A day after being elevated as the vice president of India’s ruling Congress party, Rahul Gandhi on Sunday promised to fix the prevailing elitism in the nation’s politics, address the impatient anger of its youth and bring change, but told his supporters not to expect change too quickly.
Amid loud cheers from a hall full of party workers in Jaipur, the 42-year- old scion of India’s oldest and most privileged political dynasty outlined the coming challenges in a country that is rapidly modernising, has an assertive middle-class that wants to change the old ways of doing politics, and where more than two-thirds of its billion-plus people are under age 35, says a report published in The Washington Post. “The voices of a billion Indians are today telling us that they want a greater say in government, in politics and administration, they are telling us that the course of their lives cannot be decided by a handful of people behind closed doors who are not fully accountable to them,” Gandhi said, speaking about the increasing push among Indians for a more participatory style of decision-making. “They are telling us that India’s governmental system is stuck in the past, it has become a system that robs people of their voice.” Gandhi said “the answer isn’t in running the old system better, but in completely transforming” it. He did not, however, say how he planned to do so, but mentioned the ambitious new program to assign each Indian a unique biometric-based identity number. The government hopes to use these number to identify the poor and send them welfare money directly, cutting out the middlemen. Gandhi’s colleagues hope that his promotion will galvanise the demoralised party at a time when the Congress party-led coalition government in New Delhi has been besieged with public anger over corruption scandals and inflation. Thousands of young protesters poured into the streets last month and demanded measures to ensure the safety of women, better policing and tougher laws against rape, after the horrific gang-rape and murder of a young woman in New Delhi. But the police beat them back with canes, water canons and tear gas shells, and politicians continued to make misogynistic remarks. “Why is our youth angry? Why are they out on the street? They are angry because they are alienated, they are excluded from political class, they watch from the sidelines as the powerful drive around in their (cars with red beacon lights),” Gandhi said referring to the ivory-tower lifestyles of India’s politicians. “There is a young and impatient India and it is demanding a greater voice in the nation’s future.”
Earlier in the day, the party discussed ways to engage young voters via social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, which have triggered some of the protests. In a party that has been criticised for being completely controlled by the Nehru-Gandhi family, Gandhi said his goal is to prepare 40 to 50 leaders who were capable of running the country.
