It can be summed up as follows: the Congress is facing a leadership crisis only because the Gandhi family blocks every non-dynastic talent. This sounds plausible, given the lack of internal democracy. But it also has the misleading effect of rendering every non-Gandhi politician, almost by default, more capable than Rahul Gandhi.
Search for a new president
For the record, though the immediate trigger for the Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting of August 24 was a letter from 23 senior leaders seeking internal reform, the current crisis actually began in July last year when Mr. Gandhi resigned as Congress president, taking responsibility for the poor results in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Now, this was a perfect occasion for a new, full-time president to take over. Mr. Gandhi said as much in his resignation letter: “The way forward would be to entrust a group of people with the task of beginning the search for a new President. I have empowered them to do so and committed my full support to this process and a smooth transition.”
But the Congress would not or could not do so. None of the suave young geniuses frequently talked of as worthy alternatives to the Gandhi scions showed mettle, initiative or, for that matter, leadership. Either they were lacking in self-belief — an essential quality for a leader — or they knew they did not enjoy the support of the majority. At any rate, they remained passive, and Ms. Gandhi stepped in as interim president.
And yet, the inverse of this has become common sense: the party has plenty of talent, all sadly stymied by a feckless dynast. Never mind that if there was outstanding leadership talent waiting in the wings, it would have broken through by now. That it hasn’t displaced the Gandhis suggests that it doesn’t exist — as yet.
The merits of the letter
It is true that for more than 20 years there have been no elections to the CWC. The high command-cum-coterie culture still prevails. Regardless of their individual motives, the apprehensions expressed in the letter of the ‘dissenting 23’ are genuine. But that still does not mean that their interests and the party’s interests coincide.
Most, if not all, of the leaders linked to the letter are at a crossroads with regard to their political career. They are Congressmen by instinct. But they are, first and foremost, pragmatists. They are concerned about their political investment in a party that looks increasingly incapable of offering tangible returns — returns of the kind that are only possible if the party is in power or looks like it’s returning to power.
So yes, they do earnestly want the Congress to end its current drift and return to its winning ways. If that requires the party to take cognisance of changes in the political landscape and make ideological compromises, then so be it. Unfortunately, there is a stumbling block to such adjustments: Mr. Gandhi and his team of advisers, who share a different vision and often bypass party veterans on key decisions. For these and other reasons, the ‘old guard’ is more comfortable working with Ms. Gandhi, and allergic to Mr. Gandhi.
The root cause of the leadership crisis, as well as the reasons for Mr. Gandhi’s refusal to officially take charge, is there in black and white in his resignation letter of 2019. “We didn’t fight a political party in the 2019 election,” said the letter. “Rather, we fought the entire machinery of the Indian state, every institution of which was marshalled against the opposition. It is now crystal clear that our once cherished institutional neutrality no longer exists in India.”
The very starting point of Mr. Gandhi’s politics was liable to be dismissed as ‘too radical’ by his party seniors. It got more interesting. “I personally fought the Prime Minister, the RSS and the institutions they have captured with all my being,” he wrote. The way forward is for the Indian nation “to reclaim and resuscitate our institutions” and the “instrument of this resuscitation will be the Congress party.” He added for good measure: “The stated objectives of the RSS, the capture of our country’s institutional structure, is now complete… There is a real danger that from now on, elections will go from being a determinant of India’s future to a mere ritual.”
Is it any surprise that the old guard is alarmed at the prospect of being led by a man who not only says that his fight “has never been a simple battle for political power” but also believes that a) India’s electoral apparatus is not neutral anymore; b) the RSS has captured India’s institutions; and c) Congressmen should sacrifice the desire for power in order to fight a “deeper ideological battle” against the RSS?
Is it not possible that some of the 23 signatories might share Mr. Gandhi’s perspective? His resignaton letter gives it away. “At times,” he wrote in his letter, referring to the 2019 poll campaign, “I stood completely alone.” Even now, with the exception of his small group of loyalists, Mr. Gandhi stands alone on the question of fighting the RSS ideologically, a project that today carries the risk as well as the political costs of being branded as ‘anti-Hindu’ and ‘anti-national’. Not surprisingly, elements of the old guard have a different view on how the party should respond to the saffronised reality of ‘New India’. The contradictory pulls exerted by the two divergent approaches are partly responsible for the stasis plaguing the party.
Uncomfortable questions
Thus, the leadership crisis in the Congress is primarily not about personality traits. While they do matter, the real issues are the differences over ideology and strategy. Should the Congress bet on wooing back the upper caste vote that it has lost to the BJP or should it focus on OBCs, Dalits, Adivasis, and minorities? If the latter, then shouldn’t the face of the party be an OBC or Dalit rather than a ‘janeu-dhari’ like Mr. Gandhi? Should the party try to neutralise Hindutva politics by ‘Hinduising’ itself or should it wage an ideological war against the RSS? If the latter, then will its stance carry credibility without a proper reckoning of past dalliances with communal politics, not least the 1984 riots?
