One has to admire the Congress party’s remarkable gift for retroactive genius. The Centre announces a caste census, and promptly, Rahul Gandhi is credited as the visionary who forced the government’s hand. Never mind that for over six decades, when the Congress ruled uninterrupted, the very idea of caste enumeration was brushed under the carpet.
From Jawaharlal Nehru’s apprehensions about deepening caste divisions to Indira Gandhi’s steadfast silence on the matter, the party’s legacy on caste census is one of avoidance, not advocacy. Now, suddenly, Rahul Gandhi walks a few thousand kilometres, and the Congress declares that history began with the Bharat Jodo Yatra.
Clever timing
What we are witnessing is not leadership, but opportunism. A process long under discussion, with administrative groundwork already underway, is hijacked by a party that shouted ‘me first’ once it sensed momentum. It is a school kid’s tactic – arrive late, declare ownership, and hope the teacher is too distracted to notice.
The Modi government has rarely been shy about big, structural moves. Whether or not one agrees with all of them, it is difficult to imagine that this government needed nudging from Rahul to think about caste data. The Congress might as well claim credit for every sunrise after Rahul stretches in the morning.
Faulty in Telangana
As for Telangana’s supposed trailblazing, let us not confuse speed with sincerity. Chief Minister Revanth Reddy talks of completing a thorough caste survey in record time. From personal experience, I can confirm: it was anything but. The census staff came, took some details from me, and never returned for my elder son’s. If this is how thorough they were in a single household, one dreads to imagine the scale of the gaps across the state.
Accuracy in such an exercise is everything. And when the counting itself is half-baked, boasting about being the first to finish is like racing through a marathon, skipping every third checkpoint, and demanding a medal.
Borrowed feathers
In trying to claim a moral high ground it has long ignored, the Congress comes off more as a party struggling for relevance than one setting the national agenda. The Modi government has moved the policy dial in ways that few earlier regimes dared. In contrast, Congress is left to parade borrowed feathers, insisting they belonged to it all along.
