Will Congress survive as fiefdom of Gandhi dynasty?

By Kedar Nath Pandey

On the last day of his life Mahatama Gandhi wrote a will wanting the Congress to be dissolved. In his view it was a movement not a political outfit to govern the country. Alive, he would have destroyed it. Dead, he resurrected it. This partial background should help Indians decide whether it is more important to defeat Ms. Sonia Gandhi or bury the Congress. It may not be possible to achieve the first without realising the second.

How long will the Congress party survive as it is today? Is the Gandhi dynasty capable of injecting a new life to the fossilised party? The desperate attempt by Ms. Sonia Gandhi to emulate her mother-in-law is not paying rich dividends. She is grooming Rahul Gandhi to take charge of the party to give it a new face and dynamism. But Rahul's entry into the political arena is not going to make any difference to the Congress' sagging political fortunes.

The 121-year-old Congress is today passing through an evolutionary crisis, from within and outside, of its identity and its image. It has been visibly fractured throughout the country except in some pockets where it wields influence, which is reflected in its electoral fortune.

It was in 1967, that the Congress monopoly was shattered and regional parties such as he Dravida Kazaghams, Akali Dal and Asom Gana Parishad emerged. There are any number of regional parties now, the most notable being the Telugu Desam, the AIADMK, the BSP and the Samajwadi Party. The poll results show that political parties have to radically recast their structure and programme for sheer survival in a rapidly changing environment.

Has politics in our country come to such a pass that there is no scope of building a viable new Indian movement. Max Frisch once said that "crisis is a productive state provided you do not associate it with catastrophe". This statement is relevant to the Congress which is facing multi-pronged attacks from within and outside and is perhaps becoming unsustainable.

Viewed in the context of British rule in India, India was in a state of dynamic flux. The Britishers, who came to India in 1498, successfully threw out the Portuguese, Dutch, French and the Mughal rulers from the Indian political scene and became unquestioned masters of a vast empire by the dawn of the nineteenth century. In 1857, came the war of Independence, in which many Maharajas and Nawaba joined to challenge the hold of the British rule. Perhaps it was a heroic effort of a dispossessed people to re-assert their national dignity. The 'great divide' among the Indian rulers helped in the victory of the Britishers against the Indian rulers. The crown took over the government of India in 1858 and the East India Company disappeared from the scene.

The British rule was distinctive in many ways from the earlier Mohammedan invaders and proved to be a blessing in disguise. It introduced modern educational, legal, administrative and political reforms which either explicitly or implicitly contributed towards the growth of national consciousness and finally the liquidation of a mighty empire. The British impact was deep, many-sided and abiding. The philosophy of the administration of the East India Company has been brilliantly summed up by Warren Hastings (1773-1798) the first Governor-General of India - "to rule effectively, one must love India, to love India one must communicate with its people, to communicate with its people, one must acquire its language and culture." It has been rightly commented that "no single act of British policy has had a more lasting influence on the evolution of modern Indian thought than the decision in 1835 to use government funds to support education in English and to adopt the curriculum prevalent in English schools.

Congress was founded in December 1885 by Allan Octavius Hume, a Scotsman, who had been a member of the covenanted civil service. The Congress always had strong and staunch British friends, and five of its presidents, three men and two women were British. Edmund Burke, Richard Brindley, Kier Hardie, Ramsay Macdonald, H.N. Brailford, Harold Laski, Bevin and many others were in the forefront of India's independence.

The Congress had its roots in political associations that emerged in many parts of the country with the sole objective of seeking a few concessions in employment, representation in local and provincial bodies. The founders of the Congress never viewed the party as a vechicle for ousting the British from India. The Congress revolved around its famous theme of petition, prayer, protests and passing of pious resolutions and did not adopt a clear cut goal of national freedom. The psychology advocated by Sri Aurobindo, Bipan Chandra Pal, Lokmanya Tilak and Lala Rajpat Rai provided an ideological base to the Congress, leading to an open confrontation between radicalised. The radical group adopted the ideal of puran swaraj and recommended even the use of force and violence against foreign domination, depending on the situation and the need of hour. It was a powerful momentum, a new force which was finally crushed by the repressive policies of the Britishers. However, the image of the British rule, built brick by brick, by a steel frame of modernised bureaucracy, backed by British arms was shattered to pieces. From 1907 to the return of Gandhiji from South Africa, the Congress witnessed many ups and downs; it could not emerge as a viable and united political force for achieving its objectives.

