Under the trademark law, a brand name can be registered to foil the designs of the impostors and charlatans. It is not the business of the registrar to get nosy and question if the brand is indeed popular except in cases where an unregistered brand seeks protection from imposters on the ground that even though unregistered, the brand enjoys tremendous popularity thanks to hoary usage. Ideally a brand should enjoy top-of-the-mind recall to the extent its name comes to be equated with its purpose and process like Xerox for photocopying, Surf for washing powder, Colgate for brushing teeth and so forth. Against this backdrop, the loose usage of the term brand in the context of personages is questionable. After, the Congress party inched closer to the 100 mark in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, self-styled brand gurus and Congress supporters have started gushing about brand Rahul vis-à-vis brand Modi.
That people actually vote for Narendra Modi when they vote for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is axiomatic though critics aver that such a larger-than-life image for its leader is not good for the BJP especially when the time comes for successor. Modi indeed is Xerox and BJP the photocopier even if it is a slightly mixed metaphor. Rahul Gandhi the scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty is nowhere near that status. His father Rajiv Gandhi was not similarly feted during his brief political innings including as the prime minister before his life was snuffed out by the cruel hands of fate. His grandmother Indira Gandhi and great grandfather Pandit Nehru could lay claim to such exalted status but not gushingly as brands.
One swallow doesn’t make a summer. Rahul’s megalomania has been fostered by the effete Congress party that has run out of ideas beyond sycophancy. His loud and shrill speeches inside and outside the Parliament have been hailed as the signal of arrival of the born-again Rahul. But four months after the humbling Lok Sabha verdict for the BJP and Modi and encouraging verdict for Congress and Rahul, there is a reversal of fortunes in the air. The results of the recent Haryana and Jammu & Kashmir elections bear this out. To be sure, Congress’s and by extension Rahul’s performance is impressive in terms of percentage of votes polled but that is always a cold comfort in the electoral sweepstakes in the first past post system where the single largest party despite not getting the majority in terms of votes, walks with the honors and the right to rule for the next five years.
Rahul would do well to heed the advice of his well-wishers. He should not rush to America with alacrity ahead of Prime Minister Modi as he has been doing in the past few years. His advisers think by doing so, he gets to preempt his political bete noire, Modi, little realising that NRIs as of now are not enthusiastic voters in the Indian elections unless they happen to be in India through sheer happenstance. To be sure, Modi makes it a point to address the Indian diaspora whichever country he goes to but that is more to address his audience and fans back home given the news channels’ proclivity to grab any opportunity to fill media time and TRP. In contrast, Rahul addresses the so-called elite inside the closed doors of auditoriums at ungodly hours (from Indian point of view). And when at such meetings he bemoans the lack of democracy in India and minority rights, he is dismissed off as a disgruntled cribber without substance. Campaign in such places as Silicon Valley, California, New Jersey, Dubai and Singapore would make sense when Indian passports holders are allowed to vote from the comfort of their foreign homes.
Rahul would do well to urge the state governments where Congress is in power to walk the talk as well as deliver on economic planks. Karnataka and Himachal Pradesh should for example eschew freewheeling, expensive populism like free bus rides for women and free electricity. Subsidy should be both merit-based and targeted. While food, education and health subsidies are kosher, electricity and bus rides are not. Don’t give fish but teach how to fish is a Scottish proverb of antique provenance that must be heeded by everyone aspiring to govern. Freewheeling subsidies can be ruinous except in countries endowed with natural resources like fossil fuel or salubrious tourism destinations like Spain. One-upmanship in freewheeling subsidies is the surest recipe to financial disaster. States after all are the microcosms of the nation. A well governed state will attract investments with its multiplier effect. That would endear itself to the electorate as well leading to better showing in the Lok Sabha elections.
He has to be seen on the ground and vying for attention alongside regional satraps heading regional parties. In this respect, he is at a distinct and severe disadvantage vis-à-vis his predecessors in the dynasty. Nehru and Indira Gandhi did not have to contend with regional parties. Rahul willy-nilly has to. While regional parties may join hands in principle to oust Modi their common rival, they can bare their fangs in their overweening ambition to come out of the claustrophobic regions. AAP is a case in point. It is reluctant to yield ground to Congress in states where it is strong like Delhi, Punjab and Haryana. Ditto for TMC in West Bengal. If Congress and Rahul are content in contesting those 200-odd seats where there is a direct fight between Congress and the BJP, they may as well stop dreaming about returning to power at the center. A coalition is a compulsion with contradictions and grim prospect of disintegrating at the slightest hint of major disagreement, be it the choice of the coalition’s leader or on pursuing national agenda perceived to be inimical to a regional party.
S Murlidharan is a freelance columnist and writes on economics, business, legal and taxation issues