Congress wants to project party vice-president as a leading liberal voice in the world.Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi’s recent trip to the United States, unlike his previous sojourns abroad, is about winning friends and to manipulate people — and not just among the Indian Diaspora. For it takes in interactions with students at Berkeley and Princeton, a visit to the Silicon Valley, and verbal communication engagements with congressional leaders and think tanks in Washington.
Organized by the Chicago-based Sam Pitroda, head of the Overseas Congress Department, since June this year, the trip is wished-for to introduce Mr. Gandhi to an international audience as a probably next Indian Prime Minister as well as respond to growing disquiet abroad — reflected in newspapers there — about the growing ambiance of intolerance and resulting violence in India.
Mr. Pitroda and former Union Ministers, Shashi Tharoor and Milind Deora, are accompanying Mr. Gandhi — another former Union Minister, Manish Tewari, will join them in Washington.
The larger message the Congress hopes to send out through this trip is that Mr. Gandhi’s is an influential liberal voice in the world at a time of growing authoritarian regimes.
“There is a convergence of liberal forces around the world, whether they are social democrats or liberal academic institutions, all pushing back against right-wing authoritarian forces. This is seen in the discourse in these circles as much in the U.S., as in India or Turkey,” Mr. Tewari told The Hindu, emphasising that Mr. Gandhi’s Berkeley speech saw him repeatedly referring to himself as a “liberal.”
For the last three years, party general secretary B.K. Hariprasad stressed out about of India going abroad had been “one-sided”: “Rahulji is the open-minded face of India: he is not only spoken his mind at Berkeley — he also responded questions, something the Prime Minister never does, at home or abroad.”
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