Rahul Gandhi once said that seventy percent of Punjab’s youth were on drugs.
The year was 2012. He was mocked, naturally.
In 2016, he said it again. This time, he was not merely mocked but called alarmist, ridiculed, and dismissed as the political heir who could never quite get his act together.
In 2024, he said the problem has worsened. The nation, predictably, yawned.
Twelve years. Same warning. Same derision. Same decline.
It takes a rare national talent to be that consistently wrong about someone for that long.
As I dig deeper into Punjab’s spiralling drug crisis, I cannot help but see Rahul Gandhi as our modern-day Cassandra (the mythic seer cursed to speak the truth and never be believed). A prophet of the obvious, punished for being early. But mostly for being right.
And it is not just about Punjab or drugs. That was only one of many warnings. He saw the COVID tsunami coming in early 2020 and urged the government to prepare. He was laughed out of the room, while we were busy clapping on balconies and banging utensils. Hospitals collapsed a few weeks later.
He warned us about the disastrous implications of the Agnipath scheme. That some soldiers would be treated as lifelong martyrs while others, after four years of service, would be sent home with no pension, no job, and no future. We scoffed. Youth protests erupted across the country.
He raised concerns about growing unemployment and the mental state of India’s youth. We rolled our eyes. Then came NEET suicides, UPSC heartbreak, youth protests, and a generation spiralling into gig work and despair.
He spoke up for truckers, when new rules and fuel costs made their lives unbearable. For gig workers, exploited by apps that treat people like dispensable widgets in a spreadsheet. He said they deserve protection, dignity, and rights. We labelled him out of touch.
He warned against the erosion of our scientific temper. That facts were being replaced by WhatsApp forwards, and logic was being sacrificed at the altar of ideology. He urged us to protect our institutions, to insulate education from indoctrination. Instead, we debated ancient flying chariots and dropped Darwin from our science education.
He championed the idea of a Universal Basic Income, long before the pandemic exposed just how fragile India’s informal economy really is. The free public transport for women in Karnataka, and schemes like MGNREGA, both Indian National Congress’ initiatives, are only timid steps in that direction. Had we listened, perhaps millions would not have starved between lockdowns.
Recently, he spoke about Artificial Intelligence. As, of course, did Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The difference in their approach and perspective was so sharp that it would require very little intelligence, real or artificial, to see who was making more sense for now and in the future. The response? Mockery. Once again.
But of course, we knew better.
India, historically, has been absurdly lucky. At every turning point, the right person showed up at the right time, in the right role, with just the right instincts. Gokhale, Gandhi, Nehru, Patel, Rajendra Prasad, Cariappa, Shastri, Indira, JP, Manekshaw, Rajiv, Sunderji, Narasimha Rao, Dr Manmohan Singh. And yes, the extended list includes Netaji, Ambedkar, Bhagat Singh, amongst others, as also Walchand Hirachand, Kirloskar, JRD, Goenka, and a constellation of luminaries and leaders, even including Seshan, Palkhiwala, Sorabjee, Swaminathan, Kurien, Bhabha, Bhatnagar, Sarabhai et al.
I mean, the list is endless. And varied.
(I say this specifically because out of a thousand readers of this post, nine hundred will come up with some name or the other that I missed, and they’d all be right!).
That is the point. We were blessed. Over and over again.
But somewhere along the way, we mistook luck for a permanent setting. We believed our fortune was structural, not serendipitous. That the next saviour would always appear, and that wisdom was something India could mine endlessly, like coal or mythology.
What we had was a golden run. What we have now is nostalgia, arrogance, and a man with binoculars on the beach, waving at a tsunami, while we mock his hair, his voice, and his surname.
The real tragedy is not that Rahul Gandhi was ridiculed. It is that he was right. Over and over again. And we, in our infinite national wisdom, refused to see it. Not just the man, but the message.
And now, once again, we find ourselves in the exact cul-de-sacs he warned us about from a mile away.
Every. Single. Bloody. Time.
There is no punchline this time. Only a question.
What if our luck has finally run out?
