NATIONAL AFFAIRS
political parties | congress | introduction | anil tyagi
political parties | congress | introduction | anil tyagi
AS the Indian National Congress – India’s Grand Old Party – celebrates its 125th anniversary, it is difficult to miss the juxtaposition of two striking yet contrasting scenarios from the past and present: The party leaders of 1947 such as Jawaharlal Nehru, Vallabhbhhai Patel, Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad, C Rajagopalachari and Rajendra Prasad as against those of 2010, namely, Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Pranab Mukherjee, AK Antony, Digvijay Singh, SM Krishna, Anand Sharma, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Salman Khursheed and so on. Where the former group worked to free India, the latter, sadly, has bound the nation in chains. Founder Allan Octavian Hume could never have imagined that an organization he spearheaded along with Dadabhai Naoroji, Rajendra Lal Mitra, Ramgopal Ghose and Surendra Nath Banerjee to give voice to the aspirations of India’s huddled masses and incipient entrepreneurs against the economic drain of the Raj would one day itself be viewed as Raj redux.
Romesh Chunder Dutt, a distinguished economic historian who became party president in 1899, tracked the decline of India as one of the world’s agricultural and industrial powerhouses under British manipulation. He wrote: “The East India Company and the British Parliament, following the selfish commercial policy of a hundred years ago, discouraged Indian manufacturers in the early years of British rule in order to encourage the rising manufacturers of England. Their fixed policy, pursued during the last decades of the 19th century, was to make
India subservient to the industries of Great Britain, and to make the Indian people grow raw produce in order to supply material for the looms and manufacturers of Great Britain.” But, even as the nation broke these fetters, thanks largely to the valiant efforts of the Congress party, history now seems to be in ironic repetition of itself. British India has been replaced with a veritable Multinational India Inc. The colours, faces and patterns might have changed, but the dynamics of the old game remain the same. Rural India still lives in dread of the landgrabbers.
As for the party, its current state hardly augurs well for its future. On November 2, the Congress party’s preliminary session elected Sonia Gandhi as its president and authorized her to appoint working committee members. For veteran observers, it was an utterly transparent game. Lightweights like Girija Vyas, Rashid Alvi, Meenakshi Natarajan and Ramesh Chennithala took the lead in endorsing Sonia and spouting paeans of praise while senior members – the more credible faces of the party – looked on.
Yet, nobody was fooled. The only entity that runs the party with unstinting support from the powerbrokers is the Sonia-Rahul powerhouse. But how long can the mother-son combo keep fetching votes for the unknown faces in the party? Any party that belittles its secondrung leadership cannot be successful. Leaders are not made in a day. They need a ready, willing and trained reservoir of talent to ensure not just the survival of the Nehru-Gandhi scions but also the edifice of the party.
The Opposition parties may seem disunited, jaded and effete at the moment. But there is one aspect of them that the managers and top leaders of the Congress can ignore only at their own peril: There are at least 20 leaders emerging independently who are capable of achieving national status at the right time. Can this be said of the Congress just now?
Romesh Chunder Dutt, a distinguished economic historian who became party president in 1899, tracked the decline of India as one of the world’s agricultural and industrial powerhouses under British manipulation. He wrote: “The East India Company and the British Parliament, following the selfish commercial policy of a hundred years ago, discouraged Indian manufacturers in the early years of British rule in order to encourage the rising manufacturers of England. Their fixed policy, pursued during the last decades of the 19th century, was to make
India subservient to the industries of Great Britain, and to make the Indian people grow raw produce in order to supply material for the looms and manufacturers of Great Britain.” But, even as the nation broke these fetters, thanks largely to the valiant efforts of the Congress party, history now seems to be in ironic repetition of itself. British India has been replaced with a veritable Multinational India Inc. The colours, faces and patterns might have changed, but the dynamics of the old game remain the same. Rural India still lives in dread of the landgrabbers. As for the party, its current state hardly augurs well for its future. On November 2, the Congress party’s preliminary session elected Sonia Gandhi as its president and authorized her to appoint working committee members. For veteran observers, it was an utterly transparent game. Lightweights like Girija Vyas, Rashid Alvi, Meenakshi Natarajan and Ramesh Chennithala took the lead in endorsing Sonia and spouting paeans of praise while senior members – the more credible faces of the party – looked on.
Yet, nobody was fooled. The only entity that runs the party with unstinting support from the powerbrokers is the Sonia-Rahul powerhouse. But how long can the mother-son combo keep fetching votes for the unknown faces in the party? Any party that belittles its secondrung leadership cannot be successful. Leaders are not made in a day. They need a ready, willing and trained reservoir of talent to ensure not just the survival of the Nehru-Gandhi scions but also the edifice of the party.