Another troubling question looms: Given the gigantic mismatch of power and resources between the Congress and the BJP, will a non-Gandhi Congress chief be more vulnerable to external pressures than a Gandhi scion? The burgeoning list of Congress leaders who’ve recently joined the BJP might suggest so.
Clearly, the path that Mr. Gandhi wants the party to walk is not an easy one. It will only be made tougher by a lack of clarity and internal divisions on these questions. What is beyond dispute is that the party could end up in two very different places depending on whether it follows Mr. Gandhi’s political vision or a ‘consensus’.
sampath.g@thehindu.co.in
The seven-hour Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting on August 24 was, predictably, a stormy affair, with the Gandhi loyalists taking on the senior Congress leaders who wrote to the interim president, Sonia Gandhi, demanding course correction. That the ginger group of letter writers would be taken to task was a forgone conclusion.
The tone of the meeting was set when Ms. Gandhi offered to resign as the interim president, leading to a cacophony of voices pleading with her to continue. Despite the inevitability of what transpired, a few things came to the fore: If anyone assumed that the Gandhi sycophants were guided only by blind loyalty and servility to vilify the dissenters on their own, Rahul Gandhi’s frontal attack on the ginger group, where he raised doubts about their motive and the timing, disproved it. It was also clear that a non-Gandhi, however senior and loyal he or she might be, wouldn’t stand a chance to be Congress president even for a brief period. So, the game of musical chairs is set to continue: Ms. Gandhi’s interim presidency being followed in all probability by Mr. Gandhi’s election to the position at an All India Congress Committee session in the next six months. It is interesting to note that at the CWC meeting, Mr. Gandhi didn’t rule out getting back to the helm even as the loyalists made fervent pleas to make him change his mind.
The Gandhis are to blame
The overwhelming sentiment against a non-Gandhi being nominated as president is to do with ideological moorings. It is often argued that a non-Gandhi’s ideological underpinnings would be suspect, harking back to the Narasimha Rao term. That argument rings hollow, for it was Rajiv Gandhi who was responsible for the opening of the locks of the Babri Masjid in 1986 and for resorting to the Hindutva handbook in the 1989 election. In reality, the Gandhis are to blame for the present mess. Despite all their pretences of inner-party democracy, the Nehru-Gandhi family has appropriated to themselves the leadership of the party and actively promoted and incentivised sycophancy.
True, this goes back nearly 50 years ever since Indira Gandhi’s promotion of Sanjay Gandhi as her successor. However, back then, Indira Gandhi enjoyed popularity across the country following the 1971 election win and the subsequent creation of Bangladesh. Rahul Gandhi’s attempts to fashion himself as a modern Sanjay Gandhi, at least within his party, can only have disastrous consequences as he seems to want to wield power without responsibility.
Basic demands
Now, what was it that the ginger group had asked for? They had basic demands including having full-time and active leadership at all levels, elected democratically, to serve the party that was adrift, and an end to ‘ad-hoc’ism. If that was seen as an affront, it only reveals the kind of anti-democratic impulses of the Gandhis. This non-democratic impulse seems to run in the family. Else, when the Allahabad High Court set aside the election of Indira Gandhi in 1975, why would she choose to impose Emergency to preserve her position rather than pass the baton on to the stalwarts within the party?
The less said about the coterie, the better. They seem to believe in preserving the hegemony of the Nehru-Gandhi family within the Congress rather than preserving the party itself. There are overt and covert insinuations about the motive of the letter writers and the need to put these issues in writing instead of resorting to the usual brush-it-under-the-carpet approach. That such a wide cross-section of leaders chose to undersign a document seeking revival of the party made it impossible to brush the letter under the carpet.
For the likes of Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma and Mukul Wasnik, forever dubbed Gandhi loyalists, to seek accountability only reveals that their primary loyalty is to the party more than the Gandhis. In fact, the letter nowhere tries to cast the Gandhis in poor light. On the contrary, there are portions exalting the Nehru-Gandhi family as an integral part of the Congress. If it stung the Gandhis, it is only because the letter clearly stated the need for institutional leadership and how leaders had to be consultative, bear responsibility and be available — highlighting the lack of it under the present set-up.
Someone had to bell the cat. And if sources close to the ginger group are to be believed, more leaders within the fold, including the likes of P. Chidamabaram, offered moral support although they didn’t undersign fearing reprimand. Despite Ms. Gandhi’s assurance at the end of the meeting that she won’t bear any ill will, it is likely that the ginger group will be targeted. Whatever their fate, they have done a great service to the Congress party, which, in many ways, is a cross-section of the country rather than a regimented, cadre-based party.
Anand Kochukudy is a Kerala-based journalist and former editor, The Kochi Post
