Rahul's Rhetorical Revolution Requires Receipts

New Indian Express

a day ago

Democracy is built not on faith alone, but also on trust. Faith is blind; trust is earned. Faith allows you to believe in gods. Trust allows you to believe in institutions. When leaders mistake democracy for theology, when they assume the divine right to declare, accuse, and pronounce guilt without trial, they are not playing politicians. They are playing gods and jurors in the same breath. Standing not in court, not even in Parliament, but in the unmediated court of public opinion, Rahul Gandhi declared that '2,000 sq kms of Indian land is under Chinese occupation,' that 'Chinese soldiers are beating up Indian Army personnel.' An angry Justice Dipankar Datta asked him the only question that matters, 'Were you there? Do you have credible proof?'
Rahul's bombastic blitzkrieg was loud on grandiloquence but poor on evidence—'India's election system is already dead.' He claimed, '1.5 lakh voters out of 6.5 lakh were fake,' and had '100 per cent proof.' But he offered none. A sustained offensive is not the same as a sustainable one. If Rahul seeks a transition from the politics of provocation to the politics of power, then he must understand a crucial principle of democratic responsibility: Proof precedes Power. Volume cannot replace verification. This isn't about Rahul alone. Indian politics has long been populated by leaders who believe that volume can replace verification. Indira Gandhi claimed foreign agents were trying to sabotage her government; an accusation that helped justify the Emergency. Narendra Modi's detractors accuse him of promising `15 lakh in every Indian's account when he had said if all the black money abroad is brought back, it would be so much that every person will get `15 lakh. Arvind Kejriwal declared that 'every big leader is corrupt,' only to retract when lawsuits followed. Mamata Banerjee once claimed that the Election Commission was colluding with the BJP, yet could provide no proof beyond her own sense of betrayal. If the bipartisan tradition of accusation without adjudication are left unchallenged, they become precedents. Precedents corrode institutions.