The Congress' paradox

Published : May 07, 2004 00:00 IST

Even as the NDA demonstrates bankruptcy in its programmes and campaign issues, it is not clear whether the Congress can mount an effective challenge to it by radicalising and reinventing itself and offering an alternative future vision of India.

THE Indian National Congress confronts secular democrats with a peculiar dilemma. On the one hand, the party's political balance-sheet is badly smudged by a record of venality, cynically manipulative politics, compromises with communal forces and socially retrograde tendencies, and proclivity to elitist right-wing economic policy-making, especially since the 1990s. This, compounded by a grossly hierarchical organisation dependent on small cabals, has not only dented or deflated the positive side of the Congress' contribution to politics (mostly until the 1970s). It has also made its rejuvenation difficult.

On the other, secularists and progressives cannot be indifferent to how the Congress performs in practical politics, in particular whether it can effectively contribute to countering and containing the historic evil of communalism and the menace to democracy embodied in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its now more-servile-than-ever followers in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). Far too much is at stake in the coming elections for those who truly believe in the values of popular sovereignty, modernity, equity and social justice.

And yet, there is not much that outsiders - and often, even insiders - can assuredly do to promote a positive outcome for the Congress' political evolution along its extremely uneven, tortuous and bumpy path. The Congress is at once a local adversary and a national ally. It is also both a status quoist force and, at times, a source of hope - a site of many contradictions and anomalies.

How has the Congress girded itself up for what could be a make-or-break political battle for it? If the Congress' Lok Sabha tally falls short of, say, 100 seats or thereabouts, the party may not survive in its present form. It could split, get badly fragmented and face disintegration. If, on the other hand, it significantly improves on its 1999 total to reach 130 to 150 seats, it has a future and a real potential for rejuvenation. (In the latter event, it is likely to exceed the BJP's national vote share by a decent margin and come close to its seat tally too). The two outcomes are sharply divergent. Yet, both are equally plausible. They clearly mean the Congress cannot be smug about its electoral prospects.

To its credit, and at the risk of inviting criticism, it must be said that the Congress seems to be reading the writing on the wall. It has shed some of its monumental complacency and allowed itself to be jolted by its recent humiliating electoral defeats in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. It no longer behaves as if it assumed it is the "natural" party of governance, which only got temporarily unseated and will soon return to power. It has taken to alliance-building seriously, even if somewhat clumsily.

The Congress is cranking up its organisational machine in a number of States, where it exists in some strength. Its president has run her "Jan Sampark Abhiyan" with serious determination and zeal. She has received a strong response - far in excess of any BJP leader's public meetings, including the star, Atal BihariVajpayee's, even in the heartland of Uttar Pradesh.

Sonia Gandhi has demonstrated remarkable humility - long uncharacteristic of the Congress "High Command" - in making overtures to second- and even third-rank leaders of other Opposition parties. She also conveys the image of an earnest and focussed campaigner, eager to communicate with ordinary people without resorting to cheap gimmicks - albeit with the limited tools available within the party's political-programmatic framework.

Although bound up with the dynasty principle, the nomination of Rahul Gandhi as the Congress candidate for Amethi, and the likely induction of Priyanka Gandhi as a national-level campaigner, has energised the party and boosted its image. To the popular eye, the "second" or "future" generation of Congress leaders, including the two young Gandhis, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Sachin Pilot and Kumari Selja (a Dalit), looks far more youthful, earnest and confident than the abrasive dyed-in-the-wool cynics and jaded leaders who comprise the group most likely to succeed Vajpayee and Advani, including M. Venkaiah Naidu, Narendra Modi, Pramod Mahajan, Uma Bharati, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, etc.

The Congress has not succeeded in building strong and broad alliances in major northern States like U.P. and Bihar, and it only has a limited alliance (with two "friendly" contests) in Jharkhand. This is a setback. But it may be unfair to blame the Congress for this. The Samajwadi Party probably had no intention of joining hands with it. Its belated claim that it offered the Congress 18 seats in U.P. is not convincing. This was at best a vague, "informal" proposal, made way before the elections were announced. The S.P.'s reluctance to ally with any major party stands to reason given that Mulayam Singh Yadav would like to emerge as an independent "king-maker" or "balance-tilting" player in a hung Parliament. As for Mayawati, she first indicated many times that she would ally with the Congress. But she was probably blackmailed by the BJP over the Taj Corridor case.

In Bihar, Laloo Prasad Yadav drove an extremely hard bargain with his allies, barring Ram Vilas Paswan's Lok Janashakti Party. The Congress had to be content with four seats and the Left with even less or with no alliance.

The Congress has worked out its big alliances mainly in Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. But elsewhere, it has gone for tiny outfits. For instance, in U.P., it tied up with small, but locally significant caste/community-based parties like the (Kurmi-dominated) Apna Dal, the Momin (weavers') Conference and the (most backward classes') Samanta Dal. In other States too, the Congress is exploring alliances with small parties like Gondwana Gana Parishad (Madhya Pradesh), various Republican Party factions (Maharashtra), etc.

The limitations of alliance-building seem more to arise from the regionalisation or fragmentation of Indian politics and the plebeian castes' aspirations for self-representation, rather than the Congress' arrogance or tactlessness. Nevertheless, the Congress would do well, where it has really weak candidates, to ask voters to back strong secular candidates in order to defeat the BJP.

