[He charged unannounced into the middle of
a Congress Party news conference on Friday, and eviscerated as “complete
nonsense” an initiative backed by his own party that would have granted
extralegal protections to elected officials facing criminal charges. In a
political culture that runs on vague consensus and muted signals, it was a
jaw-dropping act of defiance — in particular to India’s 81-year-old prime
minister, Manmohan Singh, then on a high-profile visit to Washington.]
By Ellen Barry
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Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Rahul Gandhi eviscerated as “complete
nonsense” an initiative backed by his own party.
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NEW DELHI — As India’s ruling dynasty
hurtles toward an important and unpredictable election season, many of its
pressing questions have converged into one: Can its heir apparent, Rahul
Gandhi, project the message of political change that this country seems to
crave?
As angry crowds here have materialized
around issues like corruption and policing, Mr. Gandhi, 43, has often seemed to
lag behind the public mood: a handsome face, blessed with a magical name, but
embodying a tarnished, risk-averse status quo.
This was the time Mr. Gandhi made his
move.
He charged unannounced into the middle of
a Congress Party news conference on Friday, and eviscerated as “complete
nonsense” an initiative backed by his own party that would have granted
extralegal protections to elected officials facing criminal charges. In a
political culture that runs on vague consensus and muted signals, it was a
jaw-dropping act of defiance — in particular to India’s 81-year-old prime
minister, Manmohan Singh, then on a high-profile visit to Washington.
But it worked. All Wednesday, television
cameramen posted themselves amid the shrubbery outside closed-door meetings, as
the Congress Party’s old guard held a flurry of talks to decide what to do
about Mr. Gandhi’s maneuver. By nightfall, the government coalition announced
that it would withdraw the ordinance because of public opposition, and Mr.
Gandhi had racked up a crisp political victory.
“Let’s see how Rahul shapes up — he has
taken a big step forward,” said Rasheed Kidwai, the author of an admiring
biography of Sonia Gandhi, Mr. Gandhi’s mother. “He is taking a great risk,
because the Congress Party is allergic to change.”
In fact, the suspense over the fate of the
ordinance on Wednesday seemed artificial. Though it might have protected some
crucial Congress allies, its timing was dismal politically, given rising public
anger over official corruption, and India’s president had expressed hesitation
about signing it.
But the confusion and frustration over Mr.
Gandhi’s behavior seemed genuine enough. Often criticized for remaining aloof
from the political process, he had broken a number of unwritten rules that
serve to protect the party from undue risk. For one thing, it would have been a
simple enough matter for him, as the party’s vice president, to kill the
ordinance quietly at an earlier stage.
He had also departed from one of his
mother’s ground rules: a meticulous display of respect for Mr. Singh, her
loyal, soft-spoken prime minister, who has proved politically weak during a
punishing season for Congress.
Events of the last few years — corruption
scandals and a drumbeat of demand for new laws — have transformed the political
landscape in India, leaving leaders scrambling for new approaches, said Pratap
Bhanu Mehta, president of the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi. Meanwhile, the
opposition Bharatiya Janata Party’s candidate, Narendra Modi,
63, is attracting throngs to rallies slamming Congress, leading one young crowd
in an Obama-esque chant of “Yes, we can!”
“There is a clamor for change of some
kind, and what Rahul seems to be saying, is, ‘Let me catch up with that
clamor,’ ” Mr. Mehta said. “There is a sense in both parties, for good and
for ill, that you can’t do politics as usual. But they’re kind of groping
around to understand what that means.”
He was skeptical, however, that Mr. Gandhi
would benefit much from outmuscling the much older prime minister.
“One thing that Rahul had going for him —
there was a sense that people didn’t know what he stood for, but he gave the
impression that he was a sincere guy,” Mr. Mehta said. “The fact that he could
humiliate the office of the prime minister in the way that he did, and do it
with someone as loyal as Manmohan Singh — it’s not clear that it’s inspired
people to go along with him as a leader.”
Mr. Gandhi has never held a cabinet-level
post, though they have been offered, and at times it has been unclear whether
he wanted to lead India at all. He is absent from the noisy policy debates that
define political life here and, like his mother, avoids contact with the news
media.
