(Ashok Malik is a columnist and writer living in Delhi)While his television interview a few weeks ago may have been a fiasco, Rahul Gandhi's interaction with the Press Trust of India (PTI) earlier this week certainly made a political point. Rather than loose thoughts on love, RTI and fresh air - usually the Congress vice-president's all-purpose solution to any Indian problem - this interview was focused and targeted
Narendra Modi.
Gandhi said the report of the Supreme Court-monitored Special Investigation Team (SIT), which had exonerated Modi of charges of acts of commission or deliberate and wilful omission in the Gujarat violence of 2002, was not the last word. The report had been "seriously questioned by a number of credible experts", Gandhi insisted, and "grave flaws had been pointed out in the functioning of the SIT". That apart the "flawed SIT report" had only been accepted by a lower court. Finally, the question of "legal accountability" - as opposed to political accountability - remained.
A SWOT analysis of Gandhi's interview and his position on 2002 would be meaningful. The strength here is the Congress leader directly takes on his most prominent opponent in national politics. He tells those who are hostile to Modi and the BJP that he is still in the game and they need not give up on him (or the Congress).
The opportunity lies in the fact that Gandhi has built not just a platform for the 2014 election but for a potential period in opposition thereafter. In the run-up to voting day,
Arvind Kejriwal will criticise Modi's economic model and alleged proximity to business barons. Since the Congress can't seriously attack anybody on corruption and cronyism, Gandhi will complement Kejriwal by bringing up 2002. Should Modi become Prime Minister, Gandhi will continually refer to the SIT report and the "legal accountability" question. He will seek to discredit Modi's government as somehow illegitimate.
Since the report has only been accepted by a lower court, Gandhi will argue for patience till the Supreme Court decides. Knowing how the Indian legal system works, this could take 10 years. Since the report is "flawed" - Gandhi's description - even if the apex court accepts it, Gandhi can still denounce the exoneration. As such, to Gandhi's mind, Modi will always be answerable for 2002, even when he (Modi) turns 95 (by which time Gandhi would be 75).
The weakness is that nobody other than a small army of Modi-loathing conspiracy theorists and activist-writers is seriously questioning the SIT or seeking to discredit it and its members, who include a former chief of the Central Bureau of Investigation. For better or worse, 2002 is ceasing to be an electorally-relevant subject. By making the Congress a one-trick pony, is Gandhi rendering it irrelevant to constituencies and debates that are more contemporary?
Can a fixation with Modi's legal culpability in 2002 - which will remain mythical and unproven unless compelling new evidence, missed by the SIT as well as previous investigations, suddenly and miraculously arises - make up for absence of a Congress strategy on the economy, on urban renewal, on a pitch to young voters and a millions other themes that are driving current-day India? This is not an issue of moral choices; it is a practical and pragmatic query about expanding electoral appeal.
Lastly, there is the threat. For a decade after 2002, the Gujarat Congress outsourced its opposition to Modi to activists and NGOs determined to prove Modi's legal guilt. That project was a non-starter. It made prime-time newsmakers of a range of people - from Teesta Setalvad to Sanjeev Bhatt - but got the Congress nowhere in Gujarat.
Should the Congress go down the same route nationally, after a possible Modi victory in May 2014, it could see its agenda being shaped by sundry ideological warriors and intellectual vigilantes. Would this leave Rahul Gandhi and the Congress better placed to fight elections - or would it give them a maverick image? The case of the Gujarat Congress is instructive.
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