BJP's love affair with Rahul Gandhi will hurt India

• They seek him here, they seek him there,
• Those Sanghis seek him everywhere,
• Is he in heaven or is he in hell?
• That demned elusive Pimpernel!

Where is Rahul Gandhi? Is he in Aspen? Thailand? Outer space?

Alongside Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s foreign visit, these apparently urgent questions have dominated the media and social media narrative over the past week.

Along with them have emerged other queries on what the Congress vice president has been doing in the period in which is incommunicado. Visiting his ailing grandmother? Attending a conference?

These are two scenarios, put forward by the press and his party, questioned by others. Accompanying them is wild gesticulation. The ruling BJP and RSS voices have suggested that Rahul Gandhi has been made to disappear to avoid campaigning for the Bihar polls because otherwise he will hamper the chances of his party’s political alliance there. That’s how it’s done nowadays. When an ally thinks you shouldn’t visit his or her state to campaign you just wrap an invisibility cloak around yourself and disappear. Former BJP (and current Congress) ally Nitish Kumar had expressed reservations about sharing a stage with Modi when he was Chief Minister of Gujarat some years ago. Modi, evidently, did not disappear. But the BJP believes the same ally must have prompted some new unheard-of strategy this time round.

Other laughable ideas, put forward by journalists in articles powered by unnamed sources and more speculation, include Rahul Gandhi traveling around the US orchestrating protests against the Prime Minister or simply having gone abroad to stash away ill-gotten wealth.

Finally, after viewing some photographs of Gandhi at a conference the BJP and some commentators have reverted to their previous, by now shrill, cry of him being the “spoilt child of Indian politics”, and so he must have just gone abroad on a vacation really.

This circus is actually a few months old. The first edition appeared when Gandhi went on a sabbatical when the Parliament’s Budget Session was on. Edition Two ultimately resurrects its subtext: a bad politician is a person who takes foreign holidays. The counterpoint propped up by the BJP is that of the Prime Minister, who keeps traveling abroad, but ‘on work’.

The consequence? A mindless dumbing down of the narrative even beyond what had happened when Modi had promised to bring back fifteen lakh rupees for each poor Indian citizen from foreign banks.

Symbolism and perception are key to Indian politics, but when they become the sum and substance of it, we’re in trouble.

A nation chooses the leaders it has but, more importantly, it chooses how to incentivize them. We should hold Rahul Gandhi accountable on how to run his party as vice president, what manifesto Congress puts forward, how the party runs states where it is in government and points of opposition it raises. His constituency could hold him accountable to the work he has done for them as their MP. But are we really suggesting that equally or more important than all these concerns, is a politician letting us know exactly where he or she is whenever they break from routine communication? If a politician were to not perform at all, would it be okay so long as they keep us informed about where they are all the time and their holiday routine? Come to think of it, how many senior politicians always tell us where they’re going and why?

Over the past week, we have hardly understood why onion prices went up or discussed the key issues plaguing Bihar, an election state this year. Dengue sweeps the capital in epidemic proportions, around the same time every year, but despite pre-empting this we haven’t been able to devise a way of combating it. Then there is a looming risk of censorship on the internet.

Yet – besides the PM’s US visit – all that has been in the news, once again, is: Where is Rahul Gandhi?

Do we really want to sacrifice the limited airwaves, print, internet and, most crucially, mind space we have to this question? The media and vested political parties would have you believe you should. They are egged on by the fact that the story has a sort of Bollywood-ish quality to it, encased in simplistic drama. They believe, it seems, that news must comprise of considerable entertainment in order to be able to attract. And alongside a Prime Minister who is an indefatigable showman, what would sell better than a fairytale titled ‘The Missing Prince’?

But reality differs. To evolve, our democracy will have to vote not on the lines of flamboyant appearances or disappearances, but on the policies our leaders endorse, and those they effect. If you want to discuss Rahul Gandhi usefully, you will have to talk not about where he is but whether or not he is fit to lead the Congress party. If you’ve decided already that he isn’t—and that’s another debate altogether—then why on earth are you concerned about where he is in the first place? The media and, indeed, all political players have a great responsibility in determining the arena of discourse for our country and our times. When they don’t fulfill this we lose the opportunity cost of debate on things that matter. And it is a significant opportunity cost.