<START> A Dynast's Flailing Makeover NEW DELHI - In September, Rahul Gandhi, vice president of the Congress Party and scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, made an unannounced public appearance at a news conference in New Delhi. Minutes previously, Mr. Gandhi had called up Ajay Maken, the party's general secretary, to ask him his whereabouts. Now, as Mr. Maken was defending a controversial government ordinance that prevented convicted politicians from being removed from office Mr. Gandhi seized the microphone. "I think the ordinance is complete nonsense," he said. It should be torn up and thrown away. Mr. Gandhi's outburst left Mr. Maken, and most senior leaders of the Congress Party, stunned. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, away in the United States to attend the United Nations General Assembly, had to face a public humiliation, hours before an important meeting with President Obama. It is inconceivable that the ordinance, which sparked an instant backlash from the media and the public, could have been passed without Mr. Gandhi's knowledge. Yet, once he had taken note of the public mood, Mr. Gandhi seized the moment to engineer a shift in how he was seen by the Indian electorate. Mr. Gandhi, the ultimate insider in Indian politics, was now refashioning himself as an outside agent of change. That shift had been necessitated, in large part, by the steady and growing unpopularity of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government. It is impossible to judge whether his outburst in September was an impulsive decision or a carefully calculated move. But it is clear that Mr. Gandhi increasingly feels the need to come across as accessible, articulate and decisive. His decision to subject himself to his first-ever television interview, with a popular network that aired the exchange Monday night, was a step in the same direction. Until his remarks in September, Mr. Gandhi had sought to cultivate the image of a leader who shunned public attention and preferred to work inconspicuously behind the scenes. In 2005, during an interview to the newsmagazine Tehelka, it was put to Mr. Gandhi that he asked few questions in Parliament. "I don't ask questions in Parliament because I like to think things through," he had replied. Mr. Gandhi portrayed himself as a politician unwilling to engage with the distracting minutiae of everyday politics. He was instead working on a grand design of resuscitating the Congress Party, democratizing the organization at the grass-roots and reinventing India's oldest political party for the 21st century. It was an impression that Mr. Gandhi cultivated for much of his early years in politics. In the raucous and frenetic world of Indian politics, Mr. Gandhi remained ensconced in a long and seemingly intense silence. For fleeting observers of Indian democracy, it may have seemed that Mr. Gandhi alone was thinking about the great, profound and significant questions of our time. The thinking though was rarely, if ever, evident to his countrymen, to whom he remained little beyond an enigma. His thoughts on the most vexing questions of the day remained unrecorded for the electorate. But as long as the central government enjoyed some degree of modest popularity, Mr. Gandhi could always partake some of the credit, though his own contributions to policy making and other aspects of the government remained vague and undefined. A change in strategy became imperative once it became clear that it would be politically unwise for Mr. Gandhi, who was certain to lead the Congress Party into the next elections, to align himself too closely with a deeply unpopular government. His own failures in reviving the fortunes of the Congress in the key states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh also meant that a new direction was needed to ignite Mr. Gandhi's appeal for the electorate. Mr. Gandhi would have to be remade for public consumption, and so he began the process of fashioning himself as the crusading outsider last fall. Another factor, one outside Mr. Gandhi's control, may have played a part too. In a country, where ideas of citizenship and egalitarian democracy are deepening, being the embodiment of dynastic and feudal privilege is a greater liability than ever before in Indian politics. In his televised interview on Monday night, Mr. Gandhi continued to play the crusader. He did not have a hunger for power, he asserted; instead he was in politics to "change the system." Mr. Gandhi's interview was, in many ways, a bumbling and bizarre performance. His depth of engagement with critical issues looked uncertain. Posed with specific questions, Mr. Gandhi repeatedly sought to seek refuge in vague, and seemingly rehearsed, generalities. When asked his views of Narendra Modi, the opposition's candidate for prime minister, Mr. Gandhi responded, "What Rahul Gandhi wants to do, is Rahul Gandhi and millions of youngsters in this country want to change the way the system in this country works. What Rahul Gandhi wants to do is empower the women in this country, wants to unleash the power of these women, I mean we talk about being a superpower ... The interview also delineated the very real limits of Mr. Gandhi's outsider act. When asked about the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, after the assassination of his grandmother, Indira Gandhi, and perpetrated under the watch of his father, Rajiv Gandhi, Mr. Gandhi sought to mount a dubious distinction between the pogrom in 1984 and the anti-Muslim riots of 2002 in Gujarat, which took place while Mr. Modi was chief minister of the state. Contrary to established evidence by independent human rights groups that indicts both governments of active collusion, Mr. Gandhi stated, "In 1984, the government was trying to stop the riots. In 2002, the government was actively aiding and abetting the riots. If Mr. Gandhi had hoped to come across to undecided voters as the catalyst for change, he failed. But most alarmingly for supporters of the Congress Party, Mr. Gandhi's interview revealed that despite a decade in politics, he had little to offer that was substantive and novel. Despite an active "rebranding" exercise, Mr. Gandhi reinforced the impression of a reluctant politician, inspired by little more than feudal obligation to carry forward the family business. Vaibhav Vats is a writer based in New Delhi.