An Analysis of Words- The Rahul Gandhi Interview

System vs. People

Last night at 9 pm Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi sat down with Interview Tyrant, Times Now Editor in Chief Arnab Goswami, for what was his first ever one on one interview. Team Jigsaw has analysed the approximately 7500 words that Rahul Gandhi uttered in that one and a half hour and here’s what we found:

• He brought up the word system 70 times
• He used the word people 66 times
• People, party and  country were used more than 40 times each.
• He brought up Gujarat 20 times (BTW this was the only State brought up).

In the table on the right we have listed the words that Rahul Gandhi used most. If we negate the first two on the list, we see that the interview seemed to centre around the theme of people vs the system. Rahul addressed the issues of the system; acknowledged that people get hurt and that they are not heard. He said that he wants to change this system and open it up, make it transparent. Essentially he seemed to be saying the fight is between the people and the system.

However nowhere was the term ‘system’ defined and so we are left to assume that the system is indeed the government, the politicians, the bureaucracy and the corruption. Isn’t this ironic, since the Congress has been in power for the last 10 years and so naturally make up this ‘system’.

Nevertheless Mr Gandhi comes out sounding passionate about the need to change the system from within. The RTI was talked about quite extensively and Rahul said that he was pro all forms of openness. He said that he wanted to transform the system, to bring in youngsters and make sure they are empowered.

Social media has since been buzzing with opinions and comments. Did Rahul fare well? Has brand Rahul come out for the better or for the worse? Each to his or her own opinion, but one thing for sure, kudos to the man for facing Arnab and coming out alive!