Can Rahul Gandhi upstage Modi?

Since the Congress Party is pitching Rahul Gandhi firmly against Narendra Modi, it is assumed that in the next general elections (2019), he will be the prime ministerial candidate from INC. So a natural question often asked is if he can upstage Modi.

What? This is what they give me for winning the second world war for them? Atrocious. 

Clement Attlee won against Winston Churchill who had just won the second World War for Britain. Strangest things can happen in politics, just when the incumbent thinks it's all settled. The collective consciousness of the voters is a notoriously fickle animal, loyal to no one.

Rahul Gandhi too can beat Mr. Modi politically. Here's how I think it can happen-

• Don't denigrate him, Upgrade yourself - Instead of finding faults with Modi and the BJP, Rahul's primary strategy now must be to upgrade his own positive communication. He has never run a Ministry or a Department in executive capacity. It’s easy to criticise others when you haven’t been in those shoes. He should accept this cardinal truth. And then, don the mantle of a serious CEO for some party project (as of now), to have the seed of positivity develop within. India can do well with more positive and dynamic leaders.
• Take responsibility beyond tokenism - Not letting final responsibility for any failure land at the Gandhis' doorstep has become Congress's trademark strategy. But it cannot go on for ever. As we can see after every state elections, it is turning out to be a very bad idea. Leadership is not a pick-and-choose job; you get atop the horse into the battle all guns blazing. If it's death, so be it. Congress is losing a lot of voter base due to this. Rahul should take the lead in puncturing the protective shield. When defeated, he must come out (not smiling but with a sad face) and say he’ll try much harder the next time.
• Stop patronising Indians - Modi treats his audience with tremendous respect. Yes, he plays to the gallery often, but in style. Rahul probably assumes they have no handle on world affairs. Even in elite colleges, the communication is beyond belief - it feels his speech-writers assume it’s still 1991 or 1981. In this age and time, he must reinvent. He'll gain immediate respect. He really needs to work on communication skills (beyond fluent Hindi and English), by becoming truly focused on what the youth want to hear. Technically correct stuff.
• Study a lot - Rahul needs depth. No Prashant Kishore, Jyotiraditya or Digvijay Singh can do it for him (all of them tremendously talented). In politics today, standards have risen very fast (at least at the national level). Educated people who may be opinion leaders in media will give him traction if he improves. He should learn from Modi, who despite lacking the urban finesse in English, cracks it everytime.
• Lead from the front - If you really want people to take you seriously, do what you say. Avoid the drama, get your hands dirty. Avoid bootlickers, get real taskmasters. Avoid the past, talk of the future. Rahul has the huge disadvantage of an elite pedigree. He needs to work double-hard. When you pull Modi down saying jobs haven’t been created, do tell us how you would have done it practically.

The BJP assumed it would be a cake-walk in 2004 when the Shining India campaign did them in. Nothing is permanent, at least not in the shifting sands of Indian politics. If Rahul truly harbours the dream of becoming India’s PM one day, and if he really does become the PM after 2019 or 2024, he will desperately need the above skills. The image below is from 2014, before the results came in.

I have not written on the standard line of argument - allegations of corruption etc. - because every single Party in India has its share of Netas for whom corruption is not anathema. That will change with time.
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Quick Interview Handling Tips

To put it succinctly, the standard advice is - be honest, be yourself and be useful. Honesty will help you stay focussed on the reality instead of cooking up stories, being yourself will eliminate all artificiality, and being useful (to the interviewers) will prove you are a potential asset not a liability.

These traits work wonderfully well, across sectors and profiles. So be it a Civil Services panel interview, or an MBA selection board, or a job promotion screening, these will work.

(1) Humility, even if they're recruiting for the Chief Assassin's post. That is because no matter howsoever meritocratic the organisation is, humility makes the recruiters and bosses look at your much more favourably. However, make it as natural as you can ;)

(2) Eye-contact, as nothing evokes greater trust than positive, solid eye-contact. At least you look truthful doing that. Just make sure you look at everyone in the panel, and not a particular individual (you’ll scare the poor soul)! And yes, don’t stare, just look normally.

