Rahul Gandhi’s intervention last Friday on the side of the Supreme Court and the people, and against the ordinance-in-the-making that seeks to bail out criminal politicians, was the stuff of history. It was timely, it was unusual, it had drama, it was on a matter of substance, it brought upon Congress’ most significant next-generation leader (who is otherwise made fun of for flitting from one cause to the next) the ire of the opponents of his party and his pedigreed political family, it silenced senior figures in his own party who had grown accustomed to the rituals of compromise with political corruption and doubtful parliamentary values and, what’s more, it has come to instigate a broader churning in the minds of people on a matter that was already exercising them deeply. But history must be made through the human agency, or it will be an act of God we will be talking about. In the present case, this can happen if, following Mr Gandhi’s barnstorming act, the Union Cabinet has a re-think and annuls its earlier decision to propagate the dubious ordinance, or the President of India, who has questioned it, sends it back to the government for re-consideration which, in this case, is apt to be seen as a refusal to sign on the dotted line. In either case we will be witnessing a landmark event with a strong potential for impact on the forthcoming elections, both Assembly and Parliament. But history, after coming to a turning point, does not always turn. Mr Gandhi can make this happen only if he takes forward the process of cleansing within his own party. This is an entirely new project, not undertaken by any party. It entails electoral risks when the UPA is making a bid to come back to rule for the third consecutive time. There may be strong advice against it from political diehards who claim to know how the system is run. But the other day, when at the Press Club of India Mr Gandhi spoke, in effect, of ending the culture of connivance and compromise with political morality that all parties, including his own, routinely engage in, making it their second nature, he was raising the prospect of a strong effort being mounted to make things better, and to make them different. The time for such a qualitative leap is now. It should begin with the principles on which the November Assembly elections and the next Lok Sabha polls will be fought by the Congress, and the procedures shaped to raise the level of intra-party democracy in the party. If there is questioning and revolt, that is par for the course. Upheavals are apt to attend any interference with the equilibrium. The real point is: Is Mr Gandhi ready to create the environment within the party in which serious political work is rewarded and criminal-type bogus “neta” activity is dis-incentivised in the distribution of party tickets, and at the level of the constituency in general If Mr Gandhi is ready to make an effort in that direction, he will find support — from his party and from the people. Former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, then in the flush of his political youth, had taken on “power-brokers” in his Gowalia Tank speech in Mumbai and we had applauded from the sidelines. But the job wasn’t easy. Rajiv was new to the game. The old guard re-asserted itself, mouthing kitsch socialism slogans for effect while feathering its nest. But Mr Gandhi is better placed than his late father was to effect changes in the right direction. He has been around for some years and knows the lie of the land. He knows the ways of the hidden “enemy” and has presumably sussed out some of the answers to deal with the self-serving deviousness of a few. He also is presumably aware of the beneficial neutrons that exist on ground zero. There is another factor to consider. The “old guard” of the Congress, while not extinct, is jaded, and many of them as individuals don’t go back all that far (and nor are they as rooted as their political forebears) for the reason that the Congress had been in the wilderness for a longish period before Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh rescued it. In that sense, while being momentous, a push by the Congress vice-president to clean up the act will not be in accord with Chairman Mao’s commandment to “bombard the headquarters”. Nehru’s admonition to his party and government is the more apt comparison. The country’s first Prime Minister commanded an impressive majority in Parliament and was widely respected in the House and the country. And yet, in a memorable speech in the Lok Sabha, as the House watched in stunned silence, he tore into his own government for coming up short, saying angrily that if he was an Opposition leader, he wouldn’t tolerate such a government even for a minute. Mr Gandhi now needs to attempt to create the political personnel who would give the country a better government than we have known. This is the historical burden that he has volunteered for. Even so, historical transitions are not easy to effect, and call for sustained leadership and clear-headed idealism. Mr Gandhi and his cohorts will have to attempt to achieve it in a short space of time — by the time of the next general election at the latest, or at least lay the framework of change by then. The job is likely to be rendered more complex if Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is persuaded to put in his papers by the taunts of Congress’ traditional opponents on his return from the United States. At any rate, we do stand on the cusp of a change, whether it comes about or not.