The value of the Nehru-Gandhi family for the Congress is well known. Not only does it make the party stand out from the others because of the family’s inestimable contributions to the nation in the pre-independence period and in establishing secular democracy after 1947, it is also the adhesive which keeps the party together. Without the family at the helm, the fractious Congress would not have lasted as long as it has. The binding force of the family is also evident from the fact that those who have left the party have either faded away or have had to return to the party or have managed to survive only as regional entities.
In the first category are outfits like the Forward Bloc of Subhas Chandra Bose and the so-called Congress (Organization) of the Syndicate which opposed Indira Gandhi. In the second are individuals like Pranab Mukherjee and P. Chidambaram, who formed parties of their own after falling out with the Congress’s central leadership but subsequently returned to the mother party. And in the third category are Mamata Banerjee and Sharad Pawar who have survived in their strongholds but have little hope of growing beyond them.
It is the latter who give an indication of what is going wrong with the Congress. If neither Mukherjee’s Rashtriya Samajwadi Congress nor Chidambaram’s Tamil Maanila Congress could last for any length of time, the reason was that the Congress was a formidable force at the time. Since this is no longer true, the Trinamool Congress and the NCP have seen no need to merge their identities with the Congress as Mukherjee’s and Chidambaram’s outfits did. What is more, it is possible to determine the year when the Congress’s decline started. This was in 1987 when the Swedish radio first broadcast the news of the Bofors deal, leading to the ouster of Rajiv Gandhi’s government two years later.
The Congress did return to power in 1991, but no one from the dynasty has held the reins of office since 1989. One thing is obvious from this failure – the fading popularity of the party’s first family. But that’s not all. It is now clear that after the surge of 2009 which took the Congress’s tally of Lok Sabha seats to beyond 200, the wheels have gone into reverse gear and the party will be hard put to maintain in the next general election what it achieved in 2009. What this means is that the first family is no longer propelling it forward.
Why has the party lost the momentum of 2004 and 2009? Its gains at the time were due to the fact that the electorate was seeking a relief from the BJP’s communalism which led to the Gujarat riots of 2002, which were directly blamed by Atal Behari Vajpayee for the party’s 2004 defeat, and to the burning of churches in Odisha in 2008. To the voters, the Congress’s traditional secularism, though tinged with cynicism, was the answer to the BJP’s anti-minority agenda. The heady success of 2009, however, has revived the Congress’s customary cynicism whose negative fallout is now apparent.
A manifestation of its recourse to expediency was to decide to maintain its grip on power even if it entailed turning a blind eye to corruption. It doesn’t take much perspicacity to see that this amoral interpretation of “coalition dharma” was the dynasty’s brainchild. Having won unexpectedly in 2004, the dynasty did not want to lose power merely to uphold the values of honesty in public life. In the event, these opportunistic calculations did not help the party. It lost in Tamil Nadu as a result of the dalliance with a minister who had to spend a long time in jail, also in several other elections. But, that is not the only reason why the party is losing ground.
The Congress’s success has always depended on the party’s charismatic leaders pursuing a clearly identifiable goal – Nehru’s championing of secularism and democracy, Indira’s role in the liberation of Bangladesh and Rajiv’s promise to take the country into the 21st century. In contrast to them, the present generation’s sole intent appears to be to hold on to power at any cost even if it means maintaining a deafening silence on issues of liberalism like the ban on books – Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses, James W. Laine’s biography of Shivaji, A.K. Ramanujan’s 300 Ramayanas – and also on cartoons lest any particular vote bank is offended. Moreover, the party is now said to be toying with the idea of amending the Constitution to extend reservations to the Muslims, thereby substantiating the BJP’s charge against the Congress of minority appeasement.
This sacrifice of principles for the sake of power explains why the Congress is losing ground. In addition, the dynasty’s socialistic preferences have been a drag on the economy, killing the growth story. Again, this Left-leaning inclination, like Indira’s faux socialism, has nothing to do with genuine ideological conviction. Instead, it is based on the short-sighted calculation that “socialism” sells while the reforms are seen as pro-rich. By the time, the family learns that it is alienating the 300-million strong middle class in the process and courting defeat, it will be too late. (IPA Service)
MENU 