Dear Rahul Gandhi,
In this season of Open Letters, all addressed to PM Narendra Modi you might be feeling a little ignored & left out that no ‘eminent’ citizen, ‘intellectual’, activist or actor thought of offloading their disappointments, fears, even perhaps, dreams of a New India to you, the Congress President & a Prime Ministerial aspirant.
Hence this ordinary citizen who has never written an Open Letter to anyone has taken it upon herself to write to you. One learns, as you know, something new every day, especially when our ’eminent’ citizens are there to show the way.
What does one say to a man who belongs to a lineage of three prime ministers, aspires to be one too but seems to be a tourist on a flying visit? Someone who exposes time and again, like any visitor, his lack of knowledge in history and even sometimes in the geography of this large, diverse, great country.
We have seen you as this foreign looking, little boy who lived with his grandmother, PM Indira Gandhi. A picture of you celebrating your birthday with a special cake on a plane comes to mind. Then we saw you as the hesitant, rather unsure son of PM Rajiv Gandhi and a little more of you when you zipped in and out of the country during the regime of your mother, Sonia Gandhi.
However, it has been clear from the day you tore up with great flourish, the Ordinance of Dr Manmohan Singh, a man who served your mother’s government, that you considered yourself senior to him though you held no position in the government.
It also became clear that you thought it was your Divine Right to Rule. No doubt, you had in mind a devoted retainer who would hold fort and be accountable for your deeds while you flew in and out having outsourced the country.
Something like your mother’s well-oiled system.
However, all your wonderful plans and dreams were put to rest by one man – Narendra Modi.
Not only did this man show us Indians what being a Prime Minister of 1.2 billion means, but he also showed us what integrity of intention is and the meaning of hard work. With such zeal and unimaginable working hours not only were the men in his own party caught unawares but you Rahul, were shown up as a very, very poor alternative.
A Chaiwala proved to this country that not only a Gandhi, their cronies or a puppet can be a prime minister but also an ordinary citizen through sheer dint of hard work. Of course, nerves of steel were also required because at every stage your family set the dogs upon him to tear him down and destroy him.
When the thumping mandate for Narendra Modi sank in, it seems that was when your uncles sat you down under the instructions of your mother. After all, she was the first to recognise Narendra Modi as a threat, way back in 2002 and now she was quick to grasp that your days of gadding were over.
In all probability, a laundry list of expenses, foreign trips, the cost of the family’s luxurious lifestyle was presented to you. The payroll & expenditure on maintaining ‘friends’ in the media, devoted civil servants & judges were shown to you…
Leaving you no choice but to get to work for The Family– something you were quite unused to…
It has to be said that since then, it’s been one big circus! Loads of laughter, jokes on your speeches, gaffes and goof-ups, a whole industry of memes! It seems you’re not happy to just keep it at home. You go out to Singapore, the US and spread the fun there too.
All very well Rahul.
But PM material? You’ve got to be kidding. In fact, it’s cringe-worthy. After all that laughter, the reality of it is frightful and dangerous.
In the past four years, we Indians have realised how many depend on you for their livelihood, how many have got accustomed to living beyond their means & hence push and plan, employ the services of dubious organisations to achieve their goals.
AND HOW YOU GO ALONG NO MATTER WHAT THE COST TO THE COUNTRY.
In Gujarat, you are a Janeudhaari Shiv Bhakt. in Karnataka, you divide Hindus.
You criticise the PM for always travelling even though it’s on work. Whereas, you disappear on Election Day to meet your Italian grandmother, to play Holi you’ll like us believe.
You take ownership of your legacy when you flaunt the prime ministers in your family. You hide behind youth when you are asked to explain the 1984 Sikh Pogrom which your own father encouraged and abetted.
You talk about corruption in the Rafale deal even though you’ve been called out with facts several times. You never mention Bofors and Agusta.
You encourage hit jobs on competent, able men which crumble under scrutiny but are mum on the misuse of office and the corruption of the man who was your mother’s Home Minister and Finance Minister.
You go on and on about Ambani and Adani but have nothing to say on an entire ecosystem of industrialists, media magnates, journalists that thrived on criminal activities and made hay during the UPA.
You are out on bail yourself but thought nothing of wanting to impeach the CJI.
You talk about Saving the Constitution but it’s your grandmother who declared Emergency, the darkest day in this country, post- Independence when our liberties & rights as citizens were suspended & the Opposition was thrown into prison.
Your message comes across entirely negative when it’s not incoherent with wild, unsubstantiated allegations.
You mock everything but offer nothing new. More often your team sound like wealthy, entitled kids in a school yard poking fun at the not so privileged. Brand & name dropping at its worst which exposes an unfortunate disconnect.
Tell us in which way are your plans for India better than PM Modi’s? What will you do now that you couldn’t do for sixty years?
You talk of spreading ‘love’ and how we lived happily as one people during Congress rule conveniently forgetting a terrible, bloody list of communal violence.
Your claims are suspect and your compassion hollow when you vulture hop from a rape victim (only Muslim please) to suicide victims (only Dalits please) to murders (only minorities please).
Shamefully, Amethi your bastion of 15 years is of sub- Saharan standards. So where can you showcase your abilities that the electorate can consider giving you the responsibility of India?
The answer is, unfortunately – No. Nowhere.
Hence, dear Rahul Gandhi, this ordinary citizen of India considers you the least likely candidate for the top job. Why in God’s name would I repose trust in you?