(3) Sense of humour, as that shows your human side like nothing else does. Just remember - you’re not inside your hostel room in the dead of night. This is a decent social setting, with seniors. So crack clean jokes. If you utterly lack access to such, please gather some consciously! And don’t crack jokes that take some effort to understand, either.

Humour indicates depth. Self-deprecating intelligent humour indicates confidence as well.

(4) Groundwork, regarding the specific domain of the interview, is critical. You must read the entire website of the company (organisation); prepare summary notes; remember top 10 facts worth remembering and relevant to your job. This will make you supremely confident as you know the contours now.

(5) Google search the top keywords relevant to the job and company. It’ll throw up very useful data. Go through all those links carefully once. If lady luck favours you, the code would stand cracked!

(6) LinkedIn search the top bosses of the company. Their strategy would be visible to you at a primary level. But don’t cozy up with them immediately through connection request and such, they may not respond at all.

(7) Clean up the social media, boy! Before you land up for the interview, clean up your immediate posts on all social media. Delete the obnoxious stuff. If your social media is cluttered with horrifying insights into your deep persona, get ready for some stares from the panel. Hope you got the point! [ of course, it depends on the seniority level too ]

(8) Execute on the D-day perfectly. Take a bath, wear neat clothes, wear little perfume, don’t smoke (or drink!) that day, take your meals properly, be positive, switch off your phone prior to and during the interview (unless you need to show some online project work, App, etc.), carry a good quality pen, avoid conspicuous footwear, don’t be stubborn about tea/coffee/biscuits offered during the interview (like - Sorry sir, I cannot take tea/coffee. I’ve never taken it.), maintain positive body language (neither too informal nor too stiff) and carry a properly arranged portfolio! (Phew - it’s better to start a company than doing this - ha ha)

​Remember, they need you as much as you need them. Go ahead, crack it!

Thanks for reading, and have a good day!

A comprehensive, topic-wise and useful collection of my various posts and answers can be found here. Enjoy.

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What has Arvind Kejriwal achieved as a politician?

In my view, he has achieved the following -

• Given hope - that you actually can rise in politics even if you are not the son or daughter of a big political hotshot
• Provided a mirror - to the BJP & Congress that India is not at all a homogenously winnable equation, and that the strangest of challenges can erupt as long as genuine poverty persists
• Provided a voice - to the poorest of the poor urban classes, in a political system that has no respect for them except during election seasons
• Given birth to a new political class - Unknown individuals till yesterday could rise and shine as people's representatives, in a system where it is otherwise literally impossible to do so
• Leashed the mighty - Love him or hate him, he is the embodiment of the key democratic principle that "People power actually is supreme" and no Party can assume its continued reign as a God-given right

Not a pleasant sight for the traditional political classes

In a horribly corrupt and criminalised system, where the sole motive of many who enter is rent-seeking of the most merciless variety, these surely count as massive achievements. While growing up in the 1970s and 80s, I remember distinctly how nearly everyone lamented the lack of educated people in Indian politics. Well, now we have one, with a bang. Let us hope he can deliver, in a spirit of cooperative federalism.

In a vast, diverse, complex and densely populated federal nation like India, even a powerful new idea will take time to show results. Kejriwal and Aam Aadmi Party deserve their fair share of time.

Why did communism as an economic philosophy not succeed

To understand the reasons for its ‘failure’, a quick look at its evolution is necessary.

• Communism as a theory was a result of the brutal working conditions in the English factories during the Industrial Revolution. Men, women and children were being massacred through 18 hour workdays seven days a week, in hazardous conditions. Society and families in the newly evolved ‘urban areas’ had broken down (except, of course, for the factory owners).

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  Founding Fathers

  This prompted Karl Marx to postulate a wonderful response in his seminal work Das Kapital - the Proletariat Revolution - which was a revolution of the industrial working classes against the newly-rich bourgeoisie. But for all its wonders, communism was still a theory.
• It was turned into a ruling ideology with Vladimir Lenin’s communist takeover of royal Russia in 1917. The Romanov dynasty was murdered (removed), and communists took over through a series of brutal machinations, internal and external. That grew into the Soviet regime. Then came the Chinese communism with Mao Tse-tung unfurling the PRC red flag in Beijing on 01–10–1949. Both the Soviets and Chinese tried to spread their influence worldwide, the Soviets succeeding to a greater extent. And today, communism is in retreat worldwide.

