PERSPECTIVES
Limiting the Power of Dynasty
Sonia Gandhi relented at long last. Not only she consented to work for the Congress, which has been looking up to her for deliverance, in the forthcoming election, she is already on campaign trail belying some of its earlier forecasts. Sonia Gandhi has finally taken a plunge in the choppy water of Indian politics.
After Rajiv Gandhi's assassination in 1991, his grief-stricken wife froze into total silence. Nothing could stir her up - not even the CWC (Congress Working Committee) offer of her slain husband's party mantle within 24 hours of the tragedy. The years' of requests, urgings and appeals from the Congress' ranks to take up the leadership also failed to break the silence. No amount of temptations dangled before her - the post, position or office at the helm - could arouse an iota of her attraction in the public life. The nonchallant widow of the former Prime Minister carefully parried the pressures and pursuations and turned down offers with incredible calm.
She, however, showed flickers of interests in the party - as if to remind that she was there and was thus able to make her presence felt without taking on any responsibility. She occasionally gave audience to party leaders, visited Amethi, the family's traditional electoral constituency, sat as silent observer in the CWC meeting and even took up the party's primary membership in the last year's Calcutta plenary. But more she was pursuaded to be at the helm or in the thick of the party affairs, the more she reeled back remaining an impregnable enigma for years. Now as she herself lifts the shroud of that enigma unveiling her secret passion for politics as well as a commitment for the revival of the party's sagging fortune, a different Sonia Gandhi, poised for an exalted place in Indian polity, emerges.
And this is exactly what raises a host of questions and controversy over her momentous decision which couldn't but be a landmark event per se. The most crucial of the questions that are being asked today and the pointed one is whether Sonia Gandhi has the ability to catapult a moribund outfit back to power. After all, there is no dearth of seasoned leaders in the ranks of an organisation of Congress' standing. What does Sonia Gandhi have which Sitaram Kesri, Pranab Mukherjee, Arjun Singh, Karunakaran, ND Tiwari - all who have been begging her to lead them - do not? Yes, she has something really precious. At this moment, only she has that most precious asset of Indian politics - the aura that comes from being a part of Nehru-Gandhi clan and the mystique that surrounds India's most powerful political dynasty. One liked it or not, by queer turns of the events in the dynasty Sonia Gandhi was destined to inherit that most mesmerising legacy of the family. The Congressmen looking for salvage in her are convinced that she can ensure it with a wave of her little finger.
At least in the past, the Nehru-Gandhi mystique worked with absolute certainty, and not without a reason. The family gave so much to India since the colonial days that India's power, prestige and image became synonymous with those of Nehru-Gandhi clan as well as the Congress. The common people of India reciprocated the sacrifices of the clan with their resounding support for Congress immersed in the legend of the great stalwarts originating from the dynasty. The common Indians are also fond of symbol - a mythical figure to look up for succour. From Jawaharlal Nehru to Rajiv Gandhi - they all lived up to that peculiar craving of the Indian masses. They all created some myth around them giving the masses an impression about their indespensibility. Sonia Gandhi also has cultivated it well. She has patronised Rajiv Gandhi Foundation which gives her personality some intellectual gloss. She keeps a distance from the party's rank and file, fosters association with celebrities of the world and develops an exclusive style. All these have contributed towards building a larger-than-life image for her. Equipped only with the mystique of the dynasty and her own image built over the years Sonia Gandhi, a political novice, has ventured her treacherous journey through the largest ever election of the world's largest democracy. Will the mystique work?
Of course, the mystique will still work in its place but so will many other newly-introduced dynamics and changes in India's electoral politics. The unquestioned dominance the Congress exerted in the '50s and early '60s rested, apart from the leadership charisma, also on prestige it retained from its role in India's independence struggle and intricate patronage network that stretched from New Delhi to tens of thousands of villages. The arrangement in turn depended heavily on the deference that the Congress party's allies, India's rural elite could still command from their 'social inferiors'. Neither that arrangement nor the traditional deference of the past exists any more. Ever since Indira Gandhi took over the reign of the party in the late '60s she did away with the lower tiers of leaders with genuine grassroots support and instead adopted a populist slogan, Garibi Hatao, appealing directly to India's poor majority.
Whereas Sonia definitely lacks the skill of her mother-in-law in travelling, so close to the hearts of the Indian masses, a pliant backward class has also disappeared. Along with the poor, the middling groups of rural Indian society have been more politically active over the last two decades. The levels of political activity are much higher today than they were in the past. It reflects, among other things, the spread of egalitarian and democratic ideas that have reduced the subservience that India's social inferiors once displayed towards their privileged leaders. A plethora of diverse and politically assertive groups among the backward classes has made any electoral consensus on their part hard to achieve and an enbloc voting as a result of popular mood swings impossible.
