My Surname Is Gandhi, I Don't Apologise: The Line That Came Back

 

"My surname is Gandhi, not Savarkar. I do not apologise."

I remember hearing that line and thinking to myself: politics is a dangerous profession for anyone who enjoys making absolute statements. Never say "never" in public life. The cameras never forget, and neither do your opponents.

Now Rahul Gandhi has reportedly submitted a written apology before a court in a criminal defamation case. I have no interest here in the legal merits of the case. Courts will decide that. What interests me is the delicious irony of politics. The man who built an entire political punchline around not apologising has ended up apologising.

Politics has a wicked sense of humour.

Let me make one thing clear. This is not an argument about Vinayak Damodar Savarkar. Historians can continue quarrelling over his mercy petitions, his politics and his legacy for another hundred years. They probably will. My concern is much simpler. If you choose to mock a man by calling him "Mafiveer" and then proudly announce, "I am Gandhi, not Savarkar. I do not apologise," you have set a trap—not for your opponent, but for yourself.

Sooner or later, life walks you into it.

I have watched politicians for decades. Most of them suffer from the same affliction. They mistake applause for wisdom. A crowd cheers a clever one-liner, and the politician begins to believe he has uttered timeless truth. He hasn't. He has merely entertained an audience.

The audience goes home.

The recording stays.

That is why I distrust slogans. They are political sweets—pleasant for a moment and unhealthy in the long run. Rahul Gandhi's remark earned him applause, particularly in Maharashtra, where attacking Savarkar had become part of the Congress script. His supporters clapped enthusiastically. They probably thought they had found the perfect political weapon.

Weapons have an irritating habit of changing hands.

Today, Rahul Gandhi's strongest critic is not the BJP. It is Rahul Gandhi of two years ago.

There is another lesson buried here. Institutions are rarely destroyed by their enemies alone. They are weakened by those who inherit them without understanding their weight. I often think of Ibn Khaldun, the medieval historian who observed that empires begin to decay when later generations stop respecting the struggles that created them. Whether one accepts his theory entirely or not, it contains more than a grain of truth.

Political parties are no different.

The Congress inherited one of the richest political legacies in independent India. Yet too often it appears to believe that a viral slogan is a substitute for political judgment. It isn't. Cleverness is not consistency. Wit is not wisdom.

I suspect Rahul Gandhi never imagined that one sentence would follow him so relentlessly.

"My surname is Gandhi, not Savarkar. I do not apologise."

He probably meant it as a flourish.

History has treated it as evidence.

If there is one lesson politics teaches repeatedly, it is this: never challenge the future with absolute words. The future usually accepts the challenge. And when it does, it is rarely kind.