Is Rahul ready to take on socialist mantle?

Prominent historian Ramachandra Guha, in an article a few years ago, wrote that the nicest thing one can say about Rahul Gandhi is that he is a well-intentioned dilettante. He has shown no signs of administrative ability, no desire to take on large, important responsibilities, and no energy or commitment to solving – as distinct from merely identifying – serious social problems.
One may not agree entirely with Ramachandra Guha’s assessment of Rahul Gandhi, but the way he is going about attacking the Bharatiya Janata Party and Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the surface shows that he is among those who oppose Hindutva and linguistic fanaticism. Calling someone a ‘pickpocket’ and accusing the BJP government of promoting cultural slavery cannot impress upon people the grave threat that public sector or democratic institutions are facing.
It is now obvious that the five-point formula in Karnataka and the six-point formula in Telangana did not contribute entirely to the Congress capturing power in the two States. The anti-incumbency factory in rural areas dashed the ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi’s hat-trick dream in Telangana. It does not mean that the high-voltage campaign launched by Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi did not help the Congress come back to power.
Many political analysts opposed to Hindutva and linguistic fanaticism hail Rahul Gandhi for his courage to stand up against the mighty force portrayed by the BJP. But what is lacking in his attack against the ruling establishment is the absence of specific assurance to people that the Congress party, if elected to power, would reverse some of the policies, in the spirit of what his grandmother Indira Gandhi or his grandfather Feroze Gandhi did. Feroze Gandhi came to be known as the giant killer by exposing the fraud in Bharat Insurance company-owned Dalamia Jain Group. The exposure led to Parliament passing the Life Insurance Corporation Act on June 19, 1956, and the creation of the Life Insurance Corporation of India. Feroze Gandhi’s one hour and fifteen minutes’ speech on the floor of Lok Sabha on December 6, 1955, was hailed as a strong warning to the then government led by Jawaharlal Nehru against promoting the private sector in critical areas.
When it comes to Indira Gandhi, she had waged a fierce battle against the Congress syndicate comprising K Kamaraj, S Nijalingappa, SK Patil, Atulya Ghosh and Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy. She won against the syndicate not by attacking reactionary forces verbally but by endearing herself to the people. Her fight against the syndicate began with the Presidential elections in 1969 when freedom fighter VV Giri contested against Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy who was promoted by the Congress syndicate. Indira Gandhi opposed the candidature of Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy though he was fielded by the Congress party and supported VV Giri who trounced the former. She was accused of moving the goalposts, but she did not care. She went on to nationalize banks at midnight on July 19, 1969. The poor cheered her and even anointed her portrait with milk. The farmers, for the first time after Independence, were able to step into the banks and demand crop loans. She single-handedly campaigned and won 352 seats in the Lok Sabha elections in 1972. Even after her defeat post Emergency, she came back in the 1980 Lok Sabha elections.
But the Congress campaign now is devoid of strong rhetoric to sway the people into accepting the Congress and rejecting the BJP. The Congress party, which came to power after a long gap in 2004, appointed economist Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister who, during the first term of the United Progress Alliance (UPA) government, rolled out several welfare programmes like the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme and waiver of farm loans, and others. But, when it came to the second term, the government tilted towards the corporate sector and failed to keep ears to the ground. Several progressive economists criticised the Manmohan Singh government, during the second term of the UPA, for surrendering to the corporate sector.
The Opposition had alleged loan waivers totaling Rs 68,607 crore in the form of write-offs of the top 50 wilful defaulters during the first half of the financial year ended March 2020. The BJP attacked the Manmohan Singh government for waiving loans worth Rs 36.5 lakh crore. The UPA-2 government was also accused of writing off corporate income tax to the tune of Rs 34,618 crore.
Apart from it, the UPA-2 walked into the trap of technocrats and introduced Aadhaar, a 12-digit unique identity number, despite opposition from well-meaning critics. The Congress party has so far failed to admit that linking Aadhaar to a number of schemes has disrupted programmes like the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee scheme. It was the Congress that launched the privatisation drive after the tragic death of Rajiv Gandhi.
After all this mess created by the Congress government post 1991, it could be necessary for Rahul Gandhi to make his stand clear on all these factors. It may be necessary for him to move towards socialist policies and assure people that the Congress party, if elected to power, would pursue policies beneficial for farmers and the poor. Can Rahul Gandhi assure people that he will never support corporates and restore public sector units like BSNL and Visakhapatnam Steel Plant to their former status? He also needs to assure small and medium scale industries as well as the media that the Congress, if elected to power, would not support the corporate media and promote progressive newspapers and TV channels.