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In-Depth Information
Rahul Gandhi was clearly emerging as a potential reformer, if only he could be more
consistently convincing and if he followed up his occasional forays into current events with
focused moves to clean up the country's politics and governance. His behaviour, however,
was still too erratic to be effective and he showed no understanding of the intricacies of
policy making. His efforts to galvanize voters failed again with the assembly elections in
December 2013, as they had earlier. The Congress was routed in Delhi by the BJP and the
new Aam Aadmi Party founded by Kejriwal, the anti-corruption campaigner, as well as
losing in three other states.
The AAP's victory and the Congress defeats spurred Gandhi into action and he forced
the government to revive the Lok Pal Bill that would set up an anti-corruption ombudsman.
The main parties had resisted the legislation for decades and the government had only
agreed to produce the Bill two years earlier under intense pressure from Anna Hazare, who
was then working with Kejriwal. The BJP amazingly co-operated with the government and
the Bill was passed through both houses of parliament and enacted within a few days.
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Gandhi hoped this would show that the Congress was serious about tackling corruption and
he made a powerful speech in parliament - only his third in ten years - calling for six other
anti-corruption bills to be implemented covering subjects such as public procurement, for-
eign bribery, judicial standards and whistleblowers. He also forced the Congress-led Maha-
rashtra state government to re-open a corruption case on an army-linked real estate scandal.
It seemed that the assembly election results had at last made the Gandhis realise that the
country wanted a change, not just between the Congress and the BJP, but with the elec-
tion of new figures like Kejriwal, who did not carry the baggage of established politicians.
For the first time in his political career, Rahul Gandhi took command of a policy. He was
clearly in charge, replacing his mother and sidestepping Ahmed Patel, her trusted aide, who
was said to have been blocking many of his earlier initiatives. But he had woken up too
late. Defeat loomed for the Congress in the 2014 elections. Rahul Gandhi's best hope was
that he would build up enough personal credibility to be able to reform the party for a later
election, maybe working with his sister Priyanka, who was becoming more active politic-
ally.
Crisis of Confidence
The dynasty was by now having its worst crisis of confidence for two decades, which raised
the question of whether the family has or has not been good for India. The country would
certainly have benefited from a wider choice of prime ministers. Nehru initially set India
on a sound footing in 1947 but Shastri could, historians suggest, have been a better leader
of the country than Indira Gandhi if he had lived - and that might have thwarted the dyn-
asty's survival.
