of young Congress MPs who flaunt busy- looking mobile phones and network on
Facebook are subtly painted as the upholders of the Obama tradition in India.
The young inheritors, ranging from Rahul baba to Omar Abdullah, are made out
to be India's literal answer to Obama's "smart power". T hese are
disconcerting times for the minusculity of selfprofessed Right wing "reac
tionaries"-those who idolise Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, think
that George W Bush will be vindicated by history and don't believe that Narendra
Modi's rightful place is in the Gulag. The hype surrounding President Barack
Obama's election and inauguration has cast a global shadow over sobriety and
realism. A world, devastated by what Vladimir Putin referred to in Davos last
week as "the perfect storm", seems to have found solace in an energetic
euphoria, last witnessed during the youthful turbulence of 1968 or, more appropriately,
the Beatles-mania of the mid1960s.
A few examples will illustrate the magnitude
of the epidemic. Commenting in The Spectator on the BBC coverage of Obama's
coronation, columnist Lidle Britain wrote, with only a sprinkle of exaggeration:
"It's a sort of cross between Princess Diana's funeral and a Live Aid
concert, except happier and the Black people aren't covered in flies."
At a TV programme for India's Republic Day, the panellists (which included
me, the token Right winger) were incessantly harangued by the youthful audience
drawn from management institutes around Delhi with the question: Why can't
we have an Obama? Ironically, I was asked the same question by some volunteers
at L K Advani's sleek campaign office in Delhi-a question that left me convinced
that this was the end of civilisation as I know it.
Nor has this adoration of the new messiah
left the literati unmoved. At the Jaipur Literary Festival last month, there
were hard-nosed publishers who confessed to shedding tears over Obama's inaugural
speech. Since, by Obama's exacting standards, the speech wasn't all that memorable,
it may be safely assumed that it was the inspirational idea of Obama, rather
than what he actually said, that was the clincher. Even the venerable historian
Simon Schama, who I expected to be economic with his emotions, seemed to imply
that the election of the 44th US President was an act of collective penance
by the Western world. Following Mao Zedong's judgement on the French Revolution,
it may be far too early to assess the impact of Obama on the collective mentality
of the West-inspired world. It is possible that Obama will indeed be the symbol
of an American renewal which will show up the late Samuel Huntington as a
false prophet. On the other hand, it is equally possible that the Obamasceptics
in India's strategic community will have the last laugh, and cynical realpolitik
will re-assert itself. It all depends on when the real Obama finally stands
up and discards his campaign baggage.
The global discovery of the real Obama is
unlikely to happen before millions of voters queue up in the summer to elect
India's next government. As such, whether we like it or not, America's experiment
with political change is certain to influence the strategic thinking of the
political parties. The Opposition is likely to invoke "change" as
a mantra and the Congress (the party has proclaimed that there will be no
national United Progressive Alliance for the election) is likely to counter
it by latching on to the youthful credentials of its undeclared heir-apparent.
To arrest any possible anti-incumbency groundswell, a generational shift will
be projected as a sort of changewithout-change.
The groundwork for a C-grade remake of the
American presidential campaign is already underway. The attack on a pub in
Mangalore by ideologically driven hooligans has been painted as an assault
on the visible symbols of bling modernity: the glitzy malls, the free mingling
of the sexes, cheap booze and call centres. The inalienable right of young
people, particularly women, to drink freely has been contrasted to the puritanical
assumptions of those who profess Bharatiya sanskriti and parampara.
Carefully chosen photographs of Rahul Gandhi,
dressed in smart casuals, holding up the bar (but sans the mandatory glass)
have been used to send out a politicolifestyle statement. The "cool"
Gandhi and his equally cool band of young Congress MPs who flaunt busy-looking
mobile phones and are networked on Facebook are subtly painted as the upholders
of the Obama tradition in India. The young inheritors, ranging from Rahul
baba to Omar Abdullah are made out to be India's literal answer to Obama's
"smart power". They are also complemented by a new (but as yet invisible)
breed of Congress activists, handpicked by either Rahul or his associates,
young, educated and committed to good works. If the Indian election is going
to be determined on the strength of lifestyles and correspond to the perceived
yearnings of that amorphous mass that goes by the name of Young India, the
non-Congress parties may as well be reconciled to sitting in Opposition for
the next five years. If the same spiel and imagery used by advertising agencies
to sell mobile phones, clothes and pizzas to the under-40s can shape the political
preferences of the target group, the younger Gandhi should be shoo-in for
the top job. Obamamania, the baba-log strategists calculate, will reproduce
itself in India as an endorsement of Rahul.
Since it is hazardous to predict the preferences
of a volatile electorate, it is inadvisable to sneer at the Congress' Track-2
strategy. There is a visible exasperation with the political class that may
yet translate into success for a party that has promised to dole out 30 per
cent of tickets to the young. It is also possible that a respect for Advani's
lifetime achievement will not be accompanied by box office success. Yet, a
caveat may not be out of place.
The success of Obama didn't owe exclusively
to his relative youth and his outsider status. His appeal wasn't vacuously
charismatic; it was held up by an ethos that was completely at variance with
what the Bush order represented. Obama also articulated the compassionate,
the multi-culturalist and the angry impulses of a section that was alienated
from the power structure. It would be worth considering the possibility of
Obama being such a monumental hit if he had been burdened by eight years of
an incumbent Democratic president. This is not to deny the innovative campaign
of a highly intelligent and focussed individual but to remind simple deductionists
that Obama had both a message and a context.
It may be needlessly harsh but I am yet to
come across a Rahul intervention that goes beyond the anecdotal and the pedestrian.
At a time when the UPA Government is flooding the TV channels with images
of happy, smiling villagers relishing the brave new world of Bharat Nirman,
how is Rahul connecting with those who are confronted by the ugly realities
of high interest rates, job losses, shrinking opportunities and the steady
erosion of a dream, centred on a double-digit GDP growth? Dining with a poor
Dalit woman and taking David Miliband on a poverty tour of Amethi shows the
family's noblesse oblige; it has nothing to do with competence. How has Rahul
demonstrated that his youthful impulses equip him to confront the monumental
challenges to India's national security? On the two issues that challenge
India the most-the economy and security-the designated heir's thinking is
virginal.
Obama's final election in November was preceded
by a year of intensive campaigning and public scrutiny. The covert Rahulfor-PM
campaign seems to have been transfixed by the outward image of Obama. To American
voters, Obama was all about an idyllic change; to the wannabe Obamas in Delhi,
it is all about his facility with the Blackberry.
