Effete rhetoric

Effete rhetoric

FPJ BureauUpdated: Friday, May 31, 2019, 10:21 PM IST
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The public meeting organised by the Congress Party on Sunday at the capital’s Ramlila Maidan was supposed to mark the ‘victory’ of farmers for having forced the NDA Government to stay its hand on changes in the controversial land acquisition law. Despite a modest crowd, Sonia and Rahul Gandhi made it out as if they had done the farmers a great favour, saving them from a government which was out to gobble their lands for pennies and pass it on to their capitalist friends. Such palpably overblown propaganda will have few takers even within the ranks of the Congress Party itself, but nothing better can be expected from an immature and inexperienced leadership. The truth is that for all his exertions and post-sabbatical display of energy, Rahul still lacks the gravitas to head an old and established political organisation. The best of the Congress is already behind us. And if it refuses to break free from the vice-like grip of the dynasty, its revival might remain a pipe-dream for the few faithful who still cling to it for want of anything better.

Even on the land law changes, its claims are largely bogus. For the law, as framed in 2013 with an eye on the coming parliamentary election, is flawed. Even the UPA ministers and several Congress governments were skeptical. The proposed changes by the new government were undertaken after due consultations with the stakeholders, including the State governments. Besides, if the new law was really pro-farmer, why was it that a number of Congress Governments had headlong to acquire land in a great hurry under the old provisions even though there was no urgency to do so? In fact, if any party exploited the old law for acquiring land most recklessly, it was the Congress. The abuse of the old land acquisition law was so rampant that unscrupulous real estate developers and other land sharks had relied on the greed of Congress politicians to make huge profits at the cost of land-owners. The mother-and-son duo would profit immensely if only they cared to take a cursory look at the depredations of the Bhupinder Singh Hooda Government in the neighbouring Haryana till very recently. Robert Vadra was a net gainer from the abuse of the acquisition law. Another was the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation which had helped itself to seven acres of prime land in Gurgaon in the name of a charitable hospital of which there was no sight even after the allocation of the acquired land was made several years ago. The point is simple. The Congress’s pro-farmer credentials have no legs to stand on. It can tom-tom its opposition to the anti-farmer changes sought to  be made by the Modi Government but anyone with a modicum of commonsense would recognise that the Gandhis are merely giving vent to their blind hostility to the new government by opposing anything proposed by the latter. And it is not as if the anti-farmer record is being played without any thought by the Congress bosses. No. Having been reduced to a mere 44 Lok Sabha seats, the party believes that reconnecting with the farmers and other poor people can revive its fortunes. That explains why the Gandhi scion is still stuck on the ‘suit-boot’ phrase months after it had begun to sound jarring. At an election rally in Bihar last week, Rahul repeated himself parrot-like, trying to paint the Modi Government as pro-capitalist and anti-poor.

If the implication was that the Congress was pro-poor, the reality of endemic poverty all around amidst a few urban pockets of wealth would not be lost on anyone. In other words, the Gandhi rhetoric seems to treat the poor as dumb who would swallow plain falsehoods and untruths as gospel truth merely because he, the self-appointed messiah of the poor, says so. Now, Gandhi may lack political wisdom and maturity but the ordinary voter, after a long series of elections, has acquired enough political maturity to sift the bogus from the true leader. The Gandhi scion cannot regain relevance for self and the party unless he learns to play the political game by some ground rules. Playing the opposition role cannot mean blind hostility towards the government. What can be expected from him next? A rally to boast that the anti-poor GST Bill has been successfully stalled by the Congress Party?  Such an unwholesome approach to politics may or may not slow down the economic recovery and reforms, but it is bound to make the Congress Party further irrelevant to the aspirations of the people. Recycling the ‘garibi hatao’ catch-all phrases of the 60s and the 70s is now a mug’s game, wholly unproductive and wasteful.

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