The Opposition parties may seem disunited, jaded and effete at the moment. But there is one aspect of them that the managers and top leaders of the Congress can ignore only at their own peril: There are at least 20 leaders emerging independently who are capable of achieving national status at the right time. Can this be said of the Congress just now?
The lessons are clear: change or perishIndia’s institutions are being replaced by individual or dynastic hegemony
by VIJAY SANGHVI
REFLECTING on the Indian National Congress as it prepares to mark the 125th anniversary of its founding, a Rolls-Royce joke comes to mind. A wealthy man bought a Rolls- Royce and drove it away from the showroom. After 10 km, the car stalled. He summoned the engineers. After inspecting the car, they said, “Sorry, sir, there is no engine.” Amazed, he asked, “Then how did it run this far?”
“On the company’s reputation, sir.” The Congress party too has come this far on its reputation. But it gets stalled on and off, often at election time, since the engine is missing. However reputed and expert the driver, he just cannot make the vehicle move sans an engine. A good driver with a glorious past is not enough. Congress members are unwilling to shed their belief that a member of the “First Family” installed in the driving seat can make the party reach its desired destination of power. The party has become identified with an individual family rather than banking on a programme or innovative ideas that can spark the imagination of the masses. Its members are yet to learn that no individual, no matter his or her charisma, can work magic unless the individual is identified with an idea that the masses embrace. Individuals can lead the party only when a worthy idea provides the locomotion.
Gandhi infused life in the freedom struggle by turning the Congress party from a debating society into an organization of the masses. He proffered the idea that freedom was the final objective of their lives and the people took it up. Next, Nehru provided the idea that it was in the hands of the people to build a new India and the population was inspired. Indira Gandhi promised the poor two square meals a day as their right and they identified with her, trouncing the mighty opposition in the March 1971 election.
Ironically, the massive mandate of 1971 became the major source of the problems afflicting the party today. It led to Indira’s belief that she alone was the invincible leader. The electoral debacle of March 1977 did not alter this belief because she had delivered yet another blow to the party by removing most of the leaders around her who had consolidated bases among the people of their regions. She did not want a challenge to her leadership within the party. Aware that nine Chief Ministers were responsible for her victory over Morarji Desai in January 1966, she also knew they were powerful elements within the party as they enjoyed majority in their legislature parties. “If nine can make, they can also unmake me,” she once said privately. Structure of NominationsPerhaps this insecurity was responsible for the introduction of the nominated structure of the party. Every post or position was granted at her pleasure and withdrawn at her displeasure. Indira also had her way in installing Chief Ministers who did not enjoy a majority in their legislature parties. In March 1972, Gujarat dissident leader Chimanbhai Patel challenged Chief Minister Ghanshyam Oza, nominated by her, to name five legislators out of 112 MLAs. Oza could not accept the challenge. Jagjivan Ram derisively called these nominated CMs “the drafted Chief Ministers”.
The nominations for party posts imposed a situation in which Indira did not need the party as a political apparatus with internal democracy, free debate and merit-based upward mobility. Even two-way communication was gradually replaced by diktats.
IT continues today with the leader being inaccessible not only to the rank and file but also to second- and third-rung leaders beyond the cordon of advisers. Functionaries who have held some office or other for 30 years find it difficult to secure an audience.
Jaideep Sinha Baria, Congressman from Godhra, Gujarat, wrote to Indira that the party defeat in Assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka in January 1983 was mainly due to the end of free debate in all forums. Even in the Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP), there was no scope left for debate. Party meetings were turned into mere rituals with inaugural and valedictory addresses by the leader. Hence, the leader remained unaware of ground realities and public perception of the party and its programmes.
But the stinging message did not prompt Indira to open the doors of the party fora for free and meaningful debate. Even within the Congress Working Committee (CWC), debate was reduced to authorization of the party chief’s capacity to take decisions. This continues: at the last CWC meeting, party chief Sonia Gandhi was authorized to name 12 members to it instead of holding an election as the party Constitution stipulates. The election would have given the thousands of AICC members an opportunity to express their opinion through a ballot. Instead, the task of shortlisting 12 names was assigned to a set of advisers. Then there’s the situation stemming from the fact that some families have held safe constituencies and continue to push their children’s claims to succession. This prevents meritorious aspirants from rising within the party. It also results in diverting loyalty to these families or safely ensconced leaders rather than to the party among the second rung. Palace intrigues flourish as aides joust to grab the maximum numbers. This factor kept Rajiv Gandhi from evolving an effective strategy to meet the opposition challenge in Parliament over charges of corruption in defence deals in 1987.
