For a political party which for most of its century-plus history dominated the Indian political landscape, both during the anti-colonial freedom struggle and for close to six decades as an independent democratic republic, to be reduced to appealing to members of a single family to assume leadership and guide the party in the days ahead only deepens the dismay of all those disturbed by the transformations in our polity and society in the last few decades.

Unfortunately, even as we have been inundated with journalistic accounts and op-ed punditry on the travails of the Grand Old Party, there are few monograph-length works which could provide a deeper, research-based account of not just the decline of electoral salience but also the challenges that the party needs to confront and overcome if it has to stay relevant. Contrast this with the recent books on the BJP/RSS and their eco-sphere from Christophe Jaffrelot to Nalin Mehta, Ajay Singh to Prashant Jha, and insiders like Bhupendra Yadav and Ila Patnaik.

If for no other reason, we must welcome the new offering by Zoya Hasan, a highly respected scholar of Indian politics who has tracked developments in the Congress party post the Indira Gandhi years. Her book Ideology and Organization in Indian Politics: Polarization and the Growing crisis of the Congress Party (2009-19) focuses on the last decade, years that the Congress has been out of power at the Centre, wracked by internal crisis if not an existential angst about its survival.

To understand the steep decline of the Congress party following its unexpected victories in the 2004 and 2009 elections, signalling a story of potential political recovery (as it turns out, transitory), the book examines the shifts in underlying conditions and consequent challenges, both external and internal, confronting the party. It focuses on ideological and organisational issues, arguing that the ideological shifts in the last decade reflect not merely the larger political transformation underway in India but the ‘near vanishing’ of ‘a certain conception of politics, in the midst of an ideological consolidation of the Right in India’, an experience which the author claims ‘has relevance for the experience of centrist and centre-left parties in other countries’ as well.

Taking a somewhat longer view, Hasan argues that the crisis can be traced to the electoral setbacks suffered in 1967, wherein the Congress lost elections in several states, followed by a split in the party in 1969. The emergence of a decisive leader in Indira Gandhi and her overwhelming victory in 1971 transformed what was earlier a ‘loose coalition’ of ideologically diverse groups into a highly centralised party completely dominated by its leader, de facto converting electoral contests into a presidential one.

There was a shift from a state regulated economy to a market based model of growth, and the emergence of new local level elites, of lower caste and class, gaining from the affirmative action policies, now seeking greater power and representation, that the party found difficult to accommodate. Hasan also examines the fallouts of the economic liberalisation of 1991, both internal and external, wherein speedier growth and poverty reduction further fuelled aspirations particularly amongst the new middle classes, which the polity found difficult to satisfy.

Also read: Congress, the Hindu Right and the Formation of a Narrative of 'Vote Bank Politics'

Finally, she discusses the implications of a weakening of the earlier ‘elite’ consensus around templates of a secular civic identity and the deepening of an ethnic, majoritarian worldview, particularly post the Ram Janambhoomi agitation, further consolidating the hold of the Hindu Right and  a new common sense about culture, identity and belonging. All this challenged ‘the pluralist foundation of the political system by shifting the discourse towards identity politics’, further diminishing the appeal of centrist, catch-all formations.

The story of the decay and decline of the Congress party needs to be read in conjunction with the spectacular growth of its ‘ideological other’, the BJP. This, as indicated earlier, has been the subject of multiple studies, many drawing upon detailed and meticulous research. Few today doubt that the BJP and related organisations, electoral and non-electoral, have deepened their hold on not just the polity but ‘social imagination’ by capitalising on the many structural and ideological weaknesses of the Congress, as also its many contingent and tactical errors when crafting political/electoral strategies. Equally important has been the role of associated non-electoral organisations across multiple social segments and regions to contest the earlier ideological and intellectual formulations favoured by the centre-left and create new legitimation for an ethnic, civilisational view promoted by the BJP. The unseating of the Congress as ‘the default party of power’ needs to be located within these transformations, not to forget the flagrant ‘misuse’ of ‘official machinery’ to target the opposition, a strategy increasingly deployed by the BJP.

Each of the above points are detailed in six chapters – Democratic Re-organisation Eludes the Congress; Collapse of the United Progressive Alliance; The Gujarat Model and the Turn to the Right; Secular Politics on the Back Foot; Hindu Nationalism to the Fore; and Opposition Interrupted. Much of what Hasan writes would be familiar to students of Indian politics and electoral behaviour, though coming as it does from an empathetic observer dismayed by the relative inability of the party to get its act together and mount an effective challenge to the steady dismantling of the old republic, it does carry a sharper edge. More than the fact that the party has not held organisational elections for decades or that most of its public faces are nominated members better known for their proximity to the ‘family’ or abilities in legislative debates and policy formulation than mobilisational struggles, is the diminution of public credibility and trust, impacting the party’s ability to attract newer adherents or, worse, even retain old leaders/supporters/activists.

