Rahul Gandhi is a unique character in Indian politics. He often reminds  of a chief without a fighting force. A  lone ranger, he is trying to make his way, where all roads seem to be in a blocked mode. He is trying to navigate valiantly but without much success. He is the beneficiary of the leadership of one of the world's oldest political party- Indian National Congress. His mother is the current President of the Congress party and every one knows that it is a matter of time before he is anointed as its next President. However nothing seems to be going the smooth way for either Rahul or the party.

Background :

Rahul Gandhi is the son of Rajiv Gandhi, the grandson of the formidable Indira Gandhi and the great grandson of  Jawaharlal Nehru, all three of them became prime ministers of India and  the latter two died in office. Between them they held the PM's post for about four decades and helped shaped India's destiny in a very significant way. Their hold on the masses was considerable. The Congress party which fought for India's freedom gradually became their family organization. The democratic Nehru's heirs became a political dynasty. The broad based Congress party at the time of India's independence has over the decades become a family owned or ruled fiefdom. Rahul is its latest member ready to inherit the mantle of the party's leadership. However this act of passing the baton from the mother to the son gets being postponed since a few years and has been once again differed till next year. It clearly indicates that the going is not all that smooth for Rahul to take over.

The Challenge :

Young Indians seem to be moving away from dynastic politics. At least that is the impression one gets while judging the dismal performance of the Congress party in the 2014 elections and thereafter. It was a strong reason, though corruption in the UPA coalition  was perhaps the most compelling reasons why voters voted against Congress. The present ruling dispensation is led by a very strong charismatic leader who is everything that Rahul isn't. 

The 5' 7" Rahul is born in 1970 and entered politics in 2004 and since then is the MP from his late father's constituency Amethi. His sister Priyanka comes out to campaign only for him and mother Sonia Gandhi. Rahul comes out as a shy, reluctant, average speaker possessing limited vocabulary, mild mannered who seems all the time to be trying and trying and has yet to taste success.  Modi comes out as an willing, aggressive, effective orator with a brilliant vocabulary, who has tasted success and is hungry for more.

Style :

A distinct feature of Rahul's style is that he goes into frequent hibernations every  few weeks. Then suddenly parachutes at a few places, makes a few statements only to vanish again from the public view. This does not enable him to build a bond with his dwindling  party's supporters. I do not think he has ever been arrested for leading a procession or has come on the streets to enthuse his party workers. His protected style therefore comes out as arm chair style of politics. Led from closed rooms. 

When pitched against a hands down aggressive leader of the ruling party, this withdrawn style of leadership is bound to fail because it suffers tremendously by comparison and content. Like in golf, many would give him a handicap provided he was seen trying hard. There seems to be some force holding him back from going all out. The Congress is at its nadir in its history and is also on verge of being reduced to a state of vegetative existence. At such times the quality of leadership should be superlative. But what is the party offering  Rahul Gandhi  or what is he expecting from them.

Problem :

It is now coming out that Rahul's leadership is being resented by established and well entrenched senior Congress leaders well past the age of sixty years. Congress in fact has too many of these ageless leaders. They would be uncomfortable with Rahul at the helm and would in fact stand ignored. They could form a bloc of disgruntled leaders whose nuisance vale could be damaging to the party. The emerging scenario is akin to the time  Indira Gandhi found herself being cornered by veteran Congress leaders led by the octogenarian Morarjee Desai in thelate 1960's. Her ststure could see her through but not before she split the Congress into two and in the process isolated the veterans. She then led the Congress and remained its undisputed leader for nearly sixteen years.

Can Rahul repeat Indira's feat? Looks extremely doubtful mainly because Rahul lacks the charisma and skill of Indira. It is going to be a long drawn battle before Rahul can aspire to become the leader of the party. The passage will be rough and many side battles will be fought openly or covertly. It can be reasonably assumed that the younger lot will go with Rahul and the elder lot will want Sonia to continue as long as possible. No one wants to lose power at any age, more so in politics. 

