Nepal, Dec. 10 -- So, Rahul Gandhi was not invited to the state banquet for Russian President Vladimir Putin. We are told Prime Minister Narendra Modi had ensured that the leader of opposition in parliament's Lower House - the shadow prime minister in the British system - wasn't allowed to make even a call on the visiting dignitary. Rahul took his exclusion demurely, calling it a reflection of the government's insecurity. He didn't seem too bothered. When he travels abroad, he said, he finds it difficult to meet senior leaders because they had been advised to not interact with him.

Modi's peevishness with the Gandhi family is well recorded, but there is evidently more to it than the challenge of competing with Jawaharlal Nehru's legacy a...