Ramachandra Guha - Congress beyond dynasty
Times of India Nov 13, 2013
On May 8, 1964, Indira Gandhi wrote to her friend Dorothy Norman that "the whole question of my future is bothering me. I feel i must settle outside India at least for a year or so..." She was thinking of moving to the United Kingdom where both her sons were then studying.
In the event, her father, Jawaharlal Nehru, died before the month was out. She had to attend to the public mourning and then the new prime minister, Lal Bahadur Shastri, invited her to join his cabinet (in the minor role of information and broadcasting minister). Shastri himself grew considerably in office, providing excellent leadership in the war with Pakistan and laying the foundations of the Green Revolution. He seemed set for a long tenure when he suddenly died of a heart attack. Now, in a move they would come to regret, the party bosses chose Indira to replace him.
Once she acquired control over the Congress, Indira brought her son Sanjay into politics, making it clear that she wished him to succeed her as prime minister. After Sanjay died in 1980, Rajiv was brought into the Congress with the same intention. Following Rajiv's death in 1991, the Congress returned to its pre-dynastic roots, before Sonia Gandhi was asked to lead it in 1998. She, in turn, brought her son into the party, and made him her heir apparent.
The Nehru-Gandhi family has dominated Congress politics for the past four decades. Might this domination be coming to an end? Opinion polls suggest the Congress will suffer significant losses in the next general elections. In that case, the leadership (or lack thereof) of the party president and vice-president will be a major contributory factor.
The charisma of the Nehru-Gandhi family has been steadily declining over time. A majority of voters were born after Indira Gandhi died. Her father is even further removed from public memory. Nehru's great contributions towards nurturing a democratic India, or Indira's successful handling of the Bang-ladesh crisis, are not remembered or recognised. No voter under 30 remembers Rajiv either.
An ever younger electorate tends to judge the Nehru-Gandhi family by their own experiences. They note that the corrupt UPA is headed by Sonia Gandhi. And they see that the person slated to succeed her, her son Rahul, has done little in his decade in politics. He has scarcely been visible in Parliament and shied away from ministerial responsibility. In his rare public speeches, he has not offered a single new idea on econo-mics, politics or governance, preferring instead to praise his father, mother, or grandmother.
In an essay published on the eve of the 2009 general elections, i argued that India needed a BJP sans the RSS and a Congress without dynastic politics. A right-of-centre party devoid of religious prejudice and a left-of-centre party not beholden to a single clan are necessary for the further evolution of Indian democracy.
The first hope still seems far distant. But there are signs that the second may yet be realised. The decline of the Congress as an electoral force in state and national politics is clearly in part a consequence of ineffective leadership. Compared to Indira and Sonia, who campaigned tirelessly across the country, Rahul is seldom seen and rarely heard. Compared to Nehru and Rajiv, he has no original ideas on how to modernise Indian society.
I have never met Rahul Gandhi. I am told he is affable and likeable. But as a politician he has been disappointing. Whether other Indian leaders are ambitious and hardworking, Rahul seems apathetic and listless. This has an impact on voters, as the polls show. Meanwhile, Rahul's incapacities are compounded by the steady decline over time of the (once considerable) appeal of his ancestors.
The Congress was founded as far back as 1885. The conversion of the party into a family firm is therefore of relatively recent origin. It is also a product of historical accident. Had Shastri lived another five years, Indira Gandhi would never have become prime minister. Then her sons Rajiv and Sanjay might still bealive, but with no connection to the party.
The Congress still has many able leaders in the states as well as at the Centre. Many voters are still attracted to it because it remains the only all-India party and because they cannot abide the sectarianism of the BJP. However, many other voters are turned away by the dynasty's stranglehold. Meanwhile, Rahul's (unearned) pre-eminence within the party means that more capable men and women do not get their due. It is surely no accident that in the nine years of this Congress-led government no leader younger or of the same age as Rahul has been promoted to full cabinet rank.
Some Hindutva activists define their political agenda as 'Congress mukt Bharat'. However, without an inclusive, nationwide party (or preferably two), Indian politics would be based largely on narrow agendas of caste, region and religion. What India needs (and deserves) is a Congress that abandons the principle of dynastic succession. A resounding defeat in the next general elections might be the first step in that direction.
