Even as Congress’ electoral fortunes continued to plummet with its dismal performance in the three northeastern states of Tripura, Meghalaya, and Nagaland, Rahul Gandhi made another guest appearance in public discourse with his lecture at Cambridge’s business school.
His topic of choice was “Learning to listen in the 21st century”, which is ironic given that the leader refuses to listen to the voice of the people and analyse the reasons behind Congress’ continual electoral downfall.
It is also evident that Rahul Gandhi is looking to reinvent himself as a thought leader to somewhat make up for his lacklustre career as a politician. At a time when he should be working hard to stitch together a strong Opposition to counter BJP in the run-up to the 2024 elections, Gandhi is busy giving esoteric sermons in foreign universities.
So, what was the Cambridge speech all about? A 90-minute drivel full of incoherent ideas and insubstantial assertions.
Like a young boy who is blinded by the brilliance of a great philosopher he has read for the first time, Gandhi regurgitates his newfangled ideas about the world that he might have picked while reading an odd philosophy book on a flight. No wonder, former US President Barack Obama described him as someone with a “nervous, unformed quality” about him like a student eager to impress the teacher but lacking the aptitude and passion to “master the subject.”
After giving himself a pat on the back for mobilising the crowd in the Bharat Jodo yatra, he goes on to critique the Indian democracy under the Modi regime. How the negotiation between the various elements in the “union of India” has stopped. Then, he makes random references to the Chinese model of thinking and the American model of thinking – with no purpose whatsoever. While deriding the Indian democracy, he only had words of reverence for China – that, unlike the US which thinks it sits on top of nature, China “is a force of nature”.
To top it all, he points at a Sikh man in the audience, and says that Narendra Modi would call him a “second-class citizen”. Quite rich coming from the top leader of a party that planned and executed the Sikh pogrom of 1982.
Rahul Gandhi is well within his rights to expose his inadequacy as a thinker and a politician over and over again. But his statements become harmful when his ill-informed ideas are compounded by the presence of vested interests and his language finds resonance with anti-India forces.
It would be pertinent to pay attention to the fact that pro-Khalistani self-styled preacher Amrit Singh Pal, who arm-twisted the Punjab police to release his close aide recently, uses the exact same phrase, “India is not a nation but a union of states” as Rahul Gandhi. We also saw, how those affiliated with people like George Soros, who uses his money to target elected democracies in insidious ways, were found marching with Rahul Gandhi during his Bharat Jodo Yatra.
With Gandhi jumping from one event to another without any intentions of winning elections, he is increasingly coming across as a self-absorbed individual who is in love with his own voice.