After Assembly polls debacle, Congress in free fall

More than 75 years ago, not a long period in historical terms, the Indian National Congress was the symbol of India’s hard-fought struggle for Independence and of national pride, prestige and aspirations. The Congress party ruled the country for decades thereafter without much opposition and managed to keep the country on a progressive trajectory, however slow and bumpy.

The Gandhi name itself was re-designed by Feroze Ghandy, a Parsi, reportedly as a tribute to the Mahatma and in order to marry the Hindu Indira. If so, it certainly suited the political need of the Nehru dynasty starting with Indira Gandhi. This was regardless of the fact that after Gandhiji, it was the Nehru/Patel duo and then the Narasimha Rao/Manmohan Singh team that really created milestones for the country.

The Gandhi name, by then unconnected with the Mahatma, returned to prominence with Indira Gandhi in the intervening period, beginning 1966, when Lal Bahadur Shastri died. She provided strong leadership -–emphasised by her conduct of the Bangladesh liberation -- but also faced a split in the party and an exodus of many experienced members of her team. She certainly marked her political presence with such spectacular, if questionable, acts as the nationalisation of banks and insurance companies, withdrawal of the privy purses of the former ruling families, all in a much-publicised display of concern for the garib log – the poor.

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Then, of course, there was the 1975-77 Emergency. This was what kept the Gandhi name alive in Indian politics and created a dynasty, more by accident to begin with than by design. The design seems to have come later when Rajiv Gandhi was persuaded to test his piloting skills in the turbulence of domestic and international politics.

After Indira’s untimely death, Rajiv Gandhi became PM on a high note of acceptability with his amiable manner, willingness to listen and, of course, much sympathy, thanks to the circumstances of his ascent. All that soon dissipated in the pressures of bad advice and wrong judgement. The hasty Sri Lankan intervention was a huge disaster that finally led to his death in 1991. This Lok Sabha election statistic tells the story of the fall of the Congress from grace to its present dismal stature: 1984, vote share: 48%; seats: 352. 2019, vote share: 26.5%, seats: 52.

The elections to the state Assemblies have also reflected the decline in the influence of the party. From total control of all state governments for many years after Independence, the Congress now rules just two states.

Practical wisdom would have helped Congress retain a toehold in governance if after the 2014 debacle they had exploited the comparative inexperience of the BJP and its shortage of administrative talent. An offer to cooperate in a mutually agreed national development programme could have been managed and negotiated to suit mutual needs. Meetings did take place brokered by Manmohan Singh, with Sonia Gandhi conferring with Narendra Modi a couple of times. Then there was an abrupt break and that was that. Ego undoubtedly was the culprit.

Quite understandably, the Congress, still smarting after the 2014 defeat, took the 2019 result almost as a repeated affront to what it considered its traditional right to rule! Gone was the old conventional promise of the electoral losers to be a constructive Opposition and to support or oppose on an “issue by issue” basis. Nowhere was to be seen any parliamentary procedure or courtesy in either House. It was not even an undeclared war. It was a war declared by Congress which brazenly vowed to unseat Modi. The enfeebled regional parties took up the Congress refrain and promoted the unseating of Modi as the sole aim of the united Opposition!

The role of the Constitution and democratically conducted general elections that empowered Modi and the BJP were ignored in the mindless descent of politics to its depths. The “family” seemed to have tightened its mysterious but power-laden grip on the party. Young and potential leaders allowed themselves to be compromised and deprived of their opportunity to lead their party to a more meaningful future. Power continued to stay with the “oldies” who saw no future for themselves outside the party. Party workers would forever remain so, with no electoral system that would give them an upward route.

I belong to a generation that straddled British rule and the fight for and winning of Independence. We grew up breathing Congress air and drawing inspiration from those few who led the fight for a cause that was considered doomed right from the start. They laid the foundation of a nation and gave us a Constitution that promised us all a happy and stable future. The only blunder they committed was that they assumed that their successors in power would be guided by the same ideals and aspiration for the future as they were. Ambedkar was prescient when he said, “However good a Constitution may be, if those who are implementing it are not good, it will prove to be bad. However bad a Constitution may be, if those implementing it are good, it will prove to be good”. They did not expect that national welfare would be relegated and party and personal gains would rule political aspirations.

Nobody expected that the seat of democracy, the Parliament, where the Constitution was to be passionately followed, would see that very Constitution being violated by party politics and disruption, petty bickering and long periods of forced inactivity. Most shameful of all has been the failure of the Congress to sustain the principles and ethics of its own leaders who gave it a sacred legacy.

It grieves me to see a great party in which we all believed being reduced from a powerful national party to a splinter group waiting on the political roadside to be picked up by disparate groups to make up numbers to gain and stay in power.

Today, after so many lessons have appeared so clearly over the years, the Congress leadership is still planning to “introspect”. Dissent within the party has arisen and been suppressed. The teetering “senior” leaders are still aiming for a revival and return to its old glory, saying that the Congress is the only party with the DNA to be a national party! The younger of the leaders have been silent or making half-hearted squeaks of protest. Maybe they find greater comfort and security where they are, and in modern politics the conscience is pliant!

It is only now that Kapil Sibal has broken ranks with his half-hearted G-23 friends and dared to ask the Gandhi trio to quit leadership. Will Kapil Sibal’s clear message raise a louder echo? We shall wait.

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