A Really Stupid Idea

If Rahul’s protégé was acting on her own, he should reconsider how his team operates

So, the Congress has made it clear. It has nothing to do with the monstrous law to gag the media that its Member of Parliament and All India Congress Committee Secretary Meenakshi Natarajan wants Parliament to pass. More than distancing itself from the Bill—which was to be tabled last Friday in the Lok Sabha, a day earmarked for private members’ business—the party wants to make it clear that the Congress’ pre-eminent General Secretary, Rahul Gandhi, is not responsible for the widely criticised idea. The party first got an ordinary spokesperson to say it was Natarajan’s own doing, and then the mighty boss of all Congress spokespersons—Party General Secretary and AICC media department chief Janardhan Dwivedi—to clarify that Rahul Gandhi is certainly not behind Natarajan’s grand and draconian idea. “The Bill was based on her views. These are not the views of Rahul Gandhi. Neither are these his views nor has she got his consent for this Bill,” Dwivedi told journalists on 1 May, emphasising that Rahul was unaware of the move that his deputy, who is supervising the National Students’ Union of India and therefore a coordinator for at least some part of his plan to rejuvenate the party’s youth organisations, had made.

In that case, the Congress has an even bigger problem at hand. As general secretary in charge of youth organisations, Rahul Gandhi is directly responsible for the Indian Youth Congress and NSUI.  Natarajan is one of only two secretaries of the Congress attached to Gandhi. If one hand does not know what the other is up to, things are bound to go wrong. But, if the head does not know what the hand is doing, it should be reason enough for the Congress to sound an alarm.

Ironically, the Bill, which was listed for consideration by the House, could not be tabled in the Lok Sabha because Natarajan was absent. Many MPs who are part of Rahul Gandhi’s core team have chosen to mock Parliamentary democracy by getting elected and then either not showing up often enough or not participating in the proceedings. Gandhi himself has only participated in one debate in the past three years of the UPA’s rule, and has never asked a question in the House. Natarajan’s record is a lot better than her boss’ though. Her attendance in Parliament is 87 per cent as opposed to his 42 per cent.

The thing is, if her exhaustive, meticulously drafted 14-page Print and Electronic Media Standards and Regulation Bill, 2012, actually became law, you would probably not have got to read this. Among other things, it prohibits publishing or broadcasting any material that is ‘defamatory’. Current Indian defamation laws allow ‘fair comment’ or ‘statement of fact’ as grounds for defence against hurting someone’s reputation. Natarajan’s proposed Bill speaks of setting up a regulatory authority selected entirely by the Central Government that would be beyond the purview of the RTI and civil courts. It empowers the authority to order a search and seize any document ‘kept secretly at some secluded place’.  The authority can suspend operations of a media organisation for a period of up to 11 months—enough to effect permanent closure.

As it is, members of Rahul’s team, and Natarajan in particular, have been opaque enough in their conduct with the media. Now with the party claiming that Gandhi is not behind this idea, it could mean two things: either the Congress is lying or there is a total breakdown of communication  in the Congress’ emerging leadership. The party has already paid the price for its ways recently in Uttar Pradesh.

But the Congress is India’s single largest party and also in power. The misadventures of its leaders affect not only the party, but also the people of the country. We are already paying a price for scams in its first run, and now, for the policy paralysis of the UPA II. If the Congress manages to achieve power in a future election, whether the next or one after that, and if Gandhi heads a government—as Congressmen have declared ad nauseum—Natarajan will probably have an important role in the Government. After all, she was handpicked by Rahul to contest a Lok Sabha seat—Mandsaur. This is not the first time Natarajan has embarrassed her party. When Atal Bihari Vajpayee was Prime Minister, the Madhya Pradesh Youth Congress under her coined a slogan that said he was a beef-eater. The BJP dragged the Congress to court. Now a recently-published book in which she is interviewed reveals that Natarajan is an admirer of Anna Hazare. Since she does not care to share her ideas with Rahul Gandhi on important matters like media regulation, maybe Gandhi should read that interview before Natarajan asks for a ban on books, and tell her that the Emergency was not the Congress’ only contribution to democracy.

CongressmediaMeenakshi NatarajanRahul Gandhi