Rahul Gandhi's disqualification as a member of India's Lok Sabha has raised, predictably, a storm of protests in India. Abroad, the manner in which the leading figure of the Indian National Congress has been silenced has been as shocking as it was unexpected.
It had always been known that Rahul Gandhi and Narendra Modi never warmed to each other, indeed were always ready to pounce on each other at every given opportunity. But that the bitterness would come this far had been beyond imagination.
Now that the grandson of Indira Gandhi and son of Rajiv Gandhi has been convicted and sentenced to two years in prison, it is the state of Indian politics which comes into question.
The reason why Gandhi was tried and convicted in court had to do with a 2019 comment he made about all thieves, in his assessment, being surnamed Modi. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has, of course, turned the statement around, to suggest that Gandhi had referred to everyone with the surname Modi as being thieves.
It is a proper crisis Indian politics is up against, so much so that even parties which have not been in agreement with the Congress on a number of issues have now banded together to condemn the BJP government over the treatment of Rahul Gandhi.
Much though the BJP's stalwarts would like to point out that the case against Rahul Gandhi was a decision of the court and that the ruling party had nothing to do with it, the fact remains that such denials are for most people a matter of the wool being pulled over the eyes.
Rahul Gandhi has been accused, in indignant manner, by the BJP leadership of insulting India during his recent trip to the West. The reality is something else, which is that he was sharply critical of the policies of the Modi government, to a point where he informed his listeners, at such significant platforms as Chatham House in London, that democracy had become a casualty in India.
He could have been more circumspect in his expression of views, for democratic tradition holds that politicians generally refrain from washing their nations' political dirty linen abroad.
In these past many years, Indian politics has covered territory in ways unprecedented in terms of the country's history. Debates in parliament have been raucous, with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle hardly remaining conscious of the need for a sober assessment of conditions in the country.
As for the BJP, it has seemingly gone for a policy that will have anyone but Prime Minister Modi respond to opposition criticism of the government's policies.
But where Modi has been vocal has been in his efforts on a number of occasions to spear the legacy of the Congress governments of the past. Jawaharlal Nehru's politics has been under assault even as Vallabbhai Patel has been appropriated by the BJP and venerated as a patriot, which Patel certainly was.
Mahatma Gandhi has remained untouched, of course; but the Nehru-Gandhis have been a regular target of the ruling party. Modi's critics have not hesitated to remind people that even as the BJP accuses Rahul Gandhi of defaming India abroad, the prime minister on a number of occasions -- and during his trips abroad -- publicly expressed his view that Indian governments in bygone years had failed to deliver the goods, that nothing had happened to reassure people that the country had made progress before the BJP stormed to power nine years ago.
Clearly the BJP government is not willing to let anyone upset the cart it controls. Despite the loud criticism it has been facing over the Adani affair, the government remains unfazed and will not offer any explanation on the issue. On the other hand, though, the emphasis on the rule of law by the government has seen the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate put the squeeze on opposition figures suspected or accused of corruption.
Opposition politicians have been grilled for days on scams supposedly happening on their watch. A case in point is the arrest and interrogation of Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia. The Arvind Kejriwal government has called it persecution. The BJP, a good number of whose people are themselves looked upon as corrupt by the political opposition, has preferred to stay silent, save only to say the law is applicable for everyone.
The Rahul Gandhi saga raises some very important questions, the most basic of which relates to the state of the opposition. By the time the next general election takes place in India in 2024, the Modi government will have been in power for a decade.
Will the opposition be able to mount a campaign that might see the BJP lose power? The Congress' Shashi Tharoor, one of the most articulate and erudite of India's politicians today, would have one know that stripping Gandhi of his parliamentary seat was a goal scored by the BJP against itself.
Whether the Rahul Gandhi saga was enough of a blunder for the BJP to feel shaky about next year remains to be seen. For the moment, the BJP, which has in these past many years captured power almost everywhere in the country through elections to state assemblies or through manoeuvring, remains unassailable.
Modi's public image is unchallenged, both among his supporters and abroad. His interaction with global leaders, through such forums as the Quad and the recent G-20 foreign ministers' meeting in Delhi, has given him a niche he certainly relishes in international diplomacy. His foreign minister S Jaishankar, a professional diplomat, has been firm in asserting Indian objectives even as the Ukraine crisis has gone on.
Europe needs to know, as Jaishankar puts it, that Europe's problems are not the world's problems. It is a stand which has resonated well among Indians in general and in countries beyond India. The Modi government's stance on China has been respectful yet firm. It has refused to acknowledge Beijing's claim on Indian territory, and indeed Jaishankar curtly informed the Chinese foreign minister recently in Delhi that if China wanted good relations with India, it would need to stop encroaching on Indian territory.
Internally, Indian politics is in a state of convulsion. Abroad, despite such forensic examinations of Modi as a recent BBC program, governments appear content dealing with the BJP government despite its overt propagation of a Hindutva policy. For the political opposition, the problem is largely one of being unable to mount any strong resistance to the BJP's policies. The Congress is a shadow of its former self.
Dynastic factors, with the leadership of the Congress having long been concentrated in the hands of the Nehru-Gandhis, have quite eroded the appeal of the party. The Congress has been unable to match the vigour with which the BJP has pursued its programs. The election of Mallikarjun Kharge as the new president of the Congress over Shashi Tharoor has made little difference in light of the fact that the former is a staunch loyalist of the Nehru-Gandhis.
The rest of the secular opposition -- and that includes such regional politicians as Mamata Banerjee, Akhilesh Yadav, Sharad Pawar -- have been scrambling to forge unity against the ruling party. Not much has happened, at least not yet, to convince the electorate that the BJP should be dislodged from power at next year's election.
But, of course politics, often driven by the dramatic and the unexpected, may well shape up on how the Rahul Gandhi factor pans out. The Congress leader has vowed to keep the pressure on the Modi government. The world will watch carefully.
Syed Badrul Ahsan is Consultant Editor, Dhaka Tribune
