He travelled extensively, covering virtually the length and breath of the country, campaigning, and I heard he had absolutely no qualms whatsoever of meeting with and hugging -- even the so-called low caste people, etc. Does this show the measure of his character?
You bet, it sure does. In that heat and dust of India, he was everywhere. I sent him an e-mail saying, Look, it must be so tiring. He said, 'No, Sam, it's great to meet so many different people in India. I get my energy from them.'
What are his interests?
Right now, he is really laser-focussed on building the party. He wants to build the Youth Congress and bring some systems and institutional processes. In other words, his main concern has been to bring democracy into the party. India's political parties don't have democracy. So he had (party) elections in Punjab, in Gujarat, which has been a big thing to open up.
A lot of people thought it would be like opening a Pandora's Box because the party positions and seats are based on personal contacts. But, he said no, we must bring democracy to the party.
So, he is using IT to register members, increasing the number of members, so that the party should be structured with membership. No bogus membership, real membership -- a little bit of an organised information system, discipline -- and, he has been trying to do all that.
He's really trying to build the party for the 21st century. Rajiv Gandhi talked about this in Mumbai in 1985 at the 100th anniversary of the Congress party. But we couldn't finish that task of building the party. And Rahul is taking on that as his main task.
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