Sachin Pilot’s wife is having a baby next month, but that did not deter this first-time-father-to-be from spending long days and nights “with his people’’ — the Gujjars — when the community erupted in a violent agitation for Scheduled Tribe status in Rajasthan recently.

All of last week, Pilot, 29, was in the eye of the storm, his unshaven stubble keeping pace with starched handspun, as he had discussions with home minister Shivraj Patil, Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi, and BJP supremo Rajnath Singh — not necessarily in that order.

“The most disturbing part of the whole agitation was the violence, the fact that hundreds of thousands of people were hassled and many even hurt. The leaders wanted my advice on how the Congress should act… It became a human issue, a social movement, it had nothing to do with politics,’’ says Pilot.

The enormous media exposure has definitely been good for Pilot’s political career. To be recognised as the face of his parliamentary constituency, Dausa, as well as a key Gujjar leader who sought the middle path in this violent fracas, is no mean achievement.

But Pilot does not seem to be unduly excited by that. He seems keenly aware of the fleeting nature of both power and adulation. And there’s an impressive reserve to the young man.

How he hates being called, “young”, though. It’s true that he became the youngest Member of Parliament when he won Dausa in 2004. He was just 26 then. But if “youth’’ is a pejorative in the hands of ageing parliamentarians, then Pilot will have none of it.

Of course, he doesn’t say any or all of the above. Rajesh and Rama Pilot’s son seems well brought up, although he lacks the easy affection and earthiness of his father. Pilot Junior, on the other hand, has just the right quote for everyone and every situation. It’s a little overwhelming, this complete control at age 29 — and just a trifle depressing.

Perhaps the steel armour is necessary. Not only because politics opens you to every jibe and insult, all in the name of the people. But even when Pilot married the lovely peaches-and-cream Sara Abdullah, daughter of Farooq Abdullah, and his in-laws had a few unkind things to say, the bridegroom had simply clammed up. Pilot didn’t say a word against, about, or why his in-laws were doing what they did.

“Look, she’s from a political family. Whatever happened then, happened. Let’s just say that today her family is very happy that we are very happy together,’’ he says.

Clearly, he wants to return to the Gujjar story.

“Those flashy young men with gold chains who have ‘Gujjar’ emblazoned across their Scorpios are not representative of the community,” Pilot says, aware that the Gujjar stereotype has got bad press over the years. He points out that most people from the community are so poor that they haven’t been able to participate in the fruits of development. The way the Gujjars see it, says Pilot, is that caste quotas are a sure way to get somewhere. If the Meenas have access to social and economic uplift because of their Scheduled Tribe status, then the Gujjars naturally want to follow the same route.

“A Meena boy gets into IIT with 34 per cent, while a Gupta boy (of a higher caste) with 94 per cent can’t get admission,” says Pilot, arguing that in an unfair world, caste quotas are the equivalent of the goose that lays golden eggs.

His stint at the Wharton Business School in the US taught him the value of merit, he says. However, in India, “caste reservations are a tool given by the Constitution” and they must be fully used, he holds.

Still, Pilot has not hesitated to go beyond the quota question and use other tools to improve Dausa’s lot. “I have gone with a begging bowl to everyone — in Delhi, in the state, in the district, everywhere. I persuaded railway minister Laloo Yadavji to visit my constituency and sanction a new train. I persuaded the highways authority to build a 65-km stretch from Delhi to Dausa that had been hanging fire for the last 17 years. Now most of it is complete,” he says proudly. From patwari to PM, says Pilot, he’s been there, done that.

When his father died in a road accident in 2000, everyone agreed that it was a life cut too short. Rajesh Pilot’s dash and daring had made him a key member of the Congress vanguard. The father’s reputation for doing things differently was soon to devolve upon the son.

So when he returned from Wharton, and the party offered him the Dausa seat, which was held by his mother after his father’s death, Pilot said yes to politics. He won by more than one lakh votes.

He bristles at the suggestion that in the republic of India, dynasties are increasingly becoming the rule, rather than the exception. Jitin Prasada, Milind Deora, Sandeep Dikshit, Manvendra Singh — we count the young MPs off our fingers. (Pilot doesn’t mention Rahul Gandhi.) He points out that all of them are from the upper castes.

So what, I wonder. He reads my mind and answers triumphantly, “I am the only one who is not.”

Pilot tells me that when he accompanied his father or mother to election meetings, it seemed par for the course. But as a candidate, fighting for himself, every single vote mattered. He visited every village and met everyone he possibly could.

“My father died in 2000. That was a long time ago. Nobody remembers you from then. Nobody gives a rat’s ass if you don’t win. Your father’s constituency is not your fiefdom. The good old days are over. I don’t have any blue blood in me. The bar is so high these days that you have to beg and plead for every vote,” he says.

A dynasty, he adds, can work in a democracy only if it gets a stamp of approval every five years. You must be the better alternative. You cannot take the people for granted.

As for the Congress’s loss in Uttar Pradesh, he says that it is now time for the party to go back and rebuild bridges and generally re-engineer the full political project in the state. But even the remotest suggestion that the Congress party, alias Rahul Gandhi, should set its house in order and Pilot flinches as if he’s been burnt by the comment.

“I am just a humble soldier in a mighty organisation, and that is the Congress party,” he says.

Still, as his father’s son, he has honed his strategies for political survival rather well. A Rajesh Pilot ritual, an annual kisan lunch at home in the winter sun, with makki ki roti and saag, gurh, three kinds of chutney and curds, and with the crème de la crème of the Delhi press corps in attendance, has ensured the young Pilot’s continued popularity.

Back in the office, the dynasty lives. Photographs of Rajesh Pilot with Indira Gandhi dominate the office walls. There’s another one of his mother with Indira Gandhi, but this one is still in bubblewrap. And there is a whole frame full of his own shooting medals in trap, skeet and rifle. Pilot has been a shooting champ in his time.

So what’s the next target? To keep pace with the demands of his constituency, to deal with development projects, funds, new trains, roads… his earnest political correctness begins to ooze.

With the care he has lavished on his constituency, naturally, it was Dausa, and not Delhi, that welcomed his bride Sara. “My people in Dausa believe I am special. When I got married, they told me, ‘it doesn’t matter who you married. She is your wife, and that’s all that matters to us’,” he says.

By now it’s amply clear that Sachin Pilot is not only Dausa’s son, but also heir and legatee. So what happens when the Election Commission completes its delimitation exercise and Dausa gains a Scheduled Tribe status, thereby disinheriting its democratically elected prince? In the past, he’s been rumoured to say that he hopes he can move to nearby Ghaziabad. To repeat that now would clearly be bad politics.

“I have been elected to serve five full years. I have done three of those to the best of my ability. Whatever happens is not up to me to decide. I will serve the people of Dausa to the last day,” he says.

Finally, the penny drops. Que Sara Sara is only one part of his life’s motto. And if the Gujjar agitation last week was any indication, Pilot is hardly likely to fade away from public memory. The young Pilot is a fighter and he means to stay the course.