Reasons why communism as an economic ideology did not succeed -

No more Rajan for the RBI

Finally, the cat is out of the bag. The dashing RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan, whose 3 year stint as the boss of India's central bank saw him handle multiple grave challenges with aplomb, has finally called it a day. He will not accept a second term, is what the official RBI note (released 18-06-2016) says.

I find this amazingly sad, and very unfortunate. I feel so because he achieved much more in a limited three year period than many would have imagined. Here's a quick list-

Illustrious

1. Stabilising the boat when everything was choppy - In 2013, I distinctly remember taking classes discussing economic developments and the mood was of despondency. The rupee was in free fall, everyone was doubting the economy's long-term prospects, a rudderless administration was all that was visible, etc. In that scenario, he accepted the challenge and rose to the occasion like a mighty warrior. His presence soon was enough to calm nervous temperaments. In retrospect, if he did not believe in the India story, and was not "Indian enough", he could easily have refused the offer. I read in various publications that international investors found his mere presence very reassuring. There are fears that the rupee may take a hit now, fearing many populist measures by the new boss (that's pure speculation, though).  

Narendra Modi, India's diplomatic ambitions, and the US Congress speech

India has traditionally been a non-aligned nation. It has neither been a very close friend of any major power, nor has antagonised anyone unnecessarily. However, developments over the past two decades in global politics, especially the Sino-Pakistan all-weather friendship in India's backyard, created serious threats for Indian interests not just in the sub-continent but globally. Hence, the Indian establishment has taken up a proactive global diplomatic relationship-building on multiple fronts. This picked up pace post the inauguration of the Modi government in 2014. 

Namaste, from the emerging superpower

Multiple energetic initiatives followed, not the least of them being Prime Minister Modi leading the global charge personally. Despite constant ridicule he faced at home from a shrill media, and multiple WhatsApp memes, labelling him 'a visiting PM India has', he has continued undaunted. For all that, the results are beginning to show in a big way now, beginning with India gaining a positive edge for MTCR membership, further strengthening its case for a berth in the NSG, vital to our long-term Uranium needs.

In this background, PM Modi delivered a speech to the joint session of the US Congress on 08-June 2016, which summed up his multi-directional efforts. Undoubtedly, to my mind at least, it was one of his best speeches. I share a few pointers as to why it is so -

The technology storm is arriving!

We all are accustomed to a regular use of technology instruments. We like it when with the minimum of effort, we are able to extract the maximum amount of output. Try asking the professionals active through the 1980s and 90s about the effort it would take just to make phone calls and receive fax messages! One had to put aside work, and focus and destroy one's energy on contacting people and getting others to prepare documents (and then the copies!). Things very pretty slow. Compared to today, work-efficiencies were not even 10%. Then came the storm called the internet. In just a decade, this storm simplified certain basic complications related to getting work done to such an extent that professionals and entrepreneurs could now focus their energies on more constructive and positive aspects of new work. The quality of life and work rose significantly. Then the arrival of social media made us feel that life without it would not even have been one. We modern humans totally accustomed to smartphones now believe that technology is now at its peak. But, the real storm is yet to arrive. Over the next 10 to 20 years, five major changes will become a part of our lives, which few have even imagined or thought about, today.

Times are changing!

Change 1. Money becoming invisible. The generations to come will wonder about their ancestors who carried physical money (notes, coins) in their wallets. This is now nearing its end. The coming days belong to virtual money. You will be making payments through just one card to anyone - including the vegetable vendor! If all businesses have the type of machines (that take such electronic payments), it would be quite possible. Work already has commenced. India has evolved its own payment system frameworks, and its own payment card too has arrived (the RuPay card). It is obvious that the government will slowly evolve rules and regulations to minimise and eliminate the physical transaction of currency. The benefits are many - instant accounting, a check on black money, procedural ease, ease of transferring subsidies (first to the bank account and then to the cards), etc. Hence, all these things, in an invisible form, will reside inside the card!