“Rahul needs to take a leaf out of former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair’s New Labour, where he adopted the ideas of another former British PM Margaret Thatcher because he saw clearly that the time of the Old Labour was over. Fortunately, for Rahul, he need not borrow anything from his ideological opponents of the BJP — Atal Bihari Vajpayee or Modi — because the BJP never believed in the economic philosophy of a free market but believed in destructive and atavistic nationalism. Rahul Gandhi has to borrow from Rajiv Gandhi.”
So, what does a Congress president need to do? That is an interesting question and there are no clear answers. Rahul does not know; the Congress does not know. And therein lies the confusion of the Congress.
That there was a contest for the Congress president’s post should be seen as an interesting development. The contest was something more than a formality. Shashi Tharoor throwing his hat in the ring is no empty gesture. That there were inherent chinks in his armor — at the political and not at the personal level — were apparent. The failure of the G23 leaders to support him shows that those who clamored for change did not really believe in it. So, Tharoor was left standing alone in the field, and he did it with a sporting smile on his face. Mallikarjun Kharge, the Karnataka veteran, made it plain that he would follow the path that the party had been following in the past. There would be strengthening of the party units at all levels. As the proverbial driver in the seat, he would keep the party engine chugging. The vocal critics of the Congress will carp about the prospect that Kharge’s presidency will mean the continuing dominance of Rahul Gandhi. But that is not a bad thing if it means that Rahul will focus on raising public issues and Kharge would take care of the organizational nitty-gritty. The issue is whether it means the continuance of the dominance of the Rahul clique. If it is, then the party will continue to fumble and even Rahul’s popularity and goodwill gained through the ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ will not be of much help.
More important than the organizational problems is the question whether the Congress needs to reinvent itself in terms of ideas and ideology. On this, Kharge is not of much help. He has no new ideas to bring to the table. He is the old-fashioned Congressman who will bring in ideas wrapped in the old rhetoric. It is what PV Narasimha Rao, the much-celebrated reformer, did. This is the tactic of a timid man, who is afraid that the party will not accept new ideas and, therefore, the news ideas have to be smuggled in.
Rahul is the key man here. He is not talking in any new way and he is not thinking in any new way. He holds on to the old verities of protecting and helping the poor, and maintaining a cold attitude towards the rich folk. It is the old Congress way and it had worked very well. However, India has changed over the decades, thanks partially to the new ideas brought in by Rajiv Gandhi in the 1980s; many people refuse to accept the fact that it was Rajiv who was the harbinger of change — and that’s what has powered the new India we see today. Ideologically and politically, Rahul is closer to Indira Gandhi than to Rajiv Gandhi. And that is not helpful even at a time when the crisis of the market economy in India and in the world has made the socialist flavor fashionable. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, through his calibrated freebies, is using socialist policies behind the fascist and nationalist cloak.
Rahul then needs to do more than harping on socialist themes. And hypothetically, it would have been better for Rahul to have had Tharoor as president in place of Kharge. Tharoor would have provided the necessary counterpoint because he too is not afraid of change. Kharge dare not differ with Rahul. And there is no need for Kharge to dare because he too believes in the jaded socialism that the Congress had exploited so cleverly. And the BJP under PM Modi is doing what the Congress did in the past.
Rahul needs to take a leaf out of former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair’s New Labour, where he adopted the ideas of another former British PM Margaret Thatcher because he saw clearly that the time of the Old Labour was over. Fortunately, for Rahul, he need not borrow anything from his ideological opponents of the BJP — Atal Bihari Vajpayee or Modi — because the BJP never believed in the economic philosophy of a free market, but believed in destructive and atavistic nationalism. Rahul Gandhi has to borrow from Rajiv Gandhi. At the practical level, the question that arises is whether this is a one-off election or whether the Congress would get back to the ancient practice of electing a new president and a new Congress Working Committee (CWC) every year. If the Congress were to get back to this internal election ritual, then it would greatly enliven the organization. But that will not be a sufficient condition for the revival of the Congress.
Ideally, the Congress should be free of the Nehru-Gandhi dominance. But it is not going to happen, given the pathetic spinelessness of the Congress leaders. Independent-minded P Chidambaram articulated the position of dependence when he said whoever be the Congress president, Rahul is the leader of the party. While this accurately reflects the Congress position, it does not generate optimism about the Congress. So, what does a Congress president need to do? That is an interesting question and there are no clear answers. Rahul does not know; the Congress does not know. And therein lies the confusion of the Congress.
This year’s Congress presidential election could well be an isolated episode unless there are a hundred Tharoors who will enter the fray without rancor and fight the good fight in good faith.
(The author is a senior journalist)