In a fluent, informal, speech at the annual general meeting of the Confederation of Indian Industry on Thursday that was punctuated with applause, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi set out his vision of the political economy of India that underlined not only his acquaintance with the existential condition of the poor but also concentrated on the hope and optimism that the marginalised sections nurse in their bosom.
Mr Gandhi’s operating message was that government and industry must work in tandem to help the poor and the middle class harness their energies and realise their dreams. The government cannot do this alone, he pointed out.
No Congress leader before has spoken of the need for long-term partnership between government and industry in an environment of predictability. This call for synergy — rather than a takeover of one by the other — signifies a landmark departure, a new construct for India, where suspicion of business and industry abounds in the politics of almost all parties.
Mr Gandhi stressed the need to “embrace the complexity of India”, and urged that equipping the new century’s Indian — without discriminating on the basis of religion or region — with appropriate skills for industry, a point also highlighted in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s address to the CII a day earlier, would incalculably boost economic activity in the country.
The Congress leader’s address was reflective. It was free of rancour. There was no boastfulness or name-calling. With anecdotal references the speech underscored the need for systemic change in a way that helps the ordinary Indian find his true voice. And it is this that could transform India, Mr Gandhi observed.
He was at pains to suggest that no knight in shining armour can make the difference, and who can be Prime Minister is far from being the real question before the country. Political processes in India were choked and cut off from ground realities, Mr Gandhi said, and implied the system as a whole was broken as people looked to the top for solving even local problems.
Massive infrastructure projects in roads, ports and electricity would infuse energy in economic life and help ordinary people who were on the move, the Congress vice-president said. This was his chief policy reference, beside that of skill development. The rest of the speech may be more appropriately called a framework formulation.
In the current political season, comparing Mr Gandhi with the BJP’s Narendra Modi may be unavoidable. The latter’s backers even courted such comparison, assuming their combative leader would easily triumph over the Congressman whose style was marked by reticence. That assumption now needs a relook, although the two leaders are as different from one another as chalk is from cheese.