Kedar Anil Gadgil :We are a nation raised by angry men. Men who equated fatherhood with authority, not affection. Men who ruled their homes like small states, with fear, not fairness. Men who believed that to be loved was to be obeyed. Every Indian child has seen it: the father who beats his son for scoring less, who slaps him for answering back, who mocks him for crying. The boy who flinches learns early that pain is order, that silence is safety, that emotion is shame.
I. The Gentle Leader and the Angry Reaction
Some time back, I shared a short video of Rahul Gandhi surrounded by children and women, laughing, tugging at his sleeve, talking over each other to get his attention, posing for photos, talking uninhibitedly. It was unguarded, spontaneous, human. I wrote that this, to me, was what leadership should look like: approachable, empathetic, unafraid of laughter. The kind of presence that makes people want to come closer, not stand in line. I wondered if the Prime Minister has a similar video where women and children are comfortable, almost familiar, with him.
The responses from the bhakts came fast and furious. And they came from LinkedIn, not some anonymous cesspool of trolls, but the supposed home of professionals. Educated, articulate, English-speaking Indians. People who manage teams, build companies, write code, launch satellites, and talk about innovation and AI. These were not uneducated bigots. They were the country’s elite, the ones who influence our decisions, whether economic, political, or social, the ones who should know better, who must know better.
And yet, when faced with a man being kind, they called him weak. When faced with empathy, they called it clownery. When faced with joy, they called it lack of seriousness. They said a real leader commands silence, not affection. That when Narendra Modi enters a room, even children fall quiet, and that is how it should be.
Of the hundreds who commented, some DMed me physical threats (which, by now, I am sadly used to, though it is still a shock when it comes from former soldiers, given my own background), some sent long streams of abuse, and many went straight for the ad hominem. It was striking how fragile their sense of discipline seemed, how quickly their composure collapsed at the mere sight of someone unafraid to be gentle.
Aman Zaidi, a dear friend, watching this descent into madness, asked me a simple but profound question: why do such intelligent, accomplished people think like this?
It is a good question.
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II. The Failure of the Father-Figure
Because here we are, eleven years into Narendra Modi’s rule, and India is less secure, less prosperous, less hopeful, less happy. We are poorer in every meaningful way. The rupee has weakened, the economy limps, unemployment is at a historic high, inequality is at its worst in decades, institutions are compromised, the press is frightened, minorities live in fear, dissent is criminalised, and justice has become a privilege. The Human Development Index, press freedom, global hunger, gender parity, even life expectancy, in every one of these, India has slid backwards. We are more unequal, more unjust, more corrupt, and more cruel.
In all fairness, Narendra Modi has had more than enough time and more than enough power to prove himself. He has failed, completely and irredeemably. He cannot succeed, not because of circumstances, but because he is incapable of empathy. Because he cannot see human beings as anything more than instruments of utility or applause. Because he measures worth in terms of loyalty and profit, not dignity and justice. Because he sees the poor as props, not people. Because he mistakes cruelty for discipline and submission for respect. He is the exact opposite of everything Gandhi meant when he spoke of the soul of India.
And yet, I am told that Rahul Gandhi is the wrong choice. That he is too soft, too emotional, too naïve. So let me extend to my critics a courtesy they never extend to me. Let us imagine, purely for argument’s sake, that Rahul Gandhi might also falter.
Even then, what have I to lose? Modi has already failed at everything that matters, and worse, has stripped this country of its kindness in the process. The only way left to go is upward. And Rahul Gandhi, with his education, his humility, his willingness to listen and to learn, his absence of arrogance, and his instinct for empathy, stands a far better chance of leading India upward. He is the rare politician who is unafraid of being human, and in this age, that alone is strength.
Rahul Gandhi represents not who we are, but who we could be, the India of possibility, of decency, of shared laughter. He does not mirror our anger; he mirrors our better instincts. He embodies the simplest, most radical principle of leadership there is: to measure one’s actions by their impact on the weakest, the poorest, the most forgotten among us.
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III. The Patriarchal Household
But to understand why that offends so many, we must go back to where this story really begins, not in parliament, but at home.
All politics, I have begun to suspect, is autobiography, and ours begins in fear.
