It is hard to believe now but when the UPA government was sworn in for its first term, it was seen as representing the aspirational 21st century middle class.
The Congress had inherited Rajiv Gandhi’s legacies: his emphasis on computers and his modernising instinct. Then, there was the Manmohan Singh factor.
The new Prime Minister was the father of economic liberalisation, a technocrat who had dismantled the license-quota-permit raj and engendered the growth of a new urban middle class that was meritocratic and international in its outlook.
At first, the government lived up to its billing. During UPA I, a balance was struck between Sonia Gandhi’s commitment to the poor (NREGA, the write-off of farmers’ loans, NGO advisors) and Manmohan Singh’s status as a liberalising middle-class icon.
But that balance has been broken during UPA II. Sonia Gandhi may still push for schemes to fight rural poverty but Manmohan Singh has abandoned his middle-class constituency. He has been reluctant to institute reforms citing the opposition of his party, has made little attempt to connect with educated Indians and has frequently seemed like an absentee Prime Minister: a decent man who has decided to throw in the towel and sleep off the rest of his term.
Consequently Singh’s traditional constituency has looked beyond him, beyond the Congress and beyond politics itself. The last two years have been characterised by an unprecedented flurry of middle-class activism. India Against Corruption (IAC) emerged as a rallying point for educated Indians who had lost faith in the political class. The courts became the only institution trusted by the middle class. Legislation was replaced by PILs and executive action by court judgements. As Parliament continued to be disrupted more often than it actually met, TV channels took over its role with important issues being debated in the studios for middle-class audiences.
Simultaneously, an explosion of social media has caught the government off-guard. Facebook and Twitter have become the arbiters of middle-class opinion. Those who understand the changes have benefitted. IAC used social media to devastating effect and the Sangh Parivar has war rooms all over India, packed out with campaigners and trolls who tweet the Parivar’s praises and abuse anybody with a conflicting perspective.
| "Rahul and the new generation may still turn things around; they may win over the middle class and offer a vision of hope to the young. But it’s not going to be easy." |
The UPA has gone the other extreme, coming off as an opponent of social media. Ministers have railed against the web and advocated internet censorship. Innocent people have been arrested in Congress-ruled states for harmless Facebook posts and innocuous tweets. Nor has the government understood the importance of TV news. For instance, the PM’s address to the nation after the Delhi gang rape came much too late and was marred by sloppy editing.
Judging by Sonia Gandhi’s speech at the Chintan Shivir, where she talked about the need to engage with the middle class, the Congress has finally realised how much trouble it is in. In recent weeks, young ministers have tried to create a presence in social media and there is talk of winning over the youth vote.
This may be too late. Considering that no other party has a number two figure who is as young as Rahul Gandhi and that the Congress’ brightest stars are its young ministers, the UPA should have the youth demographic all sewn up. In fact, younger voters are increasingly drawn to the likes of Narendra Modi. They were children when the Gujarat riots occurred and regard them as ancient history. They see Modi as a man who gets things done just as they see the UPA as a government that is sleep-walking through its term.
Much of this is the Congress’ own fault. It has taken too long to project Rahul Gandhi and its younger leaders. Even now, the general image of Rahul is of a man who goes and lives with Dalits in the villages. His economic positions (he was a passionate advocate of FDI in retail, for instance), his world view, or his understanding of middle-class perspectives, have gone unnoticed.
The UPA believes that it has a year or so to get its act together. Perhaps it does. But already, it is speaking in too many different voices. Even as Sonia Gandhi talks about engaging with the middle class, the government’s economic mandarins repeat those discredited old slogans: increase taxes on the rich; re-introduce estate duty; give more power to tax inspectors; etc. Far from reassuring a middle class battered by the recession, the government is actually issuing threats.
Rahul and the new generation may still turn things around; they may win over the middle class and offer a vision of hope to the young. But it’s not going to be easy.
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