After having lost the Hindi belt in the north, many felt that the Congress would be led by Sonia to a complete sweep in the south, the Congress bastion during the period of its crisis. The south, it was argued, will emotionally react to Rajiv Gandhi's name. But even when Sonia's campaign has taken off from the south the responses are lukewarm - let alone a visible sign of sweep. On the contrary, the Jain Commission's reference to Tamilian and LTTE connection to Rajiv Gandhi's assassination and Congress' overplaying of it have in a way ressurected the Tamil pride in the state. To more matured electorate in the south the mournings and tears of a weeping widow will hardly matter. Instead what will matter are the hard issues of the polity. Can the present Congress, bereft of ideology, programme and policy, articulate those issues to convince the voters of its worth, if any?
In the north, her position is more vulnerable and the Congress' prospects are bleak. It is predicted that she will not make any difference to the party's prospects in the north where the electorate is sharply polarised around empowerment and social justice. In Uttar Pradesh where there is large concentration of Muslims and Dalits, Sonia with her inherited mantle of the Dynasty will draw crowds but no votes. Because, in spite of Rajiv Gandhi's personal interest in Babri Mosque, it was during the Congress rule at the centre, the historic mosque was demolished. Notwithstanding, Congress government's repeated promises to rebuild the mosque it was never done during the complete tenure of Narasimha Rao. While Muslims are in real dilemma about their electoral choice the Dalits, disenchanted with Congress' empty promises for decades have already turned their faces from Congress.
The Dalits have tasted power in the state which they would like to consolidate in the next poll in alliance with any other party - not necessarily the Congress. The upper caste in the state decidedly threw in their lot with the BJP. In Punjab Sonia's campaign is likely to revive the bitter memory of 'Blue Star' operation and the massacre of the Sikhs during the aftermath of Indira Gandhi's assassination. In Kashmir where the people are living in the mess of Congress' making her campaign can have only a negative effect. Similar effects are expected in the north-east where during the secessionist violences many were persecuted by the Congress' rulers. The Congress' decline began as early as in the late '60s. The party's hegemony was first chipped away in '67 election. Ever since the party has been sinking and could be resurrected only in extraordinary circumstances as they were in the elections of '71, '80 and '84. But the electoral decline of the party from '89 onward was remarkable notwithstanding Congress' success in propping up a minority government in '91. However, the party's share of popular vote incredibly shrank from 36 per cent in '91 election to 28 per cent - the lowest ever - in '96. The recent decline is somewhat puzzling because Rao's complete term provided relatively effective government. However, significant component of the answer is the party's organisational weakness. The Congress leadership including that of Rao, the last president of Congress, could not reverse the organisational decline; neither could it rebuild the Congress from the bottom up.
Besides organisational weakness, the party's shifting national priorities also help explain its relative decline. Traditionally, the Congress always stood for nationalism, modernisation and egalitarianism. To keep pace with dramatic changes in the international arena over last one decade as the party shifted more towards liberalisation of economy its political cost has perforce been enormous making Congress vulnerable on both nationalist and redistributionist front. The result of '96 election underlines this ideological vulnerability. The emergence of BJP and the UF on the right and the left of the Congress respectively demonstrates how these parties have filled the nationalist and redistributionist political spaces that the Congress largely abandoned.
These are in addition to myriad other sleazes that smear the face of the organisation. Prominent among them are pervasive corruption scandals, frequent defections, broken promises and internal schisms. Most of the party heavyweights have been involved in infamous Hawala case. The Congress prime minister Narasimha Rao himself is chargesheeted in several criminal and corruption cases. Not only the omnibus defection of Congress MLAs in Uttar Pradesh for petty offices under a BJP government is without precedence, the large scale defection of Congressmen from the party speaks of their opportunism. Its secular pretensions and record do not anymore attract the secular forces of the country. While the inner party democracy has since been eroded, there were few intra-party elections for many years. Party affairs were thus grossly neglected over several years.
No doubt the Congress, in its despair, has struck a goldmine in Sonia Gandhi who, with her charisma, may have been an asset for the party but the Congress itself, in its present shape, is indeed a liability for the lady apparently on trial. Ms Gandhi has checkmated an inexorable process of party's disintegration. It is however yet to be seen whether she can reverse the process to bring Congress back to its old shape claiming an effective pan-Indian spread. The continuing glow of the dynasty has enabled her to cause ripple among the masses but to wave as yet due largely to the Congress holding it back with its stupor.
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