Aag Ko Paani Ka Darr Bane Rehna Chahiye
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When Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated, I was eleven years old.
I still remember where I was standing in the house when I
heard the news. I remember the strange heaviness I felt as a child. It was the
kind of heaviness children are not even supposed to fully understand. But I
felt it. Deeply. I remember standing quietly in a corner and telling myself
something dramatic and childish: that one day there would be justice, that one
day I would do something about it.
Children often make silent promises to themselves like that.
Life moves on. Politics changes. Governments come and go. You grow up. You
forget the exact words, but not always the emotion behind them.
Years later, like millions of others in this country, I
developed strong opinions. Political too. Very strong ones. I argued, judged,
reacted, concluded. And somewhere during those years came that famous interview
of Rahul Gandhi with Arnab Goswami.
I remember watching it with shock. It was not any other
feeling: no anger, no hatred, no mockery. Shock. And discomfort.
I also remember finding parts of it unintentionally amusing.
Like many others, unwittingly, I participated in the mockery around him after
that interview. Though one thing I never bought into was the completely
manufactured caricature around him: the "Pappu" narrative, the WhatsApp
university propaganda, the ridiculous "aloo se sona" simplifications. Those
always felt dishonest to me.
But the interview itself stayed with me. It left me
disappointed. At that point, Rahul Gandhi appeared awkward, uncertain,
politically unprepared. It did not inspire confidence. And I think pretending
otherwise would itself be dishonest.
Slowly, over the years, my view of him started changing.
I cannot point to one exact moment. It wasn’t sudden. It
wasn’t one speech or one interview or one event. I just began noticing a
different human being than the one TV/social media had reduced him to.
And life sometimes places you unexpectedly close to people
you have only observed from a distance.
Over the last few years, I happened to attend two meetings
where Rahul Gandhi was present. In both meetings, I spoke and shared my
thoughts openly. In the first one, I had a lot to say. To my surprise, he asked
someone from his team to get in touch with me because he wanted to hear more
about my ideas. This was before the second phase of the Bharat Jodo Yatra.
What struck me was not his charisma, as some people tend to
cite. It was sincerity. I realised Rahul Gandhi is, at his core, a genuinely
decent human being. And I do not use that phrase casually.
He listens. Really listens. Not performative listening. Not
the kind politicians do while waiting for their turn to speak. He listens to
experts, activists, workers, ordinary people, people living difficult
realities, people who disagree with him, people who have nothing to offer him
politically.
And then he absorbs.
That is what struck me the most. This is a man who has
changed over time. A man who has evolved publicly, painfully, under relentless
scrutiny and ridicule. We rarely allow politicians the dignity of growth. We
freeze them permanently inside one bad interview, one meme, one narrative. But
human beings are more complicated than that.
There are still things about him I personally do not relate
to. Certain expressions of religiosity, for instance. But faith is personal.
That is his choice.
What moved me was something else entirely. His sincerity. His
openness. The absence of barriers around him.
There are many leaders who try to appear connected to
people. Rahul Gandhi actually makes people feel seen. He makes people feel
important. And anyone who has spent time around power knows how rare that truly
is.
Today, my admiration for him has very little to do with
whether or not he becomes Prime Minister someday. That is not even the point
anymore.
The point is this: in a time when fear is rewarded, when it
is safe to be silent, when institutions have bent, when propaganda overwhelms
truth, when cruelty has become normalised, this man continues to show up every
single day and fight.
 |
| Rahul Gandhi in Sonipat to attend farmer Sanjay Malik's daughter's wedding |
Somewhere, I think he understands the weight of the
situation he is in. He understands that history occasionally places certain
responsibilities on certain people, whether they asked for them or not.
And whatever one’s politics may be, it takes courage to
continue standing up in these times. It takes courage to repeatedly speak about
justice, unemployment, inequality, hatred, democratic erosion, institutional
collapse, etc., especially when doing so invites ridicule and abuse every single
day.
I admire his persistence. His humanity. What I admire is the
refusal to become cynical.
And perhaps history is strange this way: sometimes the
people living through an era fail to recognise certain individuals clearly
because they are too consumed by the noise of the present. But future
generations may look back differently. They may wonder why empathy was mocked. Why
decency was seen as weakness. Why a man trying to speak about justice was
dismissed so casually.
And perhaps they will understand something many are unable
to see today: that in deeply polarised and fearful times, simply remaining
human is itself an act of resistance.
(Initially, I thought of publishing this anonymously. Then realised the irony of celebrating someone's courage and hiding myself.)
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