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Disclaimer: This is not a political piece for a party or a person or a supportive article towards an ideology or narrative. This writing is a character reflection of the figure we know as Rahul Gandhi and of how I see him beyond politics.
Imagine you are a shy, introverted boy born into one of the most controversial, powerful, and politically influential families in the world. Every generation of your family has occupied the highest offices in the world’s largest democracy. You carry a surname burdened with lies, mistakes, chaos, and yet undeniable power.
You are born with everything served to you on a silver platter. From the very day you enter the world, people begin worshipping you as the “next in line.” In return, all that is expected of you is to preserve the family name and continue its legacy.
But this is the same legacy because of which your grandmother was shot in cold blood, followed by nationwide riots. The same legacy that took away your father’s life in a bomb attack while you were away studying in the US. The same legacy that, every single day, digs up the mistakes of your great grandfather, a man who gave everything he ever had to this country. The same legacy because of which your mother’s and your very own identity are questioned every single day. Is that a fair trade off?
After pursuing an elite education in the UK and the US (driven more by security concerns than merit), you return home in 1991 to an assassinated father. You try to carve out a different path for yourself, but legacy calls you back.
By 2004, without questions being asked and without opinions being sought, you are handed a top position in one of the world’s most influential political parties. Your party is facing a leadership crisis. Your party and over a billion Indians look towards you, waiting to see what you will do next.
Giving up is never truly an option, because walking away would leave an indelible stain on the family name you inherited. So you accept the responsibility head on. For a decade you season yourself in politics, in the company of some of the sharpest political minds in the country, while an economist quietly handles the country , good with economics but no so much with people.
Then comes 2014. You are projected as the poster boy of a “New India,” pitted against a seasoned politician who has spent his entire life mastering power, a man who understands exactly how to influence people, what they want, and what they want to hear, a man so politically brilliant he even defeated his own mentor.
You give it everything you have. But by then, the legacy has already inflicted all the damage it possibly could. To make matters worse, the “poster boy” of Indian politics is reduced to the “Pappu” of Indian politics. Perhaps even the finest education in the world cannot teach the lessons that can only be learned among the people.
And yet, for the next twelve years you continue to fight. Every single day you show up, every single day you try to learn, somedays you cling to the tried and tested legacy’s original style of politics and its familiar narratives (maybe not so potent now), on other days you attempt to innovate with the changing polity (even doing a nationwide march to put up a message). Every single day, you are mocked, criticised, and defamed, sometimes because of your own mistakes, sometimes because of narratives. But you don’t back down.
You dedicate your entire life to this name and this legacy, so completely that somewhere along the way, you even forget to build a life of your own, you never take a wife. Some people admire you, some despise you, and some do not even consider you worthy of thought. Yet you continue doing what you do, fighting, hoping, and carrying the weight, willingly or unwillingly doesn’t matter either way. And now, you too join the long list of your predecessors who gave everything they ever had to this name, this legacy, or perhaps to this country and its people (as the reader may choose to believe).
These pieces are being published as they have been received – they have not been edited/fact-checked by ThePrint.