The rise of a people’s leader

I first held Jawaharlal Nehru’s hand as a nine-year-old when he gave me a prize — a walkie-talkie doll — for my story in Shankar’s Weekly, the magazine founded by the cartoonist Shankar (Kesava ‘Shankar’ Pillai). “Ye gudiya tumse bhi lambi hai,” he said warmly, handing it to me. Sixty years later, while walking with his great-grandson as the Bharat Jodo Yatra passed through Delhi, I felt something of the same warmth, the same human connection.

In India’s contemporary politics, these two are by far the most demonised politicians. Possibly because they both represent an uncompromising rejection of the Sangh’s majoritarian idea of India.

Rahul Gandhi’s political stand is unambiguous: he positions himself as a defender of the Indian Constitution. Throughout his speeches, during the Bharat Jodo Yatra, he held the Constitution in his hand, using it as a symbol of what he believes is under threat. His message is simple yet powerful — the constitutional guarantees of equality, justice and fraternity are being systematically eroded, and all citizens must rise to protect them.

The sincerity of his claims resonates with the youth. They see an ally when he raises and amplifies their issues, as the Gen Z protesters, who recently shook up this arrogant government, will vouch.

Unlike older politicians who speak in careful platitudes, Gandhi has openly and repeatedly targeted the RSS–BJP and accused them of undermining democratic institutions. “This is a nexus between the RSS, the BJP and their appointees,” he said in his address to students, accusing the RSS-BJP of destroying India’s education system. For a generation that has grown up witnessing the consolidation of power under the Modi government, such straightforward talk is refreshing.

The turning point in Rahul Gandhi’s political journey was the Bharat Jodo Yatra. From 7 September 2022 to 30 January 2023, he walked over 4,000 km from Kanyakumari to Srinagar, covering 12 states and two Union territories. The Yatra was not a scripted campaign but an open-ended engagement with the people — Rahul listened more than he spoke, with the communities he engaged with determining the contours of their interaction. They didn’t just receive more promises.

The Yatra succeeded because it rejected the idea that leadership is about control. It created spaces where unheard voices could shape the conversation with a national leader. It was, in essence, an act of trust-building with citizens — and trust, the youth instinctively know, cannot be manufactured through media campaigns.

The Yatra articulated an alternative vision for national politics. It was an assertion of the possibility that we, the people of India, can reject the politics of polarisation and division and embrace once again a politics of pluralism, that we can move away from the suspicion and nafrat that has come to define our politics towards a politics of inclusion and mohabbat.

In his political practice, Rahul Gandhi has represented this possibility. And he has stood with the aggrieved and the marginalised. Three prominent tehriks come to mind — the farmers’ protest, the ethnic violence in Manipur, the wrestlers’ dharna.

He stood with the farmers. “You are beating them, threatening them. The government needs to talk to the farmers and give a solution, and the only solution is repealing these laws.” To the farmers, he said: “do not move even an inch” (from their protest sites). He framed it as a battle between ordinary farmers and big corporates like Adani and Ambani. This was not hesitant opposition — it was full-throated support for a movement that the government was trying to suppress.

In Manipur. Gandhi was among the first political leaders to visit relief camps and meet affected women and children. He rose in Parliament to say: “Our prime minister has not gone there. He does not consider Manipur part of India.”

When India’s top wrestlers were protesting against then Wrestling Federation of India president Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, Rahul Gandhi showed up at their akhara in Haryana. He interacted with them, participated in wrestling exercises and expressed solidarity in their fight for justice.

Most recently, when students across India took to the streets over the NEET-UG paper leak and were demanding the resignation of the education minister, he was again there to stand with them, to back them up, to amplify their demands, to raise the political stakes for the government. The ‘Chhatron Ki Goonj’ rallies he has led are taking the agitation across the country. Rallies have been held in Kota, Dehradun and Prayagraj, and at the time of writing, a fourth was scheduled in Pune on 22 August.

His message is simple. “Papers have leaked multiple times and the future of two crore youth has been ruined. If the government cannot protect you, the Opposition will.” He made three “non-negotiable demands” — sacking the (then) education minister Dharmendra Pradhan, whom he called ‘corrupt, incompetent and misaligned’; action against the police that brutalised the young protesters; a formal public apology from the Prime Minister of India.

Rahul stood with the protesting students, not as a detached patron but as an active ally who channelled their energy into the political arena. Tapping into their impatience with the political gerontocracy that has clung to power, he said: “Students are the future of India; Narendra Modi is the past, and the past can never fight the future.”

For India’s Gen Z that came of age in the Modi years, this is not just political rhetoric. They have grown up in a country where unemployment is high, paper leaks are routine and the promise of a better future looks remote.

They have seen the system fail them, and they are looking for someone who refuses to be a part of that system. It is hard to miss that Rahul Gandhi, for all the baggage he might still carry as a ‘dynastic politician’, speaks truth to power, does so fearlessly, and is a leader who is looking for nothing less than a fundamental reordering of our politics.

There is no denying his political inheritance, and the youth profess their disdain of inherited privilege. His party, the Congress, has often been accused of failing to build robust organisational structures. And it’s not clear if Rahul Gandhi’s digital and protest-led outreach can forge a winning Opposition. Yet this is the man who says: “The past can never fight the future.” For millions of young Indians, this is not just a slogan — it is a declaration of intent. In Rahul Gandhi, they see a leader who is on their side.

Syeda Hameed is a writer, activist and former Member of the Planning Commission; Tanveer Husain Khan is a researcher and activist, Anantnag, J&K