The manifesto of the Congress for the 2019 Lok Sabha election is an attempt to revive a social contract the party had achieved with its 2004 aam aadmi — common man — slogan and later lost to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindutva plank.
The march of the market had marginalised India’s poor, triggering social and political instability ahead of 2004. The social coalition that was stitched together under the banner of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) with the support of the Left brought redistribution schemes that blunted the rough edges of the market economy. It was an Indian iteration of Third Way, theorised by British sociologist Anthony Giddens — follow market principles for growth but use state interventions to support the most vulnerable. “Wealth and welfare,” as Congress leader P. Chidambaram said on Tuesday.
Free marketers say this is populism; socialists say this is compromise. But this model managed to stabilise many democracies that were struggling with the domestic stresses created by globalised capitalism. But this system has been prone to corruption and cronyism the world over as it was the case with the UPA.
Hindutva promised a pure and incorruptible form of development under the unifying umbrella of religion, which displaced the Congress-led UPA in 2014. The Congress is trying to recover its lost plot. Compared with 2004, this time the challenge is more formidable for the Congress.
The appeal of the Hindutva’s social agenda is so strong that it can mask the pitfalls of its economic agenda — the discourse around demonetisation a case in point. In 2004, there wasn’t an opponent like Mr. Modi. The Congress manifesto, therefore, has a two-pronged approach: to reverse the social and political agenda set in motion by Mr. Modi and to restore its earlier “wealth and welfare” approach to development. The promise to withdraw the Citizenship Amendment Bill is in the first category; the NYAY scheme is in the second.
The three issues headlining the manifesto — unemployment , women’s security and farm distress — is an attempt to encourage the voters to reimagine their self-perception — from vertical categories of religious, ethnic and even political affiliations that dominate the political discourse now, to horizontal categories of shared interests of well-being and security. Whether the party can mobilise the voters on these against Mr. Modi’s Hindutva onslaught remains to be seen. The manifesto’s title, “Congress will deliver”, is counter to the BJP’s jumla , or false promises. Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s speech also underscored the point — that the party has promised only what it can deliver. That, voters willing.
