Rahul Gandhi and the art of oratory

Rahul Gandhi spoke at Delhi University a few years ago. He noticed a particularly aggressive group in the front row of the audience and asked them to question him first. One of the issues raised by them was the problem of admissions. The quota set aside under reservations for lower castes and the near impossibility of achieving the cut-offs that colleges and universities now demanded of high school graduates had angered them.

Gandhi told these students the reality — that there was a lack of supply of institutions in India. He did not say it specifically, but this was a failure of civil society as much as that of the state. Such things needed money. Where would it come from in a poor nation? This is what he said. The students were unconvinced, and as is the case with most educated Indians, they tend to ascribe all problems of India to the government.

Another speech he made a few weeks ago in Jaipur was ridiculed. I watched a video of it later and learnt something I didn’t know. That the biggest problem labourers faced was health care. They worked two days and recuperated every third day, spending money on medicine, washing away all chance of saving. Their whole lives were spent in this fashion.

Gandhi struck me as being a thoughtful and nuanced observer and this is a view seconded by Amartya Sen. The Nobel Prize-winning economist was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, which Gandhi attended, and where he impressed Sen.

Gandhi has not been able to similarly make an impression on Indian politics. He is seen as either a laughing stock, if one is to go by social media, or, even if one is sympathetic to him, a dull speaker who can motivate neither gatherings of industrialists nor those of students. Some of this opinion we can chalk down to those who are in to knife him. There exists an enormous and efficient internet propaganda machine that is monitored by Narendra Modi’s office and funded by corporates. I have written about this before and will return to it again as I gather evidence.

Other things we can attribute to the way in which Gandhi expresses himself. An example is his using the words “escape velocity of Jupiter” to describe the difficulties Dalits faced in making progress. Personally, I did not find this eccentric but for some reason, it was made fun of.

However, it is inescapably true that much of the responsibility lies with Gandhi himself. He could deliver his message, even if it is granular and more subtle than Modi’s, with more conviction if not more ability. The dispassionate view of the state of India, which I believe he holds and much of it rightly so, is that of an academic or an observer. But that is not his lot. He has chosen to participate in the game of politics and must play by its rules.

A few months ago, came the report that the Congress office-bearers in an Uttar Pradesh district had been reprimanded. They had not bothered to attend one of the party meetings that Gandhi had specifically come to their district for. It isn’t hard to see why they didn’t come. They don’t get his message because he doesn’t speak in the way other leaders do. Congressmen who pine for Priyanka’s entry into politics do so because they need a slice of the Gandhi charisma. It seems to be missing, for whatever reason, from Rahul’s arsenal. Even for those who think of him as being well meaning and earnest, there is a hole and that is a lack of passion. Even Sonia, with her broken Hindi and scripted speeches delivers something that her son is unable to.

When one is as famous and as good looking as Rahul Gandhi, charisma is a function of deployment. The media and the crowds are already there. They need to be excited by his words. This is the most ancient craft of politics, and the Greeks and the Romans were schooled in how to do it (there still exists a work by Quintilian, The institutes of oratory, on this subject). Rahul Gandhi would do well to consult it.

To listen to Rahul is to be told that we are sunk as a nation. That may be true, but it is for the politician to say what the road leading out is.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 17^th, 2013.

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