The Congress participated in the electoral processes and when occasion demanded withdrew and even opted for confrontation strategy. In 1937, it was able to form ministries in six provincial governments, but al the Congress ministries resigned in 1939. The Congress declared its goal of complete independence in 1929-30 and followed the path of Satyagraha for achieving its objective. Jawaharlal Nehru who became a dominating personality in the party was a revolutionary by temperament and outlook. He was not satisfied with the dominion status. It would strengthen the reformist against the revolutionary forces and was an apology for the socio-economic status quo. He wrote "How can a nationalist organisation have an ideal and goal of dominion status? The very idea is suffocating." Gandhiji who had opposed Nehru's call for complete independence in 1927-28 was himself instrumental in getting Nehru elected as Congress president at 1929 and helped him draft the resolution which was passed in the 1929 session.

The survey will remain fragmentary without mentioning the role of Sister Nivedita and Annie Besant in the freedom movement. Nivedita was with the underground, the embarrassment of the British Raj and the authorities of the Ramakrishna Mission: Annie Besant who burst upon the Indian political scene in her middle years brought energy all her own. As a political activist, she challenged the British rulers: "Where will you find a civilisation worthy of freedom, if India is not worthy to be free"? Her proposal to unfurl the "home rule" flag of the Indian National Congress (1915) took Indian leaders by surprise. She was elected in absentia president of the Calcutta Session of the Congress (August 1917). The opening paragraph of her address is highly striking. "While I was humiliated, you crowned me with honour, while I was slandered, you believed in my integrity and good faith.together we shall cry, more by service than by words, Vande Matarma".

The fulfilment of these pledges offered an exciting opportunity and manifold challenges to Nehru - building a new India on the economic front, the major issues which he had to address himself were complex, such as, national integration, nurturing the edifice of parliamentary form of government, strengthening the roots of secularism, and playing a decisive role in liberating the people of Afro-Asian countries who were in bondage: and finally ceaselessly toiling for the unification of human race whose survival was endangered by the nuclear war.

Indira Gandhi knew this and the first thing which she did on assuming power was to prepare the Congress for a major split to defeat the right caucus permanently. With the backing of the radicalised Congress that she got an unprecedented mandate, engineered a number of socio-economic programmes and was able to make a quantum jump by presiding over the liberation of 70 million people from the brutality of a cruel military regime. She captured over 50,000 square miles of Pakistan's territory and 90,000 soldiers as prisoners of war. The American seventh fleet hovering in the Bay of Bengal could not unnerve her. Her assassination on October 31, 1984 generated hatred and violence. The turn of events that followed and the turmoil and trauma that people experienced brought us to point of socio psychological collapse. Rajiv Gandhi who succeeded her responded to this challenge with equanimity while he was in the midst of a grave personal shock.

While the Congress was on a comeback tail, Rajiv Gandhi was killed in a bomb explosion in Tamil Nadu. The country got a hung parliament but since the Congress emerged as the single largest party, P.V. Narasimha Rao was invited to form the government. Despite constraints, he brought about a shift in economy; the market was liberalised. He organised the elections of his party in a democratic way. But gradually he began to function in the style of Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi by nominating chief ministers and Pradesh Congress Committees president. The Congress gradually lost its base among the minorities after the demolition of Babri Masjid. Mr. Rao's inactivity and a series of scams brought his government at the crossroads. The dissidents within the party were in a rebelling mood especially when the central leadership was in a vulnerable position.

How long will the Congress party survive as it is today? Is the Gandhi dynasty capable of injecting a new life to the fossilised party? The desperate attempt by Ms. Sonia Gandhi to emulate her mother-in-law is not paying rich dividends. She is grooming Rahul Gandhi to take charge of the party to give it a new face and dynamism. But Rahul's entry into the political arena is not going to make any difference to the Congress' sagging political fortunes. The Congress should realise that the nation has rejected Ms. Gandhi. There is little hope that the people will heed Rahul's call, either.

As it is, he has little to say. Learning is a slow process. Rahul is yet to familiarise himself with the basics of Indian politics. It would take him years to acquire the wisdom and understanding needed to lead a complex nation like India. The Congress should realise that the Indian democracy has matured and the ground rules have completely changed over the years.

The rise of the BJP as a national force and the emergence of regional parties coupled with the growing aspirations of people, have left no place for dynastic politics of the type which the Congress has been trying to impose on Indian voters. Today, the performance of the party and its leadership are the most important for its success. It requires years of hard work and commitment for any leader to make his mark on the national political scenario. Rahul clearly lacks on this count. It can't be that anyone coming from the Nehru-Gandhi family would just come and sweep the people off the ground. INAV