Charity is not empowerment
If the structure is flawed, so are the party’s programmes. Devised to make the poor depend on state charity rather than empowerment to escape poverty, inequality and deprivation, the programmes amount to little more than throwing crumbs. They rouse the expectation of more largesse without any gratitude for what, however indifferently, has already been delivered. An even more serious flaw is that the party rank and file do not derive political mileage because they are waiting on leaders to catch their eye rather than working in the field. Earlier, a patron age system existed in the party that helped workers mobilize votes. A leader would attend to what workers in the field were saying and seek redressal of problems. In turn, the worker delivered votes because he was in a position to show his clout with the leader. The practice of nominations dealt a lethal blow to the patronage system too. In 1987, the Rajiv Gandhi government launched a major initiative to provide relief to people caught in severe scarcity. But the Congress could not reap political benefits from it and was relegated to the opposition benches in the December 1989 election. The main reason for failure was the absence of workers to exert political pressure on the bureaucracy to deliver what the government had promised by way of a few thousand crore rupees for relief operations.Ironically, the massive mandate of 1971 became the source of the problems afflicting the party today: Indira’s belief that she alone was the invincible leader.
The Congress’ managers credit Sonia for the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) and its political benefits to the party in the 2009 election. But the programme is essentially charity and the absence of workers from sites hampers political dividends. The Congress bettered its performance in 2009 only because its opponents conceived the wrong approach. The BJP’s projection of LK Advani as a decisive leader was a godsend for the Congress because the “decisive leader” had bungled with the “Shining India” campaign in the previous election. If NREGS played a role, why did the Congress do better in urban areas? Rather than analysing this, the party simply became complacent. The economic reforms programme is perceived as meant for the wealthy by the masses. But the Congress-led government is pursuing it with vigour while the party talks of the aam aadmi.
‘Off with his head’
THE first victim of Indira Gandhi’s new policy of nominations was Jagjivan Ram. He was replaced as party chief immediately after the 1971 election because he had remarked a day before the final tally was known that he was not a sleeping president. He was responding to the media’s questions on the party’s strategy in case it did not gain a clear majority. Within a week, he was replaced by a little known D Sanjivaiya who was picked up from Andhra Pradesh.
Yet, only 20 months earlier, in June 1969, Indira had proposed his name as the Congress candidate in the presidential election on the death of Zakir Hussain. The Parliamentary board rejected Jagjivan Ram’s candidature as he had not filed tax returns for years. She forgave him and made him party chief a day after the Parliament censure.
In contrast to her easing out of Jagjivan Ram, Nehru had to face seven sessions of the All-India Congress Committee (AICC) in 1951 when he wanted to remove Purushottam Das Tandon. He achieved it with a show of moral indignation and a threat to step down as Prime Minister. Nevertheless, he allowed the democracy within the party full play.
THE first victim of Indira Gandhi’s new policy of nominations was Jagjivan Ram. He was replaced as party chief immediately after the 1971 election because he had remarked a day before the final tally was known that he was not a sleeping president. He was responding to the media’s questions on the party’s strategy in case it did not gain a clear majority. Within a week, he was replaced by a little known D Sanjivaiya who was picked up from Andhra Pradesh.
Yet, only 20 months earlier, in June 1969, Indira had proposed his name as the Congress candidate in the presidential election on the death of Zakir Hussain. The Parliamentary board rejected Jagjivan Ram’s candidature as he had not filed tax returns for years. She forgave him and made him party chief a day after the Parliament censure.
In contrast to her easing out of Jagjivan Ram, Nehru had to face seven sessions of the All-India Congress Committee (AICC) in 1951 when he wanted to remove Purushottam Das Tandon. He achieved it with a show of moral indignation and a threat to step down as Prime Minister. Nevertheless, he allowed the democracy within the party full play.
Growing Social Awareness and AspirationsWhat does the Congress stand for? This is a question that baffles voters on the margins of society. The Assembly poll defeats in several States following the general election tell a tale about this. Earlier, the Congress was a representative political apparatus for all without a specific social vote bloc. Education and media expansion have created awareness among all classes.
The improved economic conditions have spawned new aspirations and also a hunger for a legitimate share in political power. However, the emerging classes find no space in the Congress leadership structure that is already packed with the old traditionalist and urban classes. So it is natural for them to seek new pastures – being provided by the regional parties espousing their cause. The growth of regional parties spelt the shrinking of the social and geographical reach of the Congress. The party lacks a leader who wields influence among the emerging classes. The Congress is seeking solutions to its problems without first tackling the social awareness that caused them in the first place. Instead of evolving with the times and new aspirations, it clings to the old concept of family rule as a mascot without realizing that today’s youth has escaped the grip of feudal perceptions. The party urgently needs an idea that can propel it for its run on reputation is over. Changing drivers is not the solution. The anniversary celebrations should begin and end with introspection directed at devising a powerful engine. 
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