The brief story has been retold, as I was a witness to certain pages of history, to connect myself with my young friends in the Blog World and mindless opposers and supporters of the idea of Yuvraj Rahul Gandhi taking over as the next Prime Minister. The Bloggers have little touch with reality and the young generation has no time to look back into history. History is mother of all futures.
To understand why Congress acolytes, Sonia, Rahul and others are playing the very same old Nehru family favourite game of pebble throwing, suggesting, signalling and hinting my young friends may have to look back into history. Mere Blogging won’t help.
I must remind my young friends the famous lines from Julius Caesar, Scene Two, and Marcus Antonius’s famous funeral speech:
“You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown
Which he did thrice refuse,
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious
And sure, he is an honourable man.”
The difference between Antonius and Congress acolytes is very basic. Antonius lamented over the corpse of Caesar to defeat his political rivals like Decius Brutus etc, and not to honour his friend. In Congress there may be a few hidden Antonius’, but there is no Syndicate and Morarji around to pose any semblance of threat. Rahul’s succession is likely to be hassle free.
Do I sound biased against Rahul? No. I am in favour of youth and a young leader should take over the reins of the country. But that Young Man should not be necessarily another Rajiv lookalike, simply because his family owns a party.
William Pitt had taken over the reins of England at the age of 24 years and 205 days. The critics had sneered, “ it was a sight to make all nation stand and stare: a kingdom trusted to a school boy. ” Yet Pitt ruled at a time when French Revolution, Napoleonic Wars and fallout of the British defeat in America and emergence of and independent country in the former colony had shaken the very foundation of the kingdom. Pitt was a great success.
All that I suggest to young Rahul is that besides discovering India under SPG protection (his great grandpa had discovered India while in Yarvada jail) he should shrug off the signals, hints and whispers of the Congress lichen and look within: can he be another Pitt, can he rescue the country from its caste and communal curse, can he revitalise and unite global economy with our dead rural economy, can he restore internal order and can he restore our lost pride in the geopolitical and geostrategical sphere of influence? Can he make India more powerful than China and Pakistan put together? Can he replace the British Establishment, which manages India in the avtar of IAS, IPS etc services and other incarnations of babudom?
If he realises he can be another Indian Pitt, I will be the first to welcome him.
We need to weed out the political leeches and lichens. We need young leaders, but not another flyer who does not know how to navigate the choppy political sea of India.
By the same author: Who killed Benazir? | A marriage of inconvenience | Bangladesh at the crossroads | All Maloy Dhar columns
The views expressed in the article are of the author`s and not of Sify.com.
Image Caption: AICC General Secretary Rahul Gandhi, before stepping down from the helicopter at Ratlam airport after completing his tour of tribal areas of Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh.
