The fact is whatever Rahul Gandhi, the president of India’s main opposition party, says or does on an international platform, has a significant impact back home. Apart from getting everybody to talk about him, the aim of “being in news” and staying relevant is achieved.
“A certain degree of arrogance had crept into Congress,” said Rahul Gandhi. He was speaking at UC Berkley as a part of his US visit in the run-up to Gujrat Assembly Elections. The honest confession coming straight from the man whose family is accused of promoting dynasty politics and of having made India’s Grand Old Party irrelevant was refreshing at the least. Making this confession on a foreign soil, well it definitely was a part of a clearly outlined strategy which indeed, turned out to be successful.
Considering a series of the gaffe and foot-in-mouth moments on his name in the past, everyone was curious about Rahul Gandhi’s first ever interaction outside the country, including the media. Not only the event occupied front page headlines but also prompted quick presser by the ruling BJP. For Congress, it was a testament of desired results achieved by its strategy.
While talking at Princeton University, another ivy league college, he dedicated a major amount of his time speaking about the unemployment problem that is grappling Indian youth, even terming it a “Job Crisis”. One would expect it the least but he also talked about the kind of image of his being projected in the media and subtly credited Prime minister Modi for it without naming him.
One year on, Rahul Gandhi’s interactions with NRI’s, PIOs and international journalists remain a major part of Congress’ strategy. The recent visit of Congress President to Germany and the UK are the best examples.
In Germany, Rahul Gandhi claimed that the incidents of lynching in India were due to ‘anger’ emanating from joblessness and ‘destruction’ of small businesses due to demonetisation and the ‘poorly implemented’ GST by the ruling BJP. He even cited the example of ISIS warning about the perils of excluding a certain section of people from the development process. In London, he targeted the BJP and RSS, equating the latter to Muslim Brotherhood, the oldest political Islamist group in the Arab world. It is banned and declared as a terrorist organisation by the governments of several countries. His statements on 1984 Anti-Sikh riots, Rafale deal etc. too invoked a widespread response.
The fact is whatever Rahul Gandhi, the president of India’s main opposition party, says or does on an international platform has a significant impact back home. Apart from getting everybody to talk about him, the aim of “being in news” and staying relevant is achieved.
मुस्लिम ब्रदरहुड और आरएसएस के बीच काफी समानता है। वे सत्ता पर कब्ज़ा करने के लिए लोकतांत्रिक प्रक्रियाओं का सहारा लेते हैं : कांग्रेस अध्यक्ष @RahulGandhi #RahulGandhiPressMeet pic.twitter.com/aXkVf6KwOz
— Congress (@INCIndia) August 25, 2018
In last one year, Rahul held interactions outside India for almost five times. Each of these interactions, without any fail, have proved to be the breeding ground for controversies. Whether it is Times Square interaction with NRIs or ‘India at 70’ event at Singapore. The controversies erupted at these events have directly or indirectly aided to the publicity and in turn popularity of the Congress President.
The most controversial one has to be the discussion organized on ‘India at 70’, of which he was a part of. One of the audience members tried to grill Rahul Gandhi over a question related to India’s per capita income which was followed by a verbal argument between the two. However, putting an end to the argument, Rahul Gandhi didn’t forget to direct it towards Modi saying that PM Narendra Modi would never do that (let anyone question him). “You would never have the ability to say in front of Modiji what you said to me. And I am absolutely blazingly proud of that,” he said taking the opportunity to indirectly highlight that PM Modi has never held a press conference. The video went viral on social media. On Twitter alone, the video hit 200K views and was shared more than 4000 times.
With political discourse hitting new lows everyday, Congress President Rahul Gandhi shows how to gracefully handle detractors and call their bluff. #RGinSingapore #IndiaAt70 pic.twitter.com/OnTJz0kzUx
— Congress (@INCIndia) March 8, 2018
However, image building or positioning Rahul Gandhi as an alternative to Modi is not the only objective of these interactions. The Congress President also wanted to familiarise himself with global think-tanks and opinion makers along with the Indian Diaspora. Despite the party having a separate Indian Overseas Congress cell, it lags behind when it comes to active support from the Indian diaspora as against BJP, which enjoys maximum support from the NRIs. On the other hand, NRIs also make up a significant percentage of BJP’s biggest donors. Having faced the fund-crunch, Rahul is following the BJP’s footsteps trying to woo the Indian community.
Moreover, we can safely assume that the strategy has paid off well by looking at the figures. The recently conducted Mood of the Nation survey by India Today revealed that 46% of the people polled considered Rahul Gandhi an alternative to Modi. The CSDS survey published in May this year revealed Narendra Modi’s popularity as PM dipped to 34% while Rahul’s rose to 24%.
However, this does not necessarily mean that the Congress President is averse to slip-ups now. Comparing RSS to Muslim Brotherhood was one such goof-up which can hamper Congress back home. Despite the risks that accompany Rahul Gandhi’s blunders, the ‘Abroad Understanding’ has turned out to be a quite successful strategy for the Congress to get the wheels moving both on a domestic and international level.
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