An Enigmatic Leader Keeps India's Elite Guessing

NEW DELHI - In the gloss of Indian journalism, an “enigma” is a public figure who does not grant interviews or private briefings. The “enigma” is often not a mystery to his own mother or even to the public, but he is to journalists.

Rahul Gandhi, the vice president of the Indian National Congress party, which heads the government, has that reputation among New Delhi's political observers.

It is extremely rare for them to accept that they do not know something, especially with regard to the personality of one of the most powerful men in the country. In fact, the gravest insult in their circles is not the charge that one is corrupt, or spineless, but that one is ignorant of politics and politicians. They do, in their private conversations, claim to possess startling insights into the man. But when they put their bylines to their views there is a wide consensus among them that Mr. Gandhi, who is set to be the predominant face of the Congress party in the general elections next year, is inscrutable.

His seemingly enigmatic ways were in the news the past two weeks after he gate-crashed a news conference, made a brief dramatic statement and then went back “to work.” At the heart of his action was a ruling of India's highest court.

Usually when the Supreme Court has invoked “the collective conscience” of the nation, it has been to hang a person. Yet, it is in its happier observations that the court has truly captured such a conscience. The court has long been, and with a greater frequency in recent times, the best ally of the average Indian. In July, it ruled that it is illegal for politicians who have been convicted of crimes to continue holding office by means of the traditional ruse of filing an appeal against their convictions. The court said that convicted members of Parliament or legislative assemblies would have to vacate their seats from the day of their conviction.

The governing coalition introduced a bill in Parliament designed to override the ruling, but did not succeed in getting it passed. It also filed a petition with the Supreme Court asking for the review of the ruling, but the court dismissed the petition. To achieve its end faster, and through the backdoor, the coalition then prepared an ordinance, and sent it to the president of India for his signature. The coalition argued that the court's ruling would inspire politicians to press spurious charges against their rivals and, somehow, procure criminal convictions too.

The Supreme Court is often wise and idealistic, but the spirit of the Indian Constitution deems all institutions subordinate to the collective will of the people or, in other words, their elected representatives, who can overrule the court if they close ranks. More than 30 percent of India's elected representatives face criminal charges. All major political parties have a stake in protecting the criminals in their fold. And they did appear to stand united as the governing coalition worked hard to save convicted politicians from losing their seats.

But then, on Sept. 27, something unusual occurred when Ajay Maken, the communications chief of the Congress party, was holding a news conference to defend the ordinance. As he was taking a question, he began to look distracted. He rose, saying that he had to take a call. A man standing nearby showed him a mobile phone, which Mr. Maken took, walking away. He soon returned with Mr. Gandhi, who appeared angry. Mr. Gandhi said of the ordinance: “This is complete nonsense, and it should be torn up and thrown out. It is my personal opinion.”

He then said that he would restate his view, and did so.

The immediate reaction of many of New Delhi's political observers was of knowing derision. They suggested that the news conference was staged to make Mr. Gandhi look good, and wondered where his righteous rage had gone when the governing coalition headed by his own party had framed the bill and the ordinance to protect convicted representatives. But some observers pointed to the more probable cause for his outburst, which was that Mr. Gandhi did not always get his way with the powerful chieftains within his own party and had to resort to the guerrilla tactic of hijacking a news conference to reach out to the nation. The coalition has since abandoned its efforts to protect convicted representatives.

Mr. Gandhi is an unimpressive orator in all the languages known to him, and he is reluctant to face tough journalistic questions, adding to his famed inscrutability. He is not very popular with the urban middle class, which suspects that he is too closely aligned with the poor and that he would pour billions into their welfare instead of building beautiful highways with neat white lines down the middle. But he has systematically assumed the image of a politician who has an acute sense of morality, a young man who is negotiating a world filled with wily old men.

He has accepted that in an ideal world Rahul Gandhi, the politician, has no right to exist because, as the son, grandson and great-grandson of prime ministers, he is a product of dynasty and not of merit. He has even asserted that he will not have children because he does not want the temptation of promoting his own. Yet he has not been able to win the affections of India's new urban middle class, which is unable to forgive him for being the beneficiary of a privileged family. But then so is most of India's elite, including New Delhi's political observers.

Manu Joseph is editor of the Indian newsweekly Open and author of the novel “The Illicit Happiness of Other People.”

A version of this article appears in print on October 10, 2013, in The International Herald Tribune.