By Amulya Ganguli
Rahul Gandhi's political apprenticeship is apparently still incomplete. Otherwise, the young Congress MP wouldn't have embarrassed the party on more than one occasion with his off-the-cuff remarks.
The first time he caused a stir was when he said that he could have become the prime minister if he had "wanted to". It wasn't clear then, nor is it clear now, whether he was letting out a closely guarded state secret.
But the fact remains that although he is regarded as the heir-apparent, there has been nothing to indicate that either his mother, Congress president Sonia Gandhi, or the party as a whole, or even the party bigwigs, had seriously discussed the issue in recent times.
What the comment apparently showed, therefore, was that Rahul Gandhi harboured an exaggerated notion of his own importance, probably bred by the sycophantic attention he receives as a member of India's premier political family.
The sense of his family's superiority was also evident in his latest observation that the Babri Masjid wouldn't have been demolished by Hindu zealots if a Nehru-Gandhi was prime minister.
It is worth recalling that the 350-year-old mosque, built in Mughal emperor Babur's time, was brought down Dec 6, 1992 by activists of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Hindutva storm troopers when P.V. Narasimha Rao was the prime minister.
Rahul Gandhi's assertion that his father, Rajiv Gandhi, had told Sonia Gandhi that he would have personally protected the place of worship also showed his immaturity because such emotional claims can neither be proved nor disproved. In any event, Rajiv Gandhi died before the mosque was pulled down.
Besides, the former prime minister's role during the early stages of the Babri masjid dispute didn't quite cover him with glory. Instead, he was seen to have paved the way for BJP's emergence as a major force because of several unwise, even cynical, actions.
The first was the hasty passage of a law to negate a Supreme Court judgment granting alimony to Shah Bano, a divorced Muslim woman. What evidently prompted the Rajiv Gandhi government to introduce the legislation was pressure from Muslim fundamentalists, who alleged that the judicial verdict was an assault on the Shariat.
When the BJP and other pro-Hindu groups castigated the law as a familiar instance of the Congress policy of Muslim appeasement, a court in Uttar Pradesh ordered the opening of the locks of the Babri Masjid, a virtually forgotten edifice at the time. A section of the Hindus had claimed it as the site of an ancient temple identifying the birthplace of Lord Rama. Not surprisingly, the government's hand was seen behind the surprising decision, which virtually opened a Pandora's box.
If Rajiv Gandhi had wanted to balance the pro-Muslim law following the Shah Bano case with a pro-Hindu stance by allowing the worship of Lord Rama, he failed on both counts. While the BJP reaped the political harvest from the opening of the locks of the masjid, the Muslims saw through the devious manoeuvres and were alienated from the Congress.
It was apparently to reclaim the Muslim vote during the forthcoming elections in Uttar Pradesh that Rahul Gandhi advertised his family's secular credentials. Yet, there was no real need to rake up the issue at a time when India has moved on from the communal turmoil created by the mosque's demolition and entered a new era of rapid economic development.
All that the observation will achieve is to enable the BJP to play on Hindu as well as nationalist sentiments by drawing attention to Rahul Gandhi's background as the son of an Italian mother, who is unacquainted with Indian religion and culture.
It may be worthwhile to point out that in the early days of late prime minister Indira Gandhi's reign, the ever manipulative saffron brigade portrayed her husband Feroze as a Muslim although he was a Parsi. And even earlier, before independence, Motilal Nehru (Indira's grandfather) was accused by the pro-Hindu groups of being a beef-eater.
Considering the eagerness with which these organisations try to widen the communal divide in order to reap an electoral benefit, their opponents have to weigh their words with care.
But it isn't only Rahul Gandhi's blundering foray into a sensitive area of politics, which is bound to draw flak. His comment about how only a Nehru-Gandhi could have saved the mosque tends to place the family above the party.
While Narasimha Rao's personal failure on Dec 6, 1992, is known - he is said to have slept through the fateful afternoon - the Congress as a whole has to share the blame for the administrative and political lapses. If Rahul Gandhi had apologized on behalf of the Congress - as Manmohan Singh did about the 1984 anti-Sikh riots - then he might have been able to make a valid point.
But to focus only on his family is to show a measure of arrogance the voters generally find unacceptable.
Even in the earlier interview, his remark that he didn't choose to become the prime minister because "I would not go around yelling at my seniors", showed an unfortunate lack of humility.
He also said then: "If I am to be a complete politician, I think I must lose a couple of elections."
Perhaps his party will make a beginning in this respect in the forthcoming Uttar Pradesh elections, where the Congress's chances are not considered bright. And because of that brush with harsh reality, at least the young MP may learn to be more circumspect in future.
(Amulya Ganguli is a political analyst. He can be reached at aganguli@mail.com)