Aditi Phadnis: The same old battle cry

By appointing Mallikarjun Kharge as the leader of Opposition, the Congress has gone back to relying on caste appeal rather than defending the 'idea of India'

Mallikarjun Kharge? Puhleez!" was a reporter's text message to a senior Congressman and former minister, following the announcement that 74-year old Kharge was to be the new leader of the Opposition.

"Circa 1964" was the laconic reply.

This was after the new National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government decided to put legal niceties aside and appointed Nripendra Misra as principal secretary to the prime minister via an ordinance. A regulator who has had oversight over government bodies should not be re-appointed in the government - this was the rule to which the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), then in the Opposition, had agreed. So here was a party going back on its own convictions. If the Congress had really wanted to be a party in the Opposition, it could have taken the BJP to the cleaners: as well as warning that it had the capacity to block the ordinance in the Rajya Sabha, where the government does not have a majority. But instead of digging in and fighting, it just rolled over and played dead. It figured that the BJP would have done its sums and had its way anyway, so what was the point of making an issue of it. The party will not oppose the ordinance.
 

This was followed by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor's glowing praise for Narendra Modi on The Huffington Post, for having remodelled himself from a "hate figure" to an "avatar of modernity and progress" and that it would be "churlish" of the Congress to ignore his "inclusive and accommodative" outreach. The men who criticised Rahul Gandhi for the lack of leadership qualities were expelled from the party; the man who reproved the Congress for criticising its primary enemy, has been let off with a gentle slap on the wrist.

With Kharge as leader of the primary Opposition party, the circle is now complete. It is still a mystery why Kamal Nath, who has held the Chhindwara Lok Sabha seat eight times was not made leader. However, it seems some very complicated factors were at work: like sending a message to Dalits (Kharge is a Dalit) that someone was speaking for them; and that Karnataka where the Congress' electoral blushes had been spared, should have had some representation… .

The fact is that while Kharge might have been an excellent minister in the state (what he did in the labour ministry in the Centre, however, is another matter), he is hardly what a 45-member Congress needs in the Lok Sabha.

What should the Congress in Opposition aim to be? In the Lok Sabha, you need a street-smart, wily leader with the capacity to lead the entire Opposition as one entity. Therefore, he has to have outreach in other Opposition parties. Moreover, frankly, Dalits - along with the upper and middle castes - have abandoned the Congress and voted for the BJP. This is as true of Uttar Pradesh as it is of Karnataka. So what you need is a strong ideological Opposition to the BJP, not denominational Opposition: whether caste- or community-based. What has to be defended is the "idea of India": isn't that what the Congress had promised to do right through its campaign?

So it is disappointing to find that the Congress has gone back to relying on caste appeal. And even if it has done that, shouldn't it have found someone who represents the most oppressed, the most marginalised among the Dalits? The Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) in Karnataka together constitute 23.5 per cent and account for 18 per cent reservation in government and educational sectors (15 per cent for SCs and three per cent for STs). But the SCs divide in Karnataka is broadly divided into right-hand (Holeyars) and left-hand (Madigas) Dalits. The Holeyars (the right-hand Dalits) shun the Madigas in all the ways in which the upper castes shun them: there is no inter-marriage, interdining or social relations between the two sub castes. The left Dalits feel the right Dalits corner all the benefits of reservation. Most of the Dalit Congress leaders in Karnataka, whether it is Mallikarjun Kharge or G Parameshwara, the chief of the state party, are right Dalits. So, if a caste empowerment signal had to be sent, it would have been more effective if a left Dalit had been appointed to one of the top jobs in the Congress.

Kharge has never lost an election and belongs to the Gulbarga region of Karnataka. He began life as a trade union lawyer and knows what it is like to struggle. But he is neither the most articulate in the party nor the most ideological. In a new regime, where forces have been unleashed who think nothing of bludgeoning a man to death simply because he is a Muslim (Pune) and decree that books that are critical of Hindus will not be allowed to see the light of day (Deenanath Batra's campaign to ban books) you need a tougher fighter, surely?

You would have thought that given the parlous state of the Congress, it would have weighed every appointment, every nomination. But it has lost no time in declaring itself the King's loyal opposition. Granted, it has suffered a terrible electoral reverse. But it seems to have lost the will to fight.