Rahul Gandhi’s words of wisdom

Early last week, Rahul Gandhi visited JNU campus for an "interaction" with students. And he had to face many embarassing moments. Not one national channel covered it. Then how did I come to know? A local daily, Eenadu, covered the news item. Eenadu is known for its anti-congress stand, so I figured this may be one of those stories. Then I see that Sakshi, which is owned by Jagan Mohan Reddy, also covered it too. The content was similar, only the headlines changed.

Apparently, the reverred Rahul Gandhi told the audience, when questioned about his views on the right to education bill, that he does not know much about the bill. Eenadu newspaper mentioned that Rahul pleads ignorance of the bill, and Sakshi mentioned it as "Young MP graciously accepted that he did not know much about the bill."

So, the fact remains that he did not bother to acquaint himself with the contents of the bill. Leave alone the content of the bill, he does not have the minimum knowledge required to even speak about it in a university campus! And then apparently Rahul also complained that the questions sounded like they were coming from communist ideology. And also it was reported that Rahul was disappointed that no one asked questions about the future course of the country.

Really? So, reforms in the education system are not about the future of the country? What did he expect? To be asked questions to which he would have mugged up answers?

Fast forward to yesterday. The entire media was abuzz with "I don't believe in caste system – Rahul". "Govt's inability to reach out to people causes naxalism– Rahul". For a full 3-4 hours until the news of Venkataraman Ramakrishnan winning the Nobel Prize came in, the entire media in the country went gaga about these two statements. He said he doesn't believe in the caste system when questioned why he visits only houses of Dalits. He tells us that he visits only poor people, and it is we who discriminate them as Dalits. He tells his office to arrange for visits to poor people only.

Nice. So we are the culprits. We are to believe that it is incredibly coincidental that all the houses he visited so far have been of dalits, and it is his office's fault that they happened to be dalits. If you don't believe in caste system, we all welcome it. But then, if you don't put it in action and then sermon us about your vritues, that's when your statements lose all their value.

And your final words of wisdom made me feel so lucky to have a leader like you waiting in the wings to become PM – "Govt's inability to reach out to people causes naxalism". Some extensive research and deep thought must have gone into your mind before stating the most obvious reason that anybody with an elementary knowledge of the Naxal problem will know.

Keep up the good work media; because it is very clear that along with the Congress party, even you are very much interested in potraying Rahul Gandhi in only the positive sense. If he faces embarassing situations, or if he is ignorant about important laws and acts being passed in his tenure in Parliament, please don't show them to the people of this country. It might hurt their feelings that their Holy Calf can actually go wrong.

PS: I am not able to find the link to the articles now, will provide them as soon as I find them