This uncertainty is telling on Rahul. He is not able to emerge as a full time leader and in fazt is seen as a part time leader. He appears and vanishes like comets. The visibility is momentary and  impact is also lost. When he is not sure of cooperation from senior leaders he is not able to take initiative. In the process his image is not getting established. BJP and especially Modi have encashed this aspect to the fullest and  have succeeded in portraying him as a novice in politics who is surviving because of dynasty. The more time Rahul takes to exert himself the more this image will get strengthened.

Action:

The internal resistance within the Congress will continue as that is the nature of politicians, but strong leaders can overcome it. However the Congress is in a very weak position and  unless it wins in some states of significance Rahul will not be in a position to exert himself. He has to show victories to raise his stature and uplift his image. It is easier said than done. Modi and BJP are not going to make it easy for him.

Rahul has to be pro active if he wants to take over the leadership of the Congress. He must fight for it and win it. It will boost his image as a go getter and show him as a decisive person. This will teach him how to plan, identify persons. make strategies and counter moves and above all take tough decisions. After all one whom the party wants to project as a future PM cannot be a goody goody person. He has to learn to survive in the cut throat of Indian politics. He does not have to look far. He can learn many lessons from the one who ridicules him the most. 

The Congress party is at crossroads today. It is at its lowest ebb in its history. It is led by a person who was a reluctant politician. How long can she lead. The next generation has to move in. Because it is a dynasty led party it is going to be Rahul by present indications. He therefore has to show grit and accept the post sooner than later. Or Priyanka is not too far of and Modi could be in for a long haul. Rahul has to lead upfront now or never.

I have given an account of the Kargil war, where timidity of the Vajpayee government allowed the war to become a stalemate. Obviously India achieved nothing after the Kargil war. But there is one war in 1971, which led to the creation of Bangladesh and was a decisive victory for India and yet India allowed the advantage of victory to slip away despite the fact that we held 93000 Pakistan army POWs . How did this happen that a victorious India allowed the fruits of victory to slip away from its fingers?  The answer lies in the gullibility of Indira Gandhi and the astute skill of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the Pakistani leader.

After the creation of Bangladesh, Indian army held 93000 Pakistani soldiers as POW. This was the time to strike a hard bargain on Kashmir and ask that the present Line of Control be converted to an international border. I am told this was agreed to by Bhutto in a secret talk with Indira Gandhi, but later Pakistan denied it. In fact in the Simla accord, India agreed to discuss the Kashmir problem with Pakistan. Bhutto had assured Indira Gandhi that this was just a ploy to please hardliners in Pakistan and he would soon move forward on Kashmir. Bhutto was working to a plan and during this meeting he gave away nothing and in turn was able to get his POWs back. This was a great achievement. Indira Gandhi was outsmarted by Bhutto, who not only got his POWs back, but also made India accept that a problem in Kashmir existed. Rarely has a victor at a conference been so misled as Indira Gandhi was during the Simla meeting.

In hindsight, India frittered away a great opportunity to settle the Kashmir issue. India should have insisted on a Kashmir solution and agreed for a return  of the POWs only after that. By handing over the POWs, India lost all leverage on Kashmir. in effect the Simla accord was a blunder. Whatever Bhutto agreed privately is not recorded and now we can say that Bhutto played his cards in an adroit manner.

In fact after the victory in Bengal, the war should have been continued. Additional troops from Bengal would have been available and an attack on Kashmir was a necessity.. Pakistan was in the throes of a crisis and Yahya Khan had resigned, it was an opportune moment to try and solve the Kashmir issue.  History records that India failed and today the Kashmir issue is alive as ever.

There is much backslapping and some intemperate statements by government ministers hailing the recent Burma operation against militants a "great success". The operation became inevitable after 18 Indian soldiers of the Dogra regiment were killed in an ambush. The prime minister himself authorised the operation and it was planned by Ajit Doval, security advisor to the government.

I have met many people on the road and at parties who have felt great satisfaction that anything from 50-150 militants have been killed. The first man to strike a discordant note was my friend from the local military police who opined the operation a failure. What really happened? Now I can write without anyone asking me how I got this information as IBN Live on 15 June broadcast that the operation was a failure as one of the camps was empty , with not a single militant available and in the second camp there were very few militants and the army could count only 8 bodies after the operation. One can stretch it and  say that perhaps 10-12 militants were all that were killed.

