Can a rebellion save the Congress?

Albert Camus said, “I rebel, therefore I exist.” For him, validation and justification to exist went beyond Rene Descartes’ idea of “I think, therefore I exist”.

If you are living without questioning your beliefs and actions, you are only flotsam. Rebellion against authority, be it the State, the Monarchy, the Church or political party, is the basis for the evolution of civilisation. That trait has marked all great men—Leo Tolstoy, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Jacques Rousseau, Socrates, John Calvin, Buddha and Basavanna. They questioned dogmas, oppression, injustice and inequality. In this context, you wonder what is in the DNA of today’s Congress leaders that no one is ready to rebel and challenge the Gandhi dynasty.

Even after Rahul Gandhi abruptly walked away from the presidentship of the party in 2019, owning responsibility for its abysmal showing in the parliamentary elections, no one came forward and demanded elections for a new leader. The entire flock meekly waited for someone from the dynasty to lead them, even if it meant following the messiah over the cliff. The old obsequious coterie anointed Sonia Gandhi back as interim president.

I had written two years ago that only a mutiny could save the Congress. The ‘letter bomb’ by 23 prominent Congress leaders, whose revolt demanding “elections and a full time, visible, active president, with collective responsibility,” petered out and ended in a whimper. A few jumped the sinking ship and joined the BJP without any qualms, while others sought refuge in regional parties. One formed a new party.

Sonia, by fateful default, inherited the mantle of the dynasty. Through a combination of courage, resilience, cunning and also a shrewd understanding of the psyche of her flock, she held them together and led the party to victory at the hustings and ruled India for 10 years, forming the United Progressive Alliance (UPA). She accomplished that incredible feat through proxy, surrounded by loyal henchmen and courtiers even as her son, Rahul, was often seen as an inscrutable dilettante, courageous but not steadfast, sincere but lacking in political astuteness, and often a liability.

Now once again after Rahul’s resignation, the party is in the doldrums. He abandoned his position without ensuring a transition, but he exercises the powers of a supreme leader, destabilising his own stable state governments, acting on his whim or in tango with his sibling Priyanka, with an ailing mother hovering in the shadows. With Ashok Gehlot fomenting a rebellion against Sachin Pilot, aspiring to be a proxy president while being unwilling to let go of his chair in Rajasthan, the Congress cringe-comedy has turned into a tragicomedy.

The Congress is teetering on the brink and may collapse any time, ceding ground to the BJP, which is raring to topple the wobbly Ashok Gehlot government. After losing Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, and now possibly Rajasthan, this may trigger a domino effect and create an existential crisis for the party.

Why this Congress presidential election charade? It is an open secret that the electoral college roster is a sham, and the repeated assertions of Rahul Gandhi that the Gandhis have no favourite candidate has no credence. The Gandhi troika, miffed by Gehlot’s goof up, has asked Mallikarjun Kharge to contest, and Digvijay Singh, another sworn loyalist, has withdrawn his candidature even as I write this. Shashi Tharoor, though a worthy candidate, has announced he will contest only to show that the match is not fixed.

But why this farce and pretence? At least the other parties don’t swear by internal democracy and expose themselves to ridicule. They are ruthlessly authoritarian. They are not apologetic about it. The BJP, though not dynastic like the Congress and many regional parties, is also known for its autocratic rule. There is no room for dissent or open debate in any party.

“Difference of opinion is one crime emperors never forgive,” said Emerson. There are no secret ballots in any party to elect a party president, or pick legislative and parliamentary leaders who go on to become chief ministers and prime ministers, as in mature Western Democracies.

A party and the individuals composing it lend vigour when they question moribund ideas. Individual dissent is necessary for the health of any party. Bose is revered because he challenged Gandhi and Nehru and left the party after realising that he had to found a separate party to fight the British through means other than non-violence. Those who challenge the status quo either change the organisation they are part of or venture out and blaze a new trail.

Indira Gandhi split the Congress against the old guard and branched out on her own and was even denied the Congress symbol, but rose like a colossus. Fearless Mamata Banerjee left the Congress and founded a new party and single-handedly demolished the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in West Bengal. The latter party had morphed into a party of goons to remain in power.

There are other examples too. Three decades ago, even Narendra Modi challenged the entrenched old timers and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh power-brokers in Gujarat and was banished from his state by a diktat of the BJP high command. He bided his time, challenged the old guard and ascended to power and fundamentally altered the genial character of the party of the Vajpayee era. It is for future historians to judge his legacy.

The ‘Gandhi talisman’ is no longer winning elections, as the Indira or MGR magic could, and as Modi mantra does now. And the Congress is disintegrating. If the members of the Congress do not rebel to bring about a leadership change when the party is drifting, headless and splintering, then neither the members nor the Congress have a reason to exist.

The Congress of the freedom struggle era is an idea and ideology entwined with the history of India. It belongs to all Indians, whether they are card-carrying Congress members, part of the opposition or totally apolitical citizens, and regardless of whether they vote for or against Congress. The Congress as a political party with a centrist, all-inclusive philosophy must be preserved and is worth fighting for. Many Congress leaders were also great reformers of society.

But right now, the party is like a rudderless ship and sooner than later will crash against the ‘Modi rock.’ The rebels may have to seize control of it and steer it with purpose. But alas, no rebel leader of mettle is seen on the horizon.

(The writer is a soldier, farmer and entrepreneur)