It was soon after the assassination of prime minister Mrs Indira Gandhi in 1984. As I was watching television at home in the company of my family, the screen flashed images of a young Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi. Rahul was barely about 13 years then and Priyanka even younger. My uncle who was in the room remarked “These are our future prime ministers”. This was the dominant thinking among large sections of Indians of that era. After all Rajiv had succeeded Indira and prior to that Indira had taken over from Nehru (after a small interregnum when Lal Bahadur Shastri was PM). It was only logical that Rahul would succeed Rajiv.
As we all know things that things didn’t quite turnout that day. I was reminded of this incident when after the election victory prime minister Manmohan Singh said publicly at a press conference in New Delhi that he wanted Rahul to join the cabinet. Later at a press conference when Rahul was asked as to whether he wanted to join the cabinet he said that his job was to get the youth of India into politics irrespective of whether he was in the Cabinet or not and he appealed to the youth to join politics.
This took me back to his father Rajiv Gandhi. Rajiv had the same appeal to youth. He was India’s youngest prime minister at 40 and the young could identify with him. In an era in which most leaders focused on the caste and the communal calculus, Rajiv talked of computers, telecom and got Sam Pitroda back from the US to usher in a telecom revolution. His Budget of 1985 is today seen as a signpost in India’s economic reform process which got underway in 1991.
Rahul like his father has an appeal that goes beyond the caste and communal calculus. His economic agenda is different form that of his father’s for the simple reason that India is today a largely free economy that banks on the market and not controls. His agenda is that of inclusive growth which in simple English means that the poor get to participate in India’s growth and development.
Rahul has also had an advantage or even luxury that his father did not have. Rajiv was pitch forked into politics and the PM’s chair by the sudden deaths of his brother Sanjay and mother Indira respectively. Rahul has had much more time and opportunity to hone his political skills. He has witnessed a period where his party has been out of power, honed his skills under his mother, and led the party’s resurgence in Uttar Pradesh in the just concluded election. The logical step would be the cabinet and then possibly the prime ministership.
Rajiv ignited a dream in the youth of a prosperous, economically strong India which unfortunately did not materialize during his lifetime. Rahul has grown up in liberalized India and now has set himself the task of taking it further. Time will tell as to whether he realizes his dream or not.
