Rahul Gandhi’s unscripted ‘Mann Ki Baat’ in London

In August, British politicians, from the prime minister to MPs, are on holiday, people in general are on vacation, universities are closed. It is arguably the worst month for a foreign leader to visit London for official purposes. Yet, Rahul Gandhi pulled off a remarkably successful trip.

For nearly 15 years, the BJP and the RSS have relentlessly ridiculed Rahul, causing the uninitiated to digest a false impression of him. It, therefore, came as a pleasant surprise to most who saw him in flesh and blood, heard him at first hand that the rabid portrayal of him was very different from reality.

In course of two days, the 47-year-old Congress president partook in several engagements, among them a session at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a prestigious think-tank, an event in the British Houses of Parliament, hosted by the longest serving Indian-origin member of the House of Commons, Keith Vaz, and a rally of 1,400 organised by the Indian Overseas Congress at Ruislip, near London. To cap it all was a working lunch with the venerable 71-year-old Indian Journalists’ Association (Europe), which included a 70-minute free-wheeling, wide-ranging public conversation between Rahul and yours truly followed by questions from journalists.

He kicked off with the interaction at the ISS. An official of the US embassy in the UK asked him how he would bridge the considerable gap in funds at BJP’s disposal and that with Congress.

Rahul replied: “You’ll be surprised at the mood of the business community in India today. They expected a tremendous amount from Mr Modi, but he failed them. They are terrified at saying this publicly. There’s an immense amount of pressure from the CBI and ED.”

Right on cue, a few hours later, twenty-four businessmen quietly met him at the Royal Automobile Club.

Attired in a simple, white, khadi kurta-pyjama, he spelled out that if Congress returned to power in 2019, “the economic policy will be Rahul Gandhi’s unscripted ‘Mann Ki Baat’ in London similar in trajectory to Mr Manmohan Singh’s”. He added: “We will focus on small and medium businesses.”

He further stated: “We will focus on agriculture, construction, building houses, bringing technology to agriculture, building a food chain and connecting farms to the table.”

Rahul’s appearance at the iconic London School of Economics was a coup d’ etat. Five hundred students from 15 UK universities assembled for the function. There was an expectation the gathering would be hostile, as they have been towards Congress for the past five years. Yet, at the end of the exercise they were eating out of his hands.

No Indian leader in recent times has received the kind of rapturous applause rendered to Rahul on this occasion. Dr Mukulika Banerjee, director of the LSE’s South Asia Centre, who chaired the Q&A, remarked: “There was a real appetite to know Rahul Gandhi as a person. He spoke thoughtfully and in some detail, he had the space for it. And with great energy when the students got going.”

In accepting IJA’s hospitality, he entered the lion’s den, where Narendra Modi has never dared to traverse, though Arun Jaitley and Nitin Gadkari have, admittedly, displayed the courage in the past 18 months. He took tough questions without complaint. His only grouse was a section of Indian news media are ignoring real issues and twisting his statements.

The celebrated author Salman Rushdie once wrote in the London Times that the Nehru-Gandhis make the Kennedys look like amateurs. In our chat, I asked him to answer his critics who say he’s a man with a privileged background and that Congress is effectively run by his family. He immediately replied: “My family has not been in power since my father (Rajiv Gandhi) was Prime Minister (in 1989).” And capped it with a question: “Do you condemn me for the family I come from or do you judge me based on my ability?”

He underlined: “People talk about dynasty, but he (Modi) won’t be able to sit here, he will not be able to answer your questions. I am sitting here, and I am saying to you throw whatever you want at me. I might make some mistakes, I might go wrong, I am OK with it, I am not perfect, I’ll learn. The next time you ask me the same question, I’ll come up with something better.” It was a disarming response.

The hard-nosed congregation, not easily moved, were taken aback. Many couldn’t help rushing towards Rahul in this age of selfies. The president of one of the RSS front organisations in the UK shook hands with him. A proprietor of a British Indian weekly, identified as the voice of Modi, followed suit.

It was a revelation to many in the audiences that he qualified with a Masters degree from Cambridge, that he speaks sense, speaks sincerely and is a compassionate and decent human being.

One verdict was, it was an “unscripted Mann ki Baat”, as opposed to Modi’s set pieces. A British journalist concluded: “He impressed me more than I had thought he would.