Gandhigiri: Party still in a stranglehold

Rahul might have relinquished the party presidency in 2019, but he still has the last word in the Congress

While few of his forebears received the scorn Rahul Gandhi has endured, particularly from within the Congress party, the old guard's condescension towards him fits a pattern. It is a symptom of ailments plaguing the Congress, which Ghulam Nabi Azad and other seniors have flagged. However, it predates their advent in the party and is linked to its ideological confusion and eroding organisational strength.

That 73-year-old Azad has sought to bolster the perception that 52-year-old Rahul is an immature, childish and non-serious politician is not a surprise, judging by the treatment that Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and Sonia Gandhi received from the party's old guard when they took up the reins in 1967, 1985 and 1998, respectively. They all negotiated it in their own ways. Indira successfully confronted the old guard. Sonia tried to accommodate them, while a suicide bomber robbed Rajiv of a second chance.

Rahul's approach of hitting the streets while a non-Gandhi Congress president dismantles the existing entrenched structures in the party is evident from something he shared with close advisers weeks after the Congress' 2019 Lok Sabha loss. Rahul believes leaders, such as Azad and others, have contributed to the Congress' current predicament by putting their interests ahead of those of the party. "Rahul said the Congress must first burn down to rise from the ashes. Essentially, 'rootless wonders', like Azad, were welcome to quit the party before it is rebuilt," said a Congress party functionary.

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The Bharat Jodo Yatra, from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, is Rahul's attempt to connect the party with people, their issues, and with youth who might want to join the party.

A member of Parliament for 18 years, Rahul has often lamented that the causes he took up during his presidency did not find support from fellow leaders, and it was 'ekla chalo re' for him. He felt isolated as senior leaders sought to put practical politics at the forefront. The larger questions of democracy, connecting with the masses and revitalising the party did not resonate with the battle-hardened old guard, he felt.

The change in Congress has been apparent in the past few months, with Rahul, and also Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, leading protests and demonstrations. For the Yatra, the Congress' outreach to civil society is its bid to expand its catchment area.

It knows that civil society, through the National Advisory Council (NAC), helped the party retain power in 2009. The same civil society, if not all the constituents, comprised the India Against Corruption movement, which contributed to dislodging Congress from power. The Congress says it is not outsourcing political activity to civil society outfits, but is using all resources at its command to restrict the growth of the BJP and RSS.

Mass mobilisation

Jawaharlal Nehru was a colossus of Indian politics during his prime ministerial years. Political rivals and the media treated ‘Panditji’ with deference, even after the ignominy of the Sino-Indian war of 1962. But it has been par for his successors to be humiliated. When Indira Gandhi asserted herself in 1967, several of her late father’s colleagues opposed her, leading to a split in the party.

At various times, leaders such as Morarji Desai, K Brahmananda Reddy, YB Chavan, Devaraj Urs and Jagjivan Ram opposed her or parted ways when the party was at its weakest, but rejoined when it regained power. Indira cut regional satraps down to size, and centralised decision making in the process, weakening the party’s organisation.

Hers was also the last comprehensive attempt to reinvigorate the party’s mass mobilisation after 1947. In 1971, trying to piece together the party after the split and reverses in the 1967 Lok Sabha and assembly polls, Indira led the Congress to a famous win on the back of her ‘Garibi Hatao’ slogan, abolition of privy purses and bank nationalisation. It firmly moored the party to the left-of-centre ideology and triggered the largest induction of youth in to the party in the post-independence era.

However, the Congress has not had rigorous organisational elections or mass mobilisation programmes since. By the mid-1970s, the Jayaprakash Narayan-led anti-Emergency movement helped opposition parties, particularly the Socialists and the Jan Sangh, draw youth.

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When he took over in 1984-85, Rajiv Gandhi understood the crisis facing the Congress. At the Congress centenary session in 1985, Rajiv Gandhi, in his youthful enthusiasm, took on the party’s old guard, describing them as “brokers of power and influence”. They turned against him. A series of missteps followed, including Rajiv’s injudicious attempts to appease Muslims with the Shah Bano case and Hindus with the Ram Mandir.

It was as if, says a veteran Congress observer, the old guard wanted to see him fail. As the Congress went into the 1989 Lok Sabha polls, there were few in the party defending Rajiv’s governance record — computerisation, voting rights to 18-year-olds, panchayati raj and internal security successes.

The Congress managed to form the government in 1991, but the Sangh Parivar, through its Ram Janmabhoomi agitation and the Socialists, through Mandal, were busy in mass mobilisation. The Congress lost Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in those years and is yet to recover. In the aftermath of the Babri Masjid demolition, according to the K Karunakaran committee report, several district units of the UP Congress changed their signboards to join the BJP overnight.

Back to poverty alleviation

Until her sacrifice in rejecting the prime ministerial chair in 2004, Sonia was the subject of much mirth, notably in 1999, when she proclaimed, “We have 272”, but failed to form the government. Leaders such as Sharad Pawar, who felt she did not allow him to be the PM in 1991, supporting PV Narasimha Rao instead, opposed her and exited the party.

Unlike Rajiv, who could not get another chance to redeem himself, Sonia did, in 2004. She accommodated the old guard and veered the party further towards its left-of-centre moorings and commitment to the poor with a rural employment guarantee scheme and farm loan waiver. “While the party organisation had weakened by then, people recognised the good work, and voted for the Congress, getting it 206 seats, its highest since 1991,” says a Congress leader.

Subsequently, the Congress lost the gains of 2009 in a perfect storm that hit the UPA government with allegations of corruption as well as the India Against Corruption campaign and Narendra Modi as the ‘Hindu Hridaya Samrat’ leading the BJP. The party organisation was too weak to withstand the all-round attack, including subversion from within.

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According to party leaders, Rahul’s ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ is an effort to to repair the damage that first began in the Indira years by reconnecting with people across the country. For 150 days from September 7, Congress workers will be on a ‘padayatra’ from the south to the north. It initially wanted to start the 3,570-km yatra, covering 12 states and two union territories, on Mahatma Gandhi’s birth anniversary. But it brought the schedule forward as it wanted to capitalise on the momentum following a string of protests on price rise and misuse of central agencies with the tricolour dominating the yatra.

But the new non-Gandhi Congress president, even though a veteran like Ashok Gehlot, could end up in the shadows if Rahul and his close aides continue to hold sway in the party’s running. He might have relinquished the party presidency in 2019, but Rahul still has the last word in the Congress.