What ails Congress?

Ever since May 23, 2019, the Congress party has not been able to get its act together. The second electoral drubbing has devastated it, leaving its leaders and workers fumbling and stunned. Much effort has been made in trying to decipher and interpret the predicament of Congress and yet no conclusion or consensus has emerged on what is it that fundamentally ails the party. But one can also argue that sufficient debate has not taken place on the condition of Congress. Had BJP been in the state that Congress finds itself in today, the dominating topic of discussion, debate and writing would have been the fate and failure of BJP.

Our intelligentsia, especially the elite urban-based opinion-makers and gate-keepers continue to treat Congress and its leadership with great leniency. One can also argue the other way, that the gradual pale of silence being drawn over the future of Congress debate is indicative of the fact that there is perhaps an all-round consensus emerging that Congress is now in an advanced state of irreversible degeneration and decay. Its Kamaraj plan 2.0 has also failed primarily because there seems to be huge confusion among leaders as to how the resignations ought to be invited and to whom and on what ground should these be directed to or submitted!

Of late, Rahul Gandhi has been going around the country, not for his party's programmes but because he has to appear in various courts for cases that were filed against him by people who were deeply hurt by his habit of repeatedly casting aspersions on the RSS and of insisting that it was involved in the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. This allegation is as old as the Congress dynasty, Rahul's great grandfather had repeatedly made it but could make no headway and failed to prove it. He had tried to portray RSS as a rabidly communal organisation and yet there were few takers for it. Nehru's impatience in trying to misrepresent RSS was countered sagely by Guruji M S Golwalkar. Their encounters and repartees are now part of the lore, being heavily biased against RSS, Rahul has not been exposed to these conversations.

Rahul's grandmother and father had a few more ounces of sense than him and therefore desisted from making such direct and mindless allegations. His grandmother, in fact, had great respect for the likes of Eknath Ranade, himself a pracharak of RSS, sometimes its general secretary, who had in later years dedicated himself to erecting a grand memorial to Swami Vivekananda. Ranade's life mission was the setting up of the Vivekananda Rock Memorial at Kanyakumari. But the purpose of this column is not to focus on Rahul and his gibberish on RSS, it is rather on his stated mission of now spearheading an ideological battle against the BJP-RSS combine. The moot question, however, is what ideology does Congress of today profess to champion? What ideological battle is Rahul Gandhi talking of, when the party which he headed till a few days back is hurtling into a state of extended coma?

Battles of ideologies cannot be fought in a state of vacuum, ideological struggles can only be taken forward standing on the bases of a defined ideology which nurtures and shapes a political movement. It is an ideology that can salvage a decaying political movement, the founding and defining ideology must also possess the capacity to re-state itself, and it must have interpreters and articulators who can do that.

What ideological position has Congress demonstrated or taken in the last decade and a half and what ideological articulation has it made in the last five years to counter Modi and BJP, except for hurling expletives and casteist remarks at him and pouring derision on his poor background. Congress has hardly ever come up with an ideological articulation or position. Its penchant for populist slogans has also been rejected by voters. Its "Garibi pe Vaar" did not click, its promise of constructing Gaushalas, its sudden fondness for religious peregrination cut no ice with the electorate. All these expressions stemmed from a piecemeal reading of the political mood and climate, these were not inspired or driven by a definite ideological position. Congress displayed no defining ideology which could create for it a convincing narrative with which it could aim to counter the rise and expansion of BJP.

On the other hand, the resounding mandate for BJP this May is an endorsement of its ideology of nationalism and of empowering the marginalised–the latter inspired by the vision and political philosophy of Antyoday. It was this ideological position defined through governance, that has made BJP and Modi the subaltern's choice. One saw it across states, Modi did not resort to claptraps or slogans, he had an ideological direction and expressed it through complete initiatives and schemes on the ground that mainstreamed and empowered the marginalised. In West Bengal, for instance, one clearly saw the marginalised sections across caste divides, close rank and opt for Modi's vision of growth, prosperity, and empowerment.

Instead of trying to launch a non-existent and irrelevant ideological struggle–whatever he may have meant by it–Rahul Gandhi should have, rather than shirking responsibility, owned up the state of affairs, initiated an extended debate within the party and come up with ideological formulations that would have the dimension of arguing and articulating Congress's view and vision for India and Indian society. By saying that he is now out to fight a larger ideological battle, Rahul is simply trying to escape and dump Congress, he has no real stamina to undertake a rigorous ideological recalibration, he has no intellectual depth or capacity for imparting a new ideological direction, he is not steeped in the Congress lore. Rahul Gandhi has failed to realise what ails Congress, he is clueless because he has no ideological grounding, allegiance or perspective. Congress is in an advanced state of ideological drift and confusion, and its advisers and consultants have deserted it as have the people of India, especially those who have been at the receiving end of its hollow slogans for all these years.

(Dr. Anirban Ganguly is Director, Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerjee Research Foundation, New Delhi. Views expressed are strictly personal)