Rahul Gandhi: A sensitive leader but gaffe-prone

Know your Hindi well if you intend to engage in Hindi heartland politics

Standing close to the ramparts of the Red Fort, at a carefully chosen location right in front of the pulpit where prime ministers unfurl the national flag on Independence Day, Rahul Gandhi instantly hit a chord with the huge crowd assembled there when he said in Hindi, "Their television channels spread hatred day and night. They keep doing Hindu-Muslim, Hindu-Muslim. But brothers and sisters, this is not the truth. I have walked from Kanyakumari to here. This is not the truth. This (falsehood) is being spread by the media. This country stands united. I have met lakhs of people on these roads. Everyone loves each other. All embrace each other." Rahul's concern about the falsehood and juxtaposing it with reality was met with thunderous cheering and applause from the assembled crowd.

But soon after, a well-intentioned but wrongly worded and jarring sentence followed. To the dismay of fans of the evolving leader, the crowd almost fell silent, signalling a dampener on an otherwise fine speech. For a better understanding, read what the Congress leader uttered in Hindi. "Achchha, aapne dekha hoga. Pataa nahin aapne dekha ya nahin. Ismein kutte bhi aaye. Kutte bhi aaye ismein...kutte aaye...aur agar aap TV dekh rahe hotey aapne ek din dekhi hogi kutte ko kisi ne nahin mara. Kisi ne nahin aara. Ismein gai bhi aayi, bhains bhi aaye. Suar bhi aaaye... maine dekha...toh sab janwar aaye. Sab log aaye..."

The sentence also left a bad taste among the Old Dilliwallahs, many a Muslim among them who abhor pigs for religious reasons. Ready to pounce on any blip of its political adversaries, especially Rahul Gandhi, the BJP was quick to catch the nuanced mistake in sentence construction that brought worrisome looks on many fans of the Congress leader. Soon after the gaffe happened, BJP's IT Cell head tweeted (in bad taste, though), attaching Rahul's video clip, "A man is known by the company he keeps."

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Rahul's problem, perhaps, was that he first thought about the sentence in English and then translated it into Hindi. The original sentence that might have taken shape in his mind perhaps was - "You must have seen, or it may have skipped your sight. But what I witnessed was that our journey at times was joined in by people who came along with their dogs, cows, buffaloes, and even pigs, but nobody detested even these animals, and nobody hit them. The people kept walking alongside."

This problem lies in many Congress leaders as Hindi is not their first language but their lingua franca. They are flawless, smooth speakers of English but become an offender when they speak Hindi. A living example of this is Mani Shankar Aiyar, whose "Neech" comment to describe Narendra Modi cost Congress an election. Though Aiyar was quick to admit that what he meant in English was a man of lowly mentality, the damage was already done. The BJP was quick to pick it up and distort it by presenting it as an attack on Modi's OBC status. Similar big and small gaffes have been made by many Congress leaders.

There is nothing wrong with this, per se, as in many middle and upper-middle-class Indian homes, knowledge of Hindi is acquired after learning the regional language or English. But it matters a lot if you are addressing a multitude of people in the Hindi heartland. True that the BJP leaders have their own share of bloopers. Amit Shah's speeches are replete with such blunders. Modi also has a history of committing grave faux pas without the aid of a teleprompter. Yet there is a difference. Modi's mistakes happen because of a lack of knowledge, but his sentence construction and delivery remain unmatched.

Moreover, it doesn't matter to the masses whether Alexander entered Bihar or not or whether cloud cover can help evade radars or not. To top it all, the BJP has a formidable social media presence and nearly absolute control over television channels, which stand guard to stop it from reaching the public or help erase it from their memory altogether. Unfortunately, the Congress has no such cushion and hence can ill afford to have a margin of error.

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Rahul is touching the hearts of millions of people who are desperate to cling to hope in these dark times, but the final frontier cannot be won without knowing your language well. The answer lies in improving Hindi vocabulary and learning phrases and nuances of the language. For a proper understanding of any language, one needs to immerse in it culturally - converse regularly and deliberately daily with the people who speak that language freely, and read blogs and its contemporary literature, say for Hindi novels like Kashi Ka Assi, Raag Darbari, and many more. It is a given fact that a leader or politician can only have a pan-north India following if they talk in simple and chaste Hindi. Spicing it with simple wit and theatrics can sway the crowds and help gain popularity.

Some recent additions to the Congress, such as Kanhaiya Kumar and Imran Pratapgarhi, have this gift of language and gab naturally in them. They both come from humble Hindi backgrounds and have a strong understanding of the language and its nuances. For the elite, there are no shortcuts. Thanks to the electoral arithmetic, it is a sad fact that one cannot emerge as a challenger to Modi without understanding Hindi. Despite being a Gujarati, Modi knows his Hindi well and can also hit back with alacrity.

(The writer is a New Delhi-based senior journalist)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.