“Bond… James Bond” liked his martini “shaken, not stirred”. The Congress party likes its politics the same way. It is seldom stirred – least of all into action that lasts. Then there’s a dash of old-fashioned gravitas too to underline its grandee status. That translates to a licence to be slow-footed- unlike the Englishman’s “licence to kill”.
Bond served a higher cause than mere survival – he indulged in a caper or two for Her Majesty’s Secret Service. The Congress has done its share of great causes – leading the national struggle to end British colonial rule after a prolonged non-violent struggle, and laying the foundations of democracy in a poor country. But now the party mostly drinks from the fount of nostalgia.
This was evident in the speeches at the inauguration of Indira Gandhi Bhavan, the Congress’ new address in New Delhi, on February 15, although Rahul Gandhi’s speech stood out for its strong ideological content. While Gandhi is indeed getting to be known for that, what’s missing, however, is action. All present and watching may have felt this.
And action does not mean Rahul Gandhi walking. It is the party that must walk and run circles around its opponents. This needs to be done even when there is no election around the corner. That is what the Bharatiya Janata Party is known to do, and that is what the Congress itself did a few decades ago until it began to rely on particular individuals to pull it through the marsh.
It is what the Congress does between elections is that counts, not lofty speeches. If it organises itself well, it can withstand election losses, or else it cannot. It is true that democratic parties cannot do 24×7 propaganda that authoritarian or fascist or cell-based parties can – and that is so by definition. Blind faith and compliance of command from above is the hallmark of fascists and authoritarians. In democratic structures there is in-built questioning.
A party of action
And yet, democratic parties too need an effective organisation in order to fight people’s battles and to come to power for that purpose. They need to be able to build a humanistic state-structure in which prosperity and stability are a given. They must work in the spirit of democracy, and not just go through the motions. When the latter prevails, as in the Congress for long, then the only friends there will exist are fair-weather friends.
Things have come to such a pass in the Congress that when – all too infrequently – the party does pick up laurels, it finds it convenient to rest on them – and this is not just a luncheon break. The party led by Mallikajurna Kharge and showcased by Rahul Gandhi badly needs to find itself again in the shape of a party of action, and away from conclave politics, important though linking with others may be. Even building linkages is easier when a party is on a firm organisational footing.
The Congress did a great ideological run when Rahul Gandhi did his stunning north-south super marathon – the Bharat Jodo Yatra. The air buzzed with the idea of people bonding, overcoming communal politics, and rising up to demand employment, social justice and a better deal for ordinary folk. There was no talk of politics or ‘seat adjustment’, as the ugly haggling between ‘like-minded’ parties is daintily called. The result was not long in coming. The haughty prime minister Narendra Modi’s balloon was pricked as he lost his parliamentary majority.
All that seems a long time ago.
And the reason is that an ideological thrust needs an effective organisation – not a lackadaisical one, not a flaccid one, not one that gets tied to particular individuals and their near relations in various states – to carry its message forward.
In order to be a living document, even the great Ramayan needs the Ram Lila to be performed so the message may go out, and for ordinary people to organise themselves and build a stage and act upon it with an engaged audience to cheer them on. Where is the Congress party’s stage? Just like politics alone will not do, ideology alone will not do either.
Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra in Bengal’s Birbhum. Photo: By arrangement.
The INDIA question
Because the mood for the Delhi state election on February 5 is being built these days, there is much discussion around the INDIA bloc. Two INDIA parties, Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress and former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party are supporting AAP in Delhi, rather than the Congress. These parties have no stakes in Delhi. Their support is academic. AAP does not concern them in their respective states one way or the other. But the Congress does, no matter how weak it may have become.
Pertinently, however, it has been apparent for some time that experiments such as INDIA can work in parliament elections, partially. (Trinamool remained outside INDIA in the Lok Sabha poll). And in Assembly elections not at all. For national elections, state-level parties can make common cause with a national party against a larger and stronger national party (in this case BJP) in order to guard its local turf with the help of an ally. But in state polls, this logic breaks down. The ally of the national poll turns into a potential competitor in a state election.
It is therefore quite clear the INDIA bloc has outlived its purpose. Whatever the technical quibbles, there was no INDIA without the Congress, which was the central binding force, not being from any one part of the country. Without it, the term INDIA would be misplaced. It is an irony that the state leaders who desperately wished to be named its convenor parted ways with it, so modest was the degree of their affinity to the idea. Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar defected to the BJP yet again, and Mamata Banerjee stayed out of INDIA and made disruptive noises primarily to discomfit the Congress.
Each erstwhile INDIA party, including Congress, needs to smarten up organisationally. The so-called secular but caste-reliant state parties are not in the pink of health, and the Congress is in pretty poor organisational health. But each can hit the par level with just a little effort. The Congress, in particular, has been there before.
Whither constitution?
Kharge, the party president strongly spoke of building organisational strength at a meeting of the Congress working committee last month. Was it only for the record? We will see. The party plans to start another yatra from Mhow, Ambedkar’s birth place, around the theme of “Bapu, Babasaheb aur Samvidhan”. This would no doubt be wrapped around the message of defending the constitution, as the tag-line suggests.
Indeed, this had been Rahul Gandhi’s single-minded effort as the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha in the Winter Session of parliament which ended last December. This, in turn, was a carry-forward from the Lok Sabha poll last May when Gandhi appeared to swing sections of the poor and the OBC based on his conspicuous appeal to support the constitution, from which alone they drew their fundamental rights and other basic rights.
This is a clear-cut ideological fight, as the recent parliamentary discussion involving Union home minister Amit Shah’s degrading remarks against Ambedkar suggests. Interestingly, some so-called INDIA bloc parties – especially Trinamool Congress (which sometimes puts on INDIA shoes, when convenient) and UP’s Samajwadi Party – showed impatience with the LoP’s insistence on cornering the government on the issue of the constitution, seeking instead to raise matters pertaining to their respective states.
The sense is that in ideology terms, all so-called secular parties are not on the same page as the Congress. Some need to keep the regime happy to get out of small troubles or to make small gains. It may therefore be time to strike political alliances with parties and federate with them on an ideological basis, rather than depend on the sundry and unstable parameter of short-term and opportunistic opposition to the BJP, which can convert into direct or indirect support any time.
The mechanics need to be worked out, as the Congress can be a potential threat to practically every state-level ally and would be viewed as such. This is a tricky situation to be in and can be overcome only with sustained organisational work mated to an ideology that prioritises equality, social justice, and rationality.
But there is something more important than linking up with parties, and that is to firm up links with various sections of the people who must make a living in order to survive, such as the farmers, the working class in all forms and complexities, and the many elements of the disaggregated middle classes. The first alliance needs to be with people – with citizens who are routinely disregarded by policy. Political parties are secondary in the hierarchy of allies.
The saga of James Bond has mercifully been resurrected by several first rate actors after the retirement of Sean Connery from the scene. What about the saga of the Congress?
Anand K. Sahay is a journalist and political commentator based in New Delhi.