The operation was thus a military failure. One of my friends still in service told me that the security advisor had no experience of any covert operation earlier and he was not prepared to strike like the  Green Berets in Vietnam and the SEAL in Afghanistan. The requirement was to use heligunships for the attack as this would have saved at least an hour. The government and the advisor were not prepared to use gunships as it would violate the air sovereignty of Burma and escalate the operation. The troops were dropped some miles away from the camps and made it there by foot and all they could get were empty camps as the militants had fled. 

In short it was a badly planned operation and no fault can be attached to the army for this. Worse many ministers began crow about the " success" of the operation and the fallout is not good. Burma is miffed at this operation and its unlikely they will allow another operation. The security advisor is now despatched to Rangoon to assuage the feelings of the Burmese. The damage is done by the government ministers from Raj Nath Singh downwards who have  a lot to answer for. Such covert operations are firstly not advertised and they are only broadcast in case there is significant success. In this an operation that yielded just 10 militants killed is nothing to crow about. In turn we have antagonised the Burmese and this will affect future military cooperation.

Its best to be realistic and avoid chest thumping, that its a warning to Pakistan. Such talk  can be dismissed as just talk. The reality is entirely different and  such operations can only be a success when we match China militarily and overwhelm Pakistan, which is not the case.

The Kargil operation in Kashmir under the aegis of the BJP and the Vajpayee government is generally touted in the Indian press as a great victory. At the outset let me inform readers on Boddunan that I was very much part of the operations and what I write now is from personal knowledge. I feel the true facts are not represented to the Indian people and the operation talked off as a ' Victory' while in real terms it can be described as a stalemate. It  is rarely mentioned that India suffered double the  casualties in comparison to the enemy. 

Kashmir is a mountainous country with thick jungles. The Line of Control is not clearly demarcated at many points and runs through thick forests and mountains. Some of the peaks like at Kargil are at great heights and in winter it becomes difficult to sustain troops at that altitude. Here is the first blunder committed by the Indian general staff. The Indian posts were vacated by the army on the Kargil heights as winter had set in. The idea was to go back to the bunkers when summer came. This was an extremely silly move and Pakistan took advantage of this.General Musharraf the Chief of staff of the Pakistan army made secret plans to engage Indians in kargil and kept even his Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in the  dark.

In thick winter the troops of the Northern Light Infantry crept up to the vacated posts  of the Indian army and occupied them. The idea was to present a fait accompli to the Indian army.  it was a shrewd move and when summer came and the Indian army troops went back to their bunkers they were shot at and had to retreat. it was clear that the Pak army had occupied the heights.

An order to throw out the Pakistan army was given, but an attack by the army  came a cropper with heavy casualities. A decision was taken to press in the Air Force and 155 mm heavy guns were brought in. These had an effect  and slowly under heavy artillery fire and air bombardment in what is known as "close air support" the Indian  army began to recapture  the heights. But it was a terrible battle and the Indian army at places suffered 3 times the enemy dead and wounded.

At that time the army mentioned that opening another front in a place like Rajasthan in the Barmar sector would relieve pressure on Kargil.  A siimilar action had been authorised by that little big man Lal Bahadur Shastri in the1965 war. A that time to relieve the pressure of the Pakistan army thrust in the Chamb- Jaurian Sector the Indian army was cleared to open a front in the Lahore sector. This is part of history and Bahadur Shastri deserves great praise for this action.

However Atal Bihari vajpayee was not made of same mettle and he did not authorise a invasion and opening of a second front as he wanted to end the war. He thus in a way deprived the army of a victory. In the meantime casualties were mounting, but the army was pushing the enemy back.

Bill Clinton the US president now stepped in. He brought about a  cease fire. Nawaz Sharif who had been sidelined by his army chief agreed for a cease fire,though Musharraf was not in favor of it. Hostilities thus ended and the war was over. As per the terms of the cease fire the  Pak army vacated the heights with with them, but it was a pyrrhic victory and at best stalemate. in hindsight the timid approach of the BJP government led by Vajpayee  denied a complete victory to India.