Plain-Speak & Broadsides

Rahul Gandhi’s candour and aggression at Berkeley unsettled the BJP and pepped up the Congress

- Soni Mishra & Pratul Sharma

The University of California, Berkeley, is renowned as a centre that nurtures liberal thought and encourages questioning of the establishment. When Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi took to the podium at Berkeley’s International House, it was expected that he would be questioned on what was wrong with Indian democracy, which included dynastic politics and corruption in polity.

These questions were, of course, asked of the 47-year-old Congress scion, who is himself the foremost dynast in Indian polity and whose party lost the 2014 Lok Sabha elections primarily because of the stigma of corruption. Dressed in a white kurta-pyjama paired with a black Nehru jacket, Rahul was ready to answer all these questions. More importantly, he came prepared to question the policies and politics of the Narendra Modi government at the cost of being criticized for doing so on foreign soil.

It was still very early in New Delhi on September 12, when Rahul’s quotes from Berkeley began trickling in. And, soon, the Congress and the BJP were all ears. This trip to the US had generated much mirth beforehand—BJP leaders cracked jokes about him going there to learn about artificial intelligence, and Congress leaders wanted him here as assembly elections were around the corner. Ironically, the same visit kicked up a political storm back home.

He took everyone by surprise as he attacked the Modi government and said he was ready to become Congress president and the prime minister candidate for the Lok Sabha elections in 2019. He was also upfront on dynastic politics and tried to lay the ghost of the anti-Sikh riots to rest by condemning it unequivocally.

Rahul’s great - grand father Jawaharlal Nehru had also delivered a speech at Berkeley, and with the legacy of the country’s first prime minister seemingly under threat amidst what is being described as growing intolerance, it was pertinent he spoke on the theme.