Rahul Gandhi and India’s Media
A significant part of mainstream media and social media is dominated by supporters of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. You will see Modi being defended and praised on 9 pm TV, on WhatsApp messages, and in the comments sections of websites.
Before you say, “What do you mean media, all of India supports him”, here are some important facts: All Indians don’t vote. Out of those who do, about 67 per cent voted the last time, and 37 per cent of (of, and not out of) this 67 per cent – which is 24.79 per cent of all eligible to vote – voted for Modi. This is about 2,25,837,000 (more than 22 crore) people. Not one billion like TV news channels would have you believe. And 33 per cent of all eligible didn’t vote. The rest voted, or about 3,84,533,000 (over 38 crore) people voted for other parties. India has a ‘First Past the Post’ system, which means this 24.79 per cent of all eligible voters and 37 per cent of all votes gives Modi a majority in Parliament. (These are approximate numbers)
I digress. So the majority on mainstream and social media are in Team Modi. Those who don’t fall into this category can often be heard and read criticising the Modi government. However, how often do you see ‘influencers’ writing about the good work being done by the Congress governments. Especially if you’re someone who is fairly willing to concede that they must be doing some good work. Two state governments which come to mind are Rajasthan and Chattisgarh. How many columns have you seen devoted to analysis/praise of these? Leave aside administration and let’s turn to politics. How many opinion columns or TV debates have you seen praising the political fight that the Congress is putting up in Assam? Multiple chief ministers are there going door to door. In Uttar Pradesh, Priyanka Gandhi has been walking for miles every day and interacting with the public. Even neutral observers will tell you the Congress is holding sabhas in districts it has not had an office in for decades. And yet – silence on all this.
If I want to give the benefit of doubt, I think a part of this silence comes from the fact that most of us grew up at a time when the Congress was in power. Some among those devoted to intellectual pursuits like journalism, were anxious to not be seen as sycophants/durbaris. To criticise the Congress was to declare one’s independence. I think that baggage continues to be carried, and some are struggling to shake it off, even though the Congress is in the Opposition. By contrast, think how many did you find praising Nitish Kumar’s alleged sushasan or Modi’s ‘Gujarat Model’ even when the Congress was in power at the Centre?
On Wednesday, the Congress’ social media team was outraged after a news anchor criticised a part of Rahul Gandhi’s interaction with multiple professors and students at Brown University, one of the top universities in the world. She said that his answers were vacuous, and that he was ‘emptily lecturing’ Professor Leela Gandhi, the great grand-daughter of Mahatma Gandhi. What came under special criticism was his speaking about ‘shoonyata’ in a certain context. To this she strangely added that the Congress will lose all elections and Rahul Gandhi isn’t a good politician. I decided to watch the interaction for myself.
To my surprise, I found the exchange between him and Professor Leela Gandhi to be the most gripping out of the entire conversation. Especially because it gives you more insight into his personal and political beliefs. I’m paraphrasing, but he said that he believes that political parties must be a vessel for dialogue between the millions of ideas of India. As opposed to the party being about one idea and then going around imposing it inside and outside. He said that the ‘self’ of the politician and the political party must be subdued, if not extinguished, and that political parties and politicians must become the many million voices of the people of India – culture, food, race, religion, art, caste, gender – all of them, and not only one of them. It’s a fascinating take. We live in the age of the political ‘saviour’. Trump, Erdogan, Modi, Imran Khan, Kejriwal – people who claim they alone hold the key to all of the public’s problems. In this age, here is a person saying that the political, social and moral answer is not for someone to successfully project themselves as the bigger saviour or even the next saviour, but to build a politics which does not revolve around a personality or a party which represents a single idea.
You can, of course, argue that realpolitik has no space for such things. My response would be that realpolitik can only tell you what is not and what can be. Realpolitik could not have predicted the rise of Bapu, Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King. I keep reminding friends that there hasn’t been a single decade after 1965 in India which has not brought with it a shock political verdict. Indira Gandhi’s ascent to the Congress leadership, her losing the election after the Emergency, her winning an election again, the BJP’s ascent, Vajpayee’s loss-all and other such shock verdicts. Realpolitik and all that it claims expertise on, is only a part of the churning in any country.
In the interaction, Professor Leela Gandhi is visibly pleased with the dialogue she has with Rahul Gandhi. The professor moderating the discussion, Ashutosh Varshney, also says that Gandhi did not think she was being emptily lectured. For some reason, however, the news anchor in question persisted with her stance.
In an election season, she is the fourth top media personality to offer long opinions saying that everything the Congress and Rahul Gandhi are doing is wrong. This in a span of a few weeks. Equally fascinating, isn’t it?