T N Ninan: Re-inventing the Congress

Does anyone know how to re-invent the Congress? There are four or five issues to address. The first is that, all too often when the party develops a strong state leader, he or she finds it feasible and attractive to break away and form a new private-limited party in the state. In a repetition of the history of the Mughals and their satraps, the “family” in Delhi is often unable to re-assert control. What is left of the Congress in the state is usually a rump — as evident in West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh, and partially in Maharashtra. One preventive solution is to prop up only weak satraps who are dependent on the Delhi court. This is the tactic that Indira Gandhi tried, but it created local power vacuums that others stepped in to fill: think N T Rama Rao in Andhra Pradesh. The strong state leaders who still remain with the party find it possible therefore to indulge the same dynastic ambitions that the royals in Delhi do — the latest manifestations being Tarun Gogoi in Assam and Harish Rawat in Uttarakhand.

Second, the party’s core differentiator vis-à-vis the BJP is its opposition to Hindu majoritarianism, but this position has been undermined by Congressmen themselves who, when frustrated in their career ambitions, have found no difficulty in going across to the BJP in states like Assam and Uttarakhand. Indeed, the Congress itself has borrowed state-level leaders from the BJP — the best known example being Shankersinh Vaghela in Gujarat. The desire to prevent mobilisation on the strength of the Hindutva platform has led to such outcomes as Rajiv Gandhi authorising a “shilanyas” at Ramjanmabhoomi, and P V Narasimha Rao waiting for the Babri Masjid to fall before waking up from slumber. Voters can be forgiven for wondering, therefore, whether tags like “secular” and “communal” are placards to be picked up or dropped at will, depending on the convenience of the moment. The dilemma for the Congress in Narendra Modi’s India is that aggressive secularism is no longer a realistic option, whereas behaving like the BJP’s B team is counter-productive.

Third, the party has found no effective counter to the appeal of caste-based parties in the Hindi heartland and to the sub-nationalism on the periphery that has sustained parties like the Dravida outfits in Tamil Nadu and the Akali Dal in Punjab. This raises questions about the Congress failure to focus on caste as the defining reality in much of rural India and its unwillingness to go beyond tokenism on the issue, especially with regard to Dalits. Meanwhile, in terms of economic ideology, the party is most comfortable with a platform that combines palliative hand-outs with left-of-centre policy stances. However, these are not distinguishing features and in any case the party is outdone on both fronts by smaller rivals.

Most crucially, the Congress has not developed a reputation in states for good governance — others have done better. And it seems unable to match the BJP in energy, conviction, sustained focus on a long-term goal, media strategy and other ingredients of success. The result is the all-encompassing crisis of leadership, ideology, performance, strategy and even identity that confronts the party today, resulting in its progressive weakening in state after state — with the pace accelerating under Rahul Gandhi as vice-president. The party’s response to what has become an existential crisis seems to be to turn to Priyanka Gandhi — as though the solution to dynastic incompetence is more dynasty, not less.

If the Congress model of a political party is broken, and no one can fix it, then the country is faced with the prospect of a BJP-centric polity, with regional and caste-based parties being challengers in different states and a messy coalition (incorporating a shrunken Congress) the alternative in New Delhi.