Congress: All at sea

This Ship Need Not Sink

The G-23 is not a congregation of international leaders huddled in a swanky getaway in the Swiss Alps confabulating on climate change in a post-Trump world order. Neither is it a ragtag gang of disgruntled old men plotting a midnight putsch. In fact, it is an assemblage of 23 passionate politicians with immense self-respect for the political party they represent: the Indian National Congress, the ‘Grand Old Party’ of India.

Yet, at various times, they have been uncharitably branded by craven followers as “BJP agents”, the deceptive Trojan horse. Or as self-serving superannuated over-the-hill sort who are looking for cosy sinecures in the December of their flagging political careers and who, on being denied the same, are behaving like petulant grumps. Or as those who are looking for the last hurrah before walking into the proverbial sunset (incidentally, the BJP has chosen octogenarian “Metro Man” E Sreedharan, 88, as their CM candidate for Kerala).

But all these imaginative speculations are as off the mark as Englishman Joe Root’s bat at the turning ball from Ravichandran Ashwin. When eight of these political heavyweights, which included Ghulam Nabi Azad, Kapil Sibal, Anand Sharma, B S Hooda, etc., recently spoke from a public pulpit in Jammu, all hell broke loose. Effigies were burnt; “off with their heads,” was the vociferous call from lily-livered loyalists. They were missing the woods for the trees. The eight spoke for many within Congress. And outside.

Rahul Gandhi made a sardonic dig at erstwhile colleague Jyotiraditya Scindia, calling him a backbencher in the BJP. In Congress, Scindia would have become Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh had he demonstrated patience and commitment to ideology, he suggested. Rahul’s tardy observation was a manifestation of his leadership myopia. While he exhibited schadenfreude in the perceptible discomfiture of the Nawab of Gwalior in the BJP, the more fundamental question remained unaddressed: Why did Scindia prefer that alleged mortification to being in Congress? Why did Rahul allow Scindia, who was his Lok Sabha compatriot, to leave? If apparently Scindia could walk into the sprawling 12, Tughlaq Lane bungalow anytime because they were close chums, how come Rahul never sensed that his buddy was upset at being sandbagged?

It is this communication paralysis in Rahul’s handling of Congress generals, in particular, that has led to the current cul-de-sac in the Congress. Sachin Pilot, another popular ‘Young Turk’ almost left Congress as well last year in what would have been a terrible disaster for the party. After a serious drubbing in two Lok Sabha elections, losing Scindia and the state of Madhya Pradesh (which had been reclaimed from the BJP after 15 long years), Congress nearly blew away Rajasthan which, had it happened, would have been nothing short of suicide for the party. It was inexplicable absurdity in the art of handling an existential cataclysmic collapse. The party is gradually slipping down a quicksand but seems unable to understand the threat of extinction it faces. Maybe there is something Rahul and his cabal know that ordinary mortals don’t.

Nothing illustrates Congress’ fatal death-wish than the recent Gujarat municipal election results. In 2017, a pugnacious Rahul brought about a spectacular turnaround in Congress fortunes in a state where it has been out of power since 1995. Albeit BJP still won, Rahul showed that he was willing and able to take the Modi-Shah bull by the horns. Fast forward to 2021, and Congress is in complete disarrangement. It has not just been obliterated from urban municipalities but deracinated from even its once traditional foothold in the rural councils (which had borne the brunt of Modi’s flawed ‘Gujarat model’).

Instead of a mega-consolidation post-2017, Congress has become a woebegone mess. The inevitable must be asked: Who is responsible for such electoral meltdowns? Very few in Congress are ballsy enough to ask such questions, being conditioned to years of inglorious obsequiousness at the altars of the Delhi Durbar. It is this lack of organisational robustness, internal democracy and the absence of an accountable leadership that has sunk Congress. But is anybody listening?

The summer elections are a litmus test for Congress; another dismal under-performance could prove catastrophic. Barring Tamil Nadu (where DMK+Congress looks formidable), the other four election-bound states see the party floundering. The fact that the Puducherry government was toppled by BJP’s Operation Lotus reflects how Congress barely has any operational leverage over its regional satraps. In Kerala, the Left, under Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, seems set to give a historic snub to Congress (the state has oscillated between Left and Congress in every election since 1987). In West Bengal, the feisty Mamata Banerjee is unlikely to give Congress much headroom. The real crowning glory for Congress would be winning Assam, whose complex ethnicity was meant to be ruthlessly exploited by BJP using the double whammy of CAA and NRC. May 2, 2021 could prove to be a watershed day for Congress’ immediate future.

India is changing at a rapid speed, but Congress’ metabolism is not able to keep pace with it. There are many political analysts and Left-leaning historians who are convinced that the current feudal, monarchical avatar of Congress is in sync with its historical context, wherein powerful political personalities lorded over simmering inner chasms using their unfettered veto. They were the unquestioned trouble-shooters, and their verdict was sacrosanct. The Nehru-Gandhis, according to them, are not a conundrum, but a continuum of the same political culture. They think internal democracy or transparent elections within the party will damage its core unifying threads, create fissures. Funnily, that’s precisely what they expect from Prime Minister Modi for India -- translucency, openness. Isn’t what’s sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander too?

As I was writing this, another Congress veteran quit the party: P C Chacko. While Rahul displayed his stupendous fitness and freestyle swimming acrobatics in the ocean, Congress remains all at sea. While Rahul may have the six-pack abs, it is Congress that needs the proteins.

(The writer is a former Congress spokesperson)