Also read: Congress's History Proves That Soft Hindutva Doesn't Work

Unsurprising for a party once described by one of its senior-most leaders ‘as a party with a single shareholder’. So once the leadership becomes incapable of ensuring electoral victory the party tends to disintegrate. And though Hasan, like many others, traces the organisational atrophy to the centralising tendency under Indira Gandhi wherein the prime objective of the party was reduced to winning elections, the problem may be older and deeper.

Insufficient attention is given to the fact that the emergence and consolidation of the earlier trust in the party and the respect for and identification of and faith in its many leaders at all levels owes substantially, not merely, to their active participation in the anti-colonial freedom struggle, but their role in multiple social work and social reform initiatives.

Recollect not just Gandhi’s stellar role during the communal conflagrations in Calcutta or Noakhali in multiple temple entry movements or in struggles to make accessible public spaces across caste divides. Or the work of Congress activists in tribal areas, around charkha and weavers or education and health (what was called constructive work) by mobilising community support and leading by personal example. Post-independence, despite many progressive steps by Congress regimes to enhance growth, representation and welfare, all of this was relegated to the back burner as the Congress transformed into a ‘ruling’ party, relying more on accumulated prestige of its leaders for their past role and activities and programmes of the sarkar to garner legitimacy and support. Even here, the interventions by the Congress party/government were marred by inconsistencies and vacillations such that they came across more as symbolic than substantive.

As the citizen-voters got reduced to beneficiaries of largesse more than active agents in the construction of their own futures, the party’s roots in society weakened. Consequently when confronted with an adversary which not only borrowed from but developed on its earlier template, incidentally by drawing more on non-state sources of support in its long years out of power, the Congress and others find it difficult to counter the transformed social common sense and public discourse.

There is a second issue that Hasan flags but, in my view, explores insufficiently – the shift in the ground of politics. Once politics gets reduced to elections and electoral victory becomes paramount, contests for power acquire a sharper, even uglier edge. Earlier accepted rules of the game involving civility and restraints in both rhetoric and action, clear limits to the use of institutional power to game the contest, an acceptance of the legitimate role for dissent and opposition, and the list can be extended, can easily mutate into a no holds barred battle.

In such a contest, a better organised and provisioned party like the BJP with its heightened will power is difficult to counter, more so given its ability to shape the environment. It is worth reflecting on why India’s complex of regulatory and oversight institutions, a feature our republic took great pride in, has so easily capitulated to ‘institutional capture’. Equally, it is important to not forget that many of the distortions and excesses of the current regime that we rightly decry have their roots in the actions of earlier regimes, principally the Congress but also other regional parties across ideological orientation. This only makes the task of opposition parties, each with a flawed record, more onerous.

A related feature of the shifting ground relates to the changed global environment which, among other trends, has witnessed the rise of ethnic majoritarian right-wing populist regimes drawing support from the disaffection created by previous regimes and their economic and social policies. In this limited sense, the India story needs to be located in larger global developments. It, however, also needs flagging that more recently many of these regimes/parties have suffered erosion and that may be ground for optimism. But nowhere has this been a natural process; it is more reflective of sustained struggles by the affected.

Finally, we need to better understand the deeper implications of shifts in language and concepts as we move into a post-truth world. No longer is it easy to discern fact from fiction as powerful forces, political and corporate, construct their ‘favoured version of truth’ and shape popular perceptions through ‘creative’ use of new IT technologies. Terms which once enjoyed popular legitimacy – development, justice, representation, equality and so on – no longer carry a common meaning but, unlike the past, may even carry a negative connotation. Creating an alternative narrative which can appeal across sharp divides has become more difficult.

Also read: As Congress Flounders in the Run Up to 2024, a Reminder of the Miracle It Once Pulled Off

This is an important book which flags many key issues for debate and further research. Hasan has extensively mined extant literature and interviewed an impressive cast of journalists, academics and political actors, but there is a relative paucity of members/interlocuters from subaltern and marginal groups and regions (Dalits, tribals, residents of the north-east) whose understanding and experience of post-independence developments may be quite at variance from the accounts of most liberal/secular analysts, particularly those focused on the high table of politics and the macro picture.

The analysis would have gained from interactions with the party’s ideological and political adversaries who are likely to have a better handle on the many weaknesses and missteps of the Congress. Possibly then we might better understand why a party and a worldview that so many of us once endorsed has eroded, losing both popular support and legitimacy. One also hopes that researchers will carry out detailed studies of the type earlier anchored by Rajni Kothari, Myron Weiner and Atul Kohli on the structure and activity mix of the Congress party down to the block level. We will then be in a better position to compare the strengths and weaknesses of the two major contenders for shaping India’s policy.

Harsh Sethi is former Consulting Editor of Seminar and Fellow in CSDS, New Delhi.

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