This is my third consecutive post on Rahul Gandhi. Either he has suddenly become smart or I should seriously start reading other and better things for new ideas. The second part may have some truth to it but Rahul has not become smart. Not by any measures.
He is no longer a Member of Parliament. He does not lead the party, his family's fiefdom. At least, not officially. In short, he is nothing. At best, he is a former MP and the son of a current MP. He never held any position of responsibility in the government, nor did he ever hold any constitutional post. In short, he is finally, a Nobody! I don't think anyone saw this coming so drastically. At least, he did not see this coming. No one in his family, not since his Grandmother and his father, has ever faced any consequence of their actions. No consequences for their words, no consequence for their inactions. No consequence for their unhinged tirades. They managed to sink the grand old party of Indian politics and yet, they remain above everyone and managed to remain unscathed.
Not anymore though.
The cause of this downfall seems innocuous. So many have said so much worse than this. But the point is not exactly what he said. I mean, it is but to an extent only. There are so many layers to this issue. The utter disregard Rahul has shown to the public institutions, the political institutions, and the governing and law institutions so far that it was just a matter of time before something comes and levels him in a blow. Rahul tore an ordinance that the then Prime Minister of the country has himself passed. He did that in full public view. This was not his ordinance to trash. He had no locus standi to do that and yet, he did that because he knew nothing will happen to him. And that was true for almost a decade.
"You can fool some people sometimes, all the people one time but you cannot fool all the people all the time" Abraham Lincoln (allegedly!)
Rahul kept yapping his way around. He derided his underlings in his party, he derided his constituents. He derided elected officials. Nothing happened. So he got emboldened and he finally made a statement that can certainly be construed as a casteist slur. I do not believe he hurled a casteist slur. I don't think he is smart enough to know that Modi is a caste and that too a backward caste. But he did make that statement. A case was filed against him as criminal defamation. The criminal defamation law, a rather draconian law I must say, is one of the very few laws that politicians of all backgrounds. The law proceedings take place at a rapid pace. The defendant has to prove, rather convincingly that they did not mean personal abuse. But if the court sides with the accuser, then the defendant goes to jail straight up. The defendant can get out of this mess by publically apologizing. Kejriwal had to do that to Nitin Gadkari, who filed a criminal defamation case for Rs. 100 crores against Kejriwal. But Kerjariwal is a smart fellow, he publically apologized, learned his lesson, and moved on. Now he says all the bad stuff against everyone only in the assembly where one cannot be held in criminal contempt.
Rahul did nothing of that sort. In fact, after making that statement in a public rally (the Congress party last time Congress won a Loksabha seat in Gujarat was in 2009!), Rahul increasingly went berserk. He openly questioned the Indian army during the Galwan crises, openly questioned the homemade Covid vaccines, openly questioned India's purchase of Rafale purchases and most recently, he publically questioned India as a country while singing peans about China. He went a step ahead and alluded that western nations should intervene in Indian democracy!
All that finally caught up with him through that one funny-sounding statement he made in 2019. Forget about politics, the opposition unity, the pending elections, or the evolving election strategy of all the parties. Rahul is finally held responsible for his actions. And he is finally paying price for his crimes. And I will take that.
I am happy!
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