We are a nation raised by angry men. Men who equated fatherhood with authority, not affection. Men who ruled their homes like small states, with fear, not fairness. Men who believed that to be loved was to be obeyed. Every Indian child has seen it: the father who beats his son for scoring less, who slaps him for answering back, who mocks him for crying. The boy who flinches learns early that pain is order, that silence is safety, that emotion is shame.
That boy grows up watching how his father treats his mother, as help, not equal; as property, not partner. He watches how the women around him fold their anger into chores, how they apologise for their own exhaustion, how they carry the burden of holding the house together while pretending they are being led. He learns that to be a man is to command, not to understand; that love is owed, not earned; that power belongs to the loudest voice in the room.
Even our languages record this imbalance. In almost every Indian tongue, the father is always addressed honorifically, while the mother is not. In English, there is no equivalent, but in Hindi, there is: a father is aap, a mother is tu. Even our grammar kneels before patriarchy. Respect flows upwards, never sideways. We are taught to revere control and take care for granted. Perhaps that is why affection, in our culture, so often feels like insubordination.
That boy grows into a man who sees every relationship, with his wife, his colleague, his subordinate, his neighbour, as a hierarchy to be maintained. He cannot lead without ruling, cannot love without owning, cannot listen without interrupting. He spends his life pretending to be the father who once terrified him.
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IV. The Politics of Obedience and Hate
And then, inevitably, he finds politics.
He looks at Narendra Modi and sees the father he once feared, the headmaster who will keep everyone in line. And suddenly, he feels safe again. The same reflex that made him tremble as a child now makes him cheer. He believes that a good citizen, like a good son, must not question authority. That dissent is disobedience. That the nation, like the family, needs a strong hand to survive.
This is why the Indian right wing worships power and mocks empathy. It is why they sneer at laughter, why they distrust women, why they hate Muslims. Their lives have taught them that there must always be someone to punish, someone smaller, weaker, more vulnerable. If they cannot punish their fathers, they will punish their neighbours. If they cannot strike back at their bosses, they will strike at minorities. It is the same violence, merely redirected.
The Muslim becomes the perfect vessel for this displaced rage. He is the chosen enemy because the father demanded one. Hatred, in this moral household, is a test of obedience. To hate is to belong. They do not hate because of what the Muslim is, but because of what he represents, the only rebellion allowed is against someone who cannot fight back.
He also disturbs the delicate machinery of their masculinity. They have been told they are the guardians of order, the custodians of civilisation, the saviours of the feminine and the weak. The Muslim, in their imagination, violates this arrangement. He is painted as both hyper-masculine and infantile, the seducer and the parasite, both feared and ridiculed. He becomes the forbidden mirror, the one they secretly envy and publicly despise.
And finally, he becomes the ideal recipient of their punishment. The beaten child becomes the beating man, and the Muslim becomes the son’s revenge upon the father. Violence towards him feels sanctioned, even sacred, because it re-enacts the only moral structure these men have ever known: the strong must hurt the weak to restore order.
Sectarian hate, misogyny, casteism, homophobia, these are not separate impulses. They are the same wound festering through different masks. A culture that teaches men to worship fear will always build temples to the ones who make them feel small.
The father’s raised hand becomes the teacher’s cane, the boss’s insult, the policeman’s lathi, the god’s decree, and finally, the Prime Minister’s glare. The choreography of domination travels unbroken from the home to the state.
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V. The World Beyond Fathers
And this is not only India. It is a global epidemic. Across continents, men kneel before the same myth, that the world needs a firm hand to stay in order. They call it nationalism, or religion, or tradition, but it is only the old boy inside them whispering that love is weakness and fear is respect.
In the West, this wounded fraternity finds new prophets. Jordan Peterson, with his sermons on order and obedience, tells them to tidy their rooms and submit to hierarchy as if cleanliness were redemption. Andrew Tate promises them restored masculinity through contempt, through the subjugation of women, through the fantasy of power reclaimed. They become disciples in search of a father who will finally tell them what to do.
Everywhere, the right wing is a congregation of sons still waiting for permission to be loved. Their personal deprivation has become a political culture. Their longing for approval has become policy. Their fear of weakness has become violence.
