Needless fanfare

The big headline of the day is that Rahul Gandhi has returned. Although he has returned, no one seems to know why and where Rahul Gandhi went away for his sabbatical. His arrival back to the hurly-burly of Indian politics was greeted with the usual sycophantic enthusiasm from fellow party workers. Meghalaya Chief Minister Mukul Sangma won the battle of the brown nose brigade by asserting that Rahul’s absence was like the medieval English king Alfred the Great’s mysterious disappearance after defeat in battle, an absence from which he had emerged stronger. Gandhi might fancy himself as Bruce Wayne returning after a long time to save Gotham (read Congress). Except that reality is much more prosaic. For one, Gandhi has missed out on a considerable number of political opportunities during his two-month long sabbatical.

These include: The Priya Pillai saga, the land acquisition ordinance, the push for net neutrality and most of all the invaluable opportunity to take charge of the Congress party. Be that as it may it is perplexing why the entire news media has lost its collective mind over the return of Gandhi.

Everywhere one looked and everything one read suggested that Gandhi’s return was a miracle of our modern times. This is an indictment of the vapidity of our news media rather than a critical comment on Gandhi. Spending reams and reams of newsprint and giving prime time news coverage to where Rahul Gandhi might have vacationed is a comically pointless exercise to say the least. Gandhi is no Prince Siddhartha and he has definitely not returned as an enlightened being.