In his first proper one-on-one TV interview that was ten years in the coming, Rahul Gandhi did little to change his image as a politician who appears to be sincere – but not-so-sincere if you scratch the surface. Despite being vice president and heir apparent of the grand old party, the Shehzada continued to pretend to be an outsider to the "system" as if the system wasn't made and formed by his party and his family, or as if his party hasn't been presided over “the system” for the last ten years.
Eyebrows will be raised over Times Now editor Arnab Goswami’s failure to ask Gandhi about the corruption allegations against his brother-in-law Robert Vadra. But for that, Goswami did a very good job of asking all the tough questions. Gandhi came across as doing his best not to address them. He wanted to go into homilies about empowering women and youth when a straight answer was needed. Goswami showed Gandhi the mirror on why he isn't convincing. “Once I have decided to be a journalist, I can't be half a journalist," he said. "You can't be leading your party by half."
For all his claims of empowering the people, deepening democracy and his criticism of the Bharatiya Janata Party for centralising power in the figure of Narendra Modi, however, Gandhi made it a point to tell us about his family early on in the interview. Gandhi said he wanted to change the system not because it doesn't work for people, but because it “destroyed” people he loved: his father Rajiv and grandmother Indira.
Gandhi seems unable to realise that harping on the past, from the Green Revolution to the Right to Information law, will not help. Voters want to know is what his party's government did when it was rewarded with a second term in 2009. Gandhi’s best reply was that the Congress introduced the Lokpal, and other anti-corruption and transparency bills pending in Parliament. But these measures were too little too late, and they were the result of a popular agitation led by Arvind Kejriwal. Gandhi’s bullet points on having built more highways than the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance and having fostered fast economic growth stood in contrast to his poor answers on why action hadn’t been taken against corrupt officials from the Congress.
That wasn’t all. The scion of India's first family should have been far more specific about why BJP prime ministerial candidate Modi is responsible for the 2002 pogrom in Gujarat. It’s clear that he hadn’t done his homework. He could also have ventured to say that he regretted the anti-Sikh pogrom of 1984 even if he wouldn’t apologise for it. While he made a significant concession by admitting that "some Congressmen" were involved in that violence, he undermined that statement by claiming fancifully that they had been punished. The 1984 riots, it’s clear, will not let the Congress assume the moral high-ground of secularism over the BJP, no matter how much the party tries to say 1984 wasn't like 2002.
Gandhi went on and on about changing the system. This has been his motif for the last few weeks. By his own admission, he's been copying the Aam Aadmi Party. But when Gandhi says he wants to "unleash the power of... women", he does not realise he is still following the top-down model of governance. In Gandhi's worldview, he will empower we the people. By contrast, the Aam Aadmi Party says it represents the people who want to empower themselves. (The BJP says it wants to rid the country of a party which is run by a family that decides in its wisdom that it must empower the people.)
Gandhi said he is going to let Congressmen decide the Congress candidates in 15 seats; in the rest, the high command will decide the candidates. Why only 15 seats? If there was sudden democratisation within the party across the country, Gandhi replied, "the system will explode".
Gandhi's claims of empowering the people, democratising the system and bringing transparency would actually have some substance if he was able to walk the talk. At one point in the discussion about whether the Congress would form an alliance with the convicted Lalu Prasad Yadav in Bihar for the May elections, Gandhi blamed the "seniors" in the party for that decision. That’s odd, given that he is the second-most-senior office bearer of the Congress. Similarly on the corruption charges against Himachal Pradesh chief minister Virbhadra Singh and former Maharashtra Congressman Ashok Chavan, Gandhi wasn't able to show that he means what he says. He said the word "youth" several times, and the word “women” even more frequently. This on a day when his party nominated to the Rajya Sabha Motilal Vohra, a politician born in 1928.
Perhaps Gandhi can be given the benefit of doubt. Perhaps he is right that he is a junior who merely appeals to the Prime Minister privately to do something about scams and inflation that are the biggest reason for his party's current decline. That is why he eagerly says he wants to take responsibility should his party lose the election this May. As the Vice President of the party it is but natural it is his responsibility. But why isn’t the party president – his mother, Sonia Gandhi – also responsible? Does Prime Minister Manmohan Singh have any responsibility for losing an election or would that give a non-Gandhi too much importance?
Nobody is even asking why Sonia Gandhi is not giving an interview, because the dynastic transition is obvious. That is why Rahul Gandhi's claim that MPs will choose the PM does not cut ice. The half-leader defends himself from accusations that he’s a Shehzada. He says that he didn't choose to be born in the first family. He could either walk away or change the system. With this statement it is clear that Gandhi does not foresee the possibility of Congressmen ever deciding that he is not the best man to run the party, that he should perhaps walk away.
A full leader would either walk away or stop pretending he is not the dynast. Avoiding eye contact for the most part, repeatedly referring to himself in third person, calling being "an anomaly" when he was being accused of being a conventional dynast, philosophising about the corruption of power – for now, Rahul Gandhi remains a half leader.
The silver lining here is that Rahul Gandhi has at least grown up enough to face Arnab Goswami one-to-one. It's taken time but better late than never. Yet, the "I'm a party man, I report to the PM, I don't speak to the media" excuse won't take him too far. If Gandhi is really here for the long term, as he claims, and really wants us to see him as one of us, he needs to come into our drawing rooms on the terms of TV anchors more often.