And so, when Rahul Gandhi speaks softly, when he listens instead of shouting, when he reaches out to children without scaring them, they recoil. They cannot recognise this language. They have never seen affection without agenda, authority without punishment, or love without possession. They are frightened of what they most need.
That is why empathy, in today’s India, is radical. It challenges the entire architecture of masculine power.
And that is why Rahul Gandhi still gives me hope. Because a nation that can still produce a man who believes that leadership is service, not supremacy, has not yet forgotten itself. Because a nation that can produce a man who thinks that way, even after a decade of being taught to sneer at compassion, is a nation that still remembers, somewhere deep within itself, what Gandhi once asked of it: to think of the face of the poorest and the most helpless person you have seen, and to ask if the step you are about to take will be of any use to him.
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VI. The Sons Who May Yet Heal the Nation
Perhaps, though, there is hope. You can already see it in the young. Generation Z, and the even younger Alpha that will soon inherit the vote, are openly refusing to play this old game of reverence. They do not look at their bosses as moral superiors, only as people with more experience. They work with, not for. They do not look at their parents as gods to be obeyed but as human beings to be understood. They have perspectives of their own, and they do not apologise for them.
Much of this, ironically, is a gift of the same internet that has wrecked our attention spans. It has also connected them to the world, exposed them to difference, shown them both injustice and empathy in real time. Yes, they find echo chambers. Yes, they sometimes tumble into the dark tunnels of conspiracy and rage. But they are far less willing to bow to unearned authority.
They are not perfect, but they are free in ways we never were. They have decided that they will not be caught in the suspended animation of our generation, neither rebelling nor belonging, forever waiting for permission. They are carving their own place in the world. And perhaps, when their time comes, they will choose leaders not because they frighten them, but because they make them feel seen.
That, more than anything, gives me hope. For all our cynicism, there is still one revolution we seem to be winning, the revolution against fear. May we all, one day, be better than our fathers.
That, to me, is what Rahul Gandhi signifies. Indeed, he has proven to be better than his own father when he apologised for the anti-Sikh riots, even when he had no role to play in them. There is, of course, a long way to go to assuage the wounds that it caused, but moving away from being merely a chip of the old block is a start.
And that alone gives him a chance, a far greater chance, of succeeding where Narendra Modi never could.
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Postscript: The Language of Obedience
Some readers will, I know, take offence at my calling him Narendra Modi or simply Narendra. Let me explain. It is not out of disrespect, though he has earned more than a little of it. It is because almost every other Indian politician, past or present, powerful or obscure, is referred to by first name. Mamata Banerjee is Mamata, Arvind Kejriwal is Arvind, Rahul Gandhi is Rahul, Manmohan Singh was Manmohan even when he was Prime Minister. Indira Gandhi, who once suspended democracy itself, was still Indira. Uddhav, Stalin, Lalu, Tejaswi, Nitish, Himanta, all known by their first names. Yet suddenly, for Narendra Modi alone, we must append a reverential “ji.”
This is exactly what is wrong with us. The insistence on visible deference, the obsession with titles, the craving to be scolded by a strict father, it all comes from the same place. The “ji” at the end is not respect; it is submission. It is the linguistic cousin of the beating stick, the raised voice, the unblinking stare. It is the sound of a nation still afraid of its own leaders.
For me, it is also about fairness. Either it is Rahul and Narendra, Arvind and Mamata, Stalin and Uddhav, or, if it is Modiji, then it must also be Rahulji, Arvindji, Mamatadi, Stalin Annan, Uddhav Saheb. If you are using "ji" with one and not with the other, you are not being respectful, you are being malicious.
And if first names are automatically disrespectful, then Narendra Modi himself is guilty of the same: he has called Barack Obama Barack and Donald Trump Donald, men who, by every metric of power, command nations and economies far larger than ours. So let us not pretend that the first-name principle suddenly becomes sacrilege only when applied to him.
To call him Narendra Modi or Narendra is not insolence. It is equality. It is the language of a citizen, not a subject. And I refuse to surrender that.
P.S.: This explains the men. What about the women? It is a simpler explanation than most believe. An explanation that is as old as religion. I shall write about it separately. But suffice to say, the roots lie here.