Varun Grover, the delightful comic sage, recently had a go at the ugliness, hypocrisy, intolerance and chicanery that are tearing our country apart. His show, "Nothing Makes Sense," deconstructs the smug shibboleths and myths of our unhappy society. He weaponises humour to tell us what we are doing wrong and urges us to be more human!

Among other exhortations, Varun's cautionary advice to his audience: in case they are accosted by the thought-police regarding his subversive show, they should, among other excuses, bluff that he cracked jokes about Rahul Gandhi. Which brings me to the main point of this disquisition: over the last decade, the most vilified person in the country – Rahul Gandhi – has been more sinned against than sinning.

Today, Rahul is the single most courageous and forceful combatant against this hegemonic authoritarian regime that has captured and misemployed every institution of governance for its own dark purposes. And yet he is the whipping boy not only of the Saffron Parivar but across the board! Even the 'libtards' have been unsparing!

Before I parse this savage and totally unfair vilification of Rahul, I must first eat my own words! Until about 2022, like everybody else, I was an unrelenting, downright mean critic of the Gandhi trio, accusing them of privileging their own interests over everything else and of refusing to cede power within the party even when all was lost. The blame for the Congress party's almost unbroken string of electoral losses over the last decade was attributed to it being in thrall to the Family. I now realise that such a sweeping indictment is, at best, a lazy and superficial rationale for the failures of the Grand Old Party.

In certain sports like gymnastics and diving, there is the concept of "degree of difficulty," which measures success and failure based on the complexity of the challenge faced by the individual (D-Score). Likewise, to get an objective assessment of a politician's performance and worth, it is only fair that he be judged by the magnitude of the challenge he faces and the quality of his response.

If the D-Score is applied to the assessment of politicians, then Rahul is definitely one leader who has had to deal with more formidable challenges than any other politician before him. Let's analyse what he has been up against!

On attaining power in 2014, the BJP's grand design was to do everything, fair or foul, to destroy the Gandhi family and the Congress. A "Congress mukt Bharat" became the rallying cry! A relentless campaign of calumny was launched against Rahul, spearheaded by Modi. The leader with the fake degrees went to town, mocking the well-educated Rahul, calling him an unintelligent "Pappu (dolt)," a guileless "Rahul baba," "Shahzada," and much more. The hurtful, unjust slander, amplified by the media and bhakt trolls, seriously damaged Rahul's public image.

Rahul has been the primary target of Modi's unrelenting witch-hunt. His Rajya Sabha membership was suspended; fake cases were instituted against him; he was thrown out of his house, among other aggravations. A weaker man might have wilted, but Rahul has shown sterling character by enduring the persecution without resentment. He has been dignified, never lowering himself to the level of Modi and his malevolent trolls. And by standing up to this cruel, tyrannical regime, he has shown his indomitable courage!

The last decade has been a far cry from "politics as usual." Earlier, there was hardly any difference between the contending parties' worldviews and policies. Even in Vajpayee's time as PM, although there were noises about Hindutva, the basic secular, socialist framework of the polity was undisturbed.

But Modi brought a dangerous new dimension into the political arena. Exploiting the human penchant to be lured to tribal affiliation, he made no bones about asserting a dominant Hindu exclusivity as the national identity and clubbed it with a virulent anti-minority sentiment. In the bargain, he has unleashed the worst impulses of his people, conjuring a schizophrenic nation that has forsaken compassion, brotherly love and humanity and is besieged by hate!

By injecting a deadly mix of divisive religious bigotry and majoritarian nationalism into their psyche, Modi has addled the reasoning and thinking of the masses. The wily politician has also understood that the politically unengaged majority – the working class, the farmers and the poor - are so caught up in making ends meet that they view government, parties and policies from a single prism: "What's in it for us?" And who can't see that the government Treasury is the milch cow nourishing the BJP's electoral war machine! Hindutva and minority bashing, tagged with the revdi blandishment of free ration and cash transfers, have worked as an invincible strategy for electoral success!

Locked into their religion-based identity and mollified by the occasional dole, people have been distracted from the life-and-death problems of unemployment, price rise, spiralling inequality, mind-boggling corruption and everyday injustice. Javed Akhtar put it in perspective with his devastating one-liner, saying something to the effect that "People now have religious and national pride; what more can they possibly want?"

For the last 11 years, Modi and his malevolent Parivar have held complete sway over a polity that, if anything, is a one-party dominion. Every institution, without exception, including the pivotal sentinels of our freedom - the judiciary, the media and the Election Commission (EC), have been commandeered to do this regime's bidding. This capture of institutions could not have been possible without the undercurrent of nameless terror that hangs over the entire society, what the incomparable philosopher-politician Václav Havel calls "the technique of existential pressure." A dangerous cabal has turned the law enforcement agencies into deadly instruments of oppression and persecution of opponents and dissidents.

Everyone is running scared! The trade unions are quiescent; the mainstream media are hedging their bets when not grovelling; the students have lost their voice; the middle-class collaborators are actively collaborating; and the corporates are buying peace and prosperity through electoral bonds. In this Kafkaesque setting, Rahul Gandhi is one of the few who have confronted this regime head-on!

Elections in the last few years have not been conducted on a level playing field but have been skewed contests where the Opposition has been competing with both hands tied behind its back. The law governing appointments to the Election Commission of India (ECI) has ensured that only candidates the government wants are selected.

And, predictably, the conduct of the last two appointees to the CEC has confirmed the Opposition's worst fears: that the Election Commission is an active collaborator in this regime's nefarious designs! Proven cases of extensive "vote chori" are shrugged off, as are allegations that millions of citizens have been disenfranchised in the flawed SIR exercise.

As expected of a responsible political leader, Rahul has led the charge against the partisan and dishonest dealings of the EC, but, ironically, his spirited Voter Adhikar Yatra and damning revelations, backed by irrefutable proof of voter fraud, have failed to stir public outrage. On the contrary, his unexceptionable demand seeking democratic accountability of the ECI was met with a blast of the most noxious condemnation.

The regime unleashed its gaggle of volunteer bhakts - social media warriors, retired judges, generals, bureaucrats and godi hacks – to attack Rahul. In a widely circulated open letter, they expressed their "grave concern that India's democracy is under assault by a rising tide of venomous rhetoric directed toward its foundational institutions." The sheer hypocrisy of these old fogeys is mind-boggling!

But what's really tragic is that social analysts who should know better have their knives stuck into Rahul at a time when they should be empathising and supporting his courageous crusade against this tyrannical regime. One of our most respected political commentators recently wrote a piece excoriating Rahul for his "cultivated waywardness," for "remaining cosy in his own bubble," for failing to build up the organisation, and for the Family's continued stranglehold on power. But he offers no panacea, except for a vague suggestion of organisational restructuring within the Congress. The brutal truth is that even the best are floundering on how to tackle the tyrant and his deadly squad!

For too long, my kind of critics have refused to acknowledge the impossible odds Rahul and the Opposition have faced in dealing with this rogue regime. Clueless on why the tyrant continues to stride our world like a Colossus, we have reached for the softest target, damning Rahul's performance and holding him responsible for the tyrant's continued stranglehold on power. Leo Tolstoy warned against such facile scapegoating: "It's too easy to criticise a man when he is out of favour and make him shoulder the blame for everybody else's mistakes."

Forgive us our trespasses!