All in all, the Congress is putting up a fight. It has certainly got its media apparatus ready and going, although that cannot even remotely match the BJP's reach and resources, nor overcome media bias. The Congress put L.K. Advani on the defensive by reminding him of the absurdity of taking the "foreign origin" issue to the extreme. (He was born in today's Pakistan). The BJP got rattled enough for one "senior leader" to concede in an off-the-record briefing (March 27) that the "foreign origin" campaign is purely "tactical" (read, insincere and opportunist); it won't be pursued after the elections through the enactment of a law to ban naturalised citizens from holding high public office.

Remarkably, unlike the BJP, the Congress has not descended to mud-slinging and ad hominem attacks. It has responded with dignity to The Asian Age's Bofors "disclosures", which falsely implicate Sonia Gandhi without establishing even a remotely tenable case - on the basis of a Swedish policeman's suspicions, which he could not validate in his country's courts despite his personal integrity. Her name is being dragged in although it appears in no Bofors document.

Having said this, the Congress remains severely deficient in certain vital areas, both tactical, and more important, policy-related. Consider a few.

Economic tailism: The Congress has failed to formulate a pro-active economic policy of its own. Rather, it tends to weave its formulations around the pattern or template set by the BJP, whether on macroeconomic issues or liberalisation-deregulation, and privatisation (where it advocates a "selective" approach) or globalisation. Just some weeks ago, Sonia Gandhi decried the BJP's claim to generate 8 per cent gross domestic product (GDP) growth as "Mungeri Lal Ke Haseen Sapne" (a mere dream). She also seemed to be emphasising issues of equity, employment and empowerment of the poor. But the Congress manifesto, released since, peddles BJP-style growth-obsession. It promises 10 per cent GDP growth, rather than just 8 per cent.

Appeasing BJP-style nationalism: Over the past few years, the Congress has been critical of the BJP's jingoism and its chauvinistic, aggressive brand of nationalism, (although not always consistently). It advocated diplomacy rather than confrontation with Pakistan - way before the recent peace process started. After Pokhran-II in 1998, it did not capitulate to Hindutva-trademark nuclearism nor advocated induction and deployment of nuclear weapons. Rather, it warned against and opposed "a nuclear arms race in South Asia". More important, it continued to emphasise the relevance of the 1988 Rajiv Gandhi plan for a nuclear-free world, which he presented to the United Nations. This is a worthy document advocating step-by-step nuclear restraint, arms reduction and disarmament.

But suddenly, in early April, the Congress executed a U-turn by demanding "a credible nuclear weapons programme". Worse, it accused Vajpayee of not being pro-nuclear enough. It cited a 1979 Cabinet resolution in which Vajpayee voted with Prime Minister Morarji Desai (and against Charan Singh, Jagjivan Ram and H.M. Patel) opposing a revival of India's nuclear weapons programme, which was suspended following an international uproar against the Pokhran-I test in 1974.

Vajpayee did so not out of an anti-nuclear weapons sentiment (he had long advocated that India cross the nuclear threshold), but for pragmatic reasons: he feared further international opprobrium; and he was factionally allied with Desai after the Janata Party plunged into a crisis on the "dual membership" issue. Inadvertently, Vajpayee (temporarily) ended up supporting the cause of peace.

By attacking Vajpayee for this, and by implication, charging him with ignoring India's security needs, the Congress has tried to appropriate the BJP's own chauvinist-jingoistic platform, thus giving legitimacy to nuclear weapons as instruments of security and making nuclearism a test of "patriotism".

The Congress should not fool itself that it is turning the tables on the BJP by stealing its "super-patriotic" clothes. Rather, it is moving dangerously rightwards and vacating the centrist space within Indian politics. This is similar to its practice of soft-Hindutva in Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh as a means of "countering" the BJP in the recently held Assembly elections. It will prove as disastrous.

Exclusive focus on a few personalities: If it wants to rejuvenate itself, the Congress must project a plural, variegated leadership - a broad mix of campaigners, strategists, orators, grassroots mobilisers, and so on. It has not succeeded in doing this. It is excessively dependent on Sonia Gandhi for its campaign, especially in the Hindi-speaking States. But Sonia Gandhi, even with Priyanka's help, cannot effectively cover the entire region.

The Congress must create teams of campaigners with young as well as experienced leaders from different social backgrounds and geographical areas, including Adivasis, Dalits, OBCs, as well as upper-caste leaders. It must reach out especially to the rural areas and small towns, where its manifesto's stress on relieving the agrarian crisis will evoke empathy. Equally, it must promote collegial decision-making in its organisational structure, based on broad consultation with and involvement of different social constituencies.

Obsession with the middle class: The Congress often seems to imitate the BJP in regarding the urban, especially metropolitan, upper-middle class as its primary point of reference or basic constituency. It certainly takes positions on many issues as if that were the case. It is so concerned not to attract the charge of "populism" that it dare not espouse left-of-centre policies that are strongly pro-poor. For instance, the Congress does not promise free primary health care and rejuvenation and universalisation of the public distribution system (PDS) for food. Nor does it demand the right to shelter and housing in the urban areas, although that would greatly enhance its appeal to the poor.

The shift from the slogan "Congress ka haath, garib ke saath" to "Congress ka haath aam admi ke saath" (targeting the "Common person" rather than "the poor") is fine at the tactical level. But it could be heavily counterproductive if it means that the focus is shifting away from a basic reference to the poor who form the majority of our population. The Congress should know that it is futile beyond a point to woo an urban elite, large sections of which are already sold on the BJP because of its neoliberalism.

Unless the Congress addresses and overcomes these flaws, it will not be able to project an alternative vision of India's future, nor demarcate itself fully from the BJP. And unless it sharply demarcates itself and re-acquires a clear left-of-centre identity, it cannot combat the twin challenges the BJP poses: communalism and neoliberalism.

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