But his lineage made him a sensation, and
Congress has offered him as a symbol of generational change. During his early
campaigns, near-stampedes would break out when he toured villages, crossing
carpets of rose petals and shaking so many hands that, by the end of one day on
the road, his right hand was wrapped in bandages.
Mr. Gandhi’s family has led modern India
for most of its 66-year history. If he becomes prime minister, he will follow
in the footsteps of his father, Rajiv; his grandmother, Indira; and his
great-grandfather, Jawaharlal Nehru. Still, he has occasionally donned the
mantle of an internal dissident. This year, shortly after becoming the party’s
vice president, he delivered a speech that sharply criticized the
over-concentration of power in India. It was a paradoxical stance, given that
power is concentrated in the hands of his own family.
“Why is our youth angry?” he asked in the
speech. “Why are they out on the street? They are angry because they are
alienated. They are excluded from the political class.”
Jatin Gandhi, the co-author of “Rahul,” a
2012 biography (and no relation), said Mr. Gandhi and his advisers were likely
“elated” by Wednesday’s events, in part because Mr. Gandhi had managed to grab
the spotlight from Mr. Modi. The dust-up, he said, reflected the “national
mood” in an electorate restless for change and overwhelmingly dominated by
young people, but hardly represented a clash between generations.
“We are a young nation, and we have a very
large representation within the political classes,” he said. “But most of the
young people in politics are actually from dynasties. You don’t question the
wisdom of your mother and father if you inherited your position from them.”
*
FORMER BIHAR CHIEF MINISTER GETS FIVE YEARS IN JAIL
[Mr. Prasad, a popular leader from the cow herder’s caste and a former railways minister of India, has faced political reversals in recent years. His supremacy in Bihar was successfully challenged by Nitish Kumar, another popular leader and the present chief minister of the state. Political analysts say that the changing political fortunes may cause Mr. Kumar and the Congress Party to form an alliance before or after the 2014 national election.]
NEW DELHI— An Indian court
on Thursday sentenced Lalu Prasad, a former chief minister of Bihar, to five
years in jail after he was found guilty of
participating in a scheme in which mid-ranking officials created false receipts
and siphoned off $ 6 million worth of public funds earmarked for animal
husbandry for more than a decade.
Because his jail sentence
exceeds two years, Mr. Prasad will not be able to run for office during the
2014 national elections and the 2015 state elections in Bihar. He had already
lost his seat in the Lok Sabha, or lower house of Parliament, after his
conviction on Monday. Mr. Prasad was also fined 2.5 million rupees, or $
41,000.
In what has become known as
the Fodder Scam, suppliers colluded with mid-level officials of Bihar’s animal
husbandry department to submit inflated bills to the district treasury,
starting in the early 1980s and continuing through the mid-1990s. Mr. Prasad
was the chief minister of Bihar from 1990 to 1997.
More than three dozen
politicians, bureaucrats and suppliers were sentenced Thursday for their roles
in the scheme, with prison terms ranging from four to five years.
Mr. Prasad’s party,
Rashtriya Janata Dal, which now has three members of Parliament, supports the
Congress Party-led governing coalition in New Delhi. An ordinance that would
have changed the law to protect convicted politicians, which was initially
backed by the Congress Party, did not succeed and was withdrawn Wednesday.
Mr. Prasad, a popular
leader from the cow herder’s caste and a former railways minister of India, has
faced political reversals in recent years. His supremacy in Bihar was
successfully challenged by Nitish Kumar, another popular leader and the present
chief minister of the state. Political analysts say that the changing political
fortunes may cause Mr. Kumar and the Congress Party to form an alliance before
or after the 2014 national election.
Mr. Prasad’s political
clout declined after the 2009 national election, when he broke his alliance
with Congress and ran for Parliament with his own party, which won only four
seats. But he maintained good relations with the Congress Party president,
Sonia Gandhi, whom he supported when Mrs. Gandhi’s detractors questioned her
loyalty to India, citing her Italian origins.
During his administration
in Bihar, Mr. Prasad was criticized for ignoring the economic development of
the state and encouraging criminals in politics. However, he was credited for
giving political voice to the poor and stemming the sectarian violence in
Bihar.
