If anyone wants to learn how to first create media hype about an issue, and then go on a frenzy to justify that, please consider the Indian television media.
Neither Congress Party Vice-President Rahul Gandhi nor Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi have formally announced their candidature for Prime Minister for next year’s general elections. But that did not stop Indian TV channels from first sensing and then predicting that the elections will be a race between the two men, and then comparing their recent public speeches by juxtaposing the two men on the screen. In fact, this is also technically wrong because in India, unlike the US presidential elections, the direct race is between political parties and not the prime ministers. They are elected by parliamentarians of the party or the alliance that gets the majority in Parliament. But if our TV channels want to use the US format for their programming, they somehow will have to create situations that would give them a chance to overkill any coverage, just as the 24x7 news channels do in the USA.
Not only that, while criticizing Rahul for not presenting the nuts and bolts of the government’s economic policies during his speech before the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), the media conveniently forgot that he was speaking not as a government leader but as a party leader. Also, just a day earlier, the PM himself had enumerated the government policies for the same group of business people from the same dais.
In fact, as the Congress VP, Rahul was there to outline his vision for the country and appeal to the business community to help make growth inclusive. His party’s government and the one billion Indians, he said, need help from the business community to rebuild the nation where everyone has a voice and everyone benefits from economic reforms. And he put across this message brilliantly.
He was honest enough to make us realize that India’s problems cannot be fixed overnight by one man, him or Modi or even by Manmohan Singh. He told the country not to wait for that one man “who will come on the Indian political scene, riding on a horse with the Sun in the background, with a billion people waiting to solve all the problems of India”. But if the billion people get together, he said, then they can solve the problems. He said analysts call India an elephant, but he wants to compare India with a beehive, where everyone shares the credit for making honey.
But it seems his message was too heavy for the narrow-minded, often autocratic and power hungry parochial leaders of the Opposition to comprehend. Maybe Modi also could not understand Rahul’s metaphor and said, “Our country is not a beehive, it is our mother.” If our country is our mother, then why didn’t Modi treat the people belonging to the minorities in Gujarat as our brothers and sisters? And sadly, Modi has never expressed any regret for what happened in 2002. The conspicuous absence of even a single expression of regret from him has probably affected his career more than all the things that he has said and done since Godhra. But (not surprisingly) the media never asked him about that either at New Delhi or Kolkata, where he made speeches to counter Rahul’s vision.
It is apparent that Modi has been projecting himself (with lust for power written large on his face) and Rahul has been projecting his honest vision, which the BJP described as naive. And yet three days later, Modi was seen alluding to some parts of the same vision in his own words, but without conviction.
Modi appears to be a tinkerer, who always tries to give micro examples of what he did in Gujarat as a way to fix India’s problems, while Rahul is focused on what is really wrong with this country and wants systemic changes to make the progress permanent. But still, some TV channels keep on harping that Rahul offered no solutions whereas Modi spoke only about solutions. Yes, Modi has led Gujarat for the past 10 years and wants to take credit for developing the State. But he forgets that the State was already highly developed because of the Gujaratis who are considered the best entrepreneurs of India. I would vote for Modi any day if he can prove his capabilities in one of the lesser developed States of the country.
But I am also worried about Rahul Gandhi because he is an idealist like his father. Rajiv Gandhi, after a landslide victory in 1985, lost power later because of the Bofors scandal, in which he was entangled by the trusted people who surrounded him. But by the time he learnt a lesson and developed the skill to discern between a sycophant and an honest adviser, his political career was cut short by an assassin. So if Rahul wants to fulfil his father’s dream and translate into reality his vision of a better India, he will also have to listen only to his honest and loyal advisers. It will be easier for him because, unlike his father, he has already worked at the grass roots level of the party for more than nine years. I’m sure he has already developed the skill to find out who is a crony and who has the guts to face him and tell him he is wrong.
(Author/columnist Ravi M. Khanna has covered South Asia for Voice of America from Washington and New Delhi for more than 24 years)
Feedback: ravimohankhanna@gmail.com
