In their introductory essay to The Continuum Companion to Hindu Studies , the editors summarise various ‘models’ that academics use to understand how Hindu belief and society interact. To some scholars, Hinduism is a pot pourri of beliefs, to others it is a banyan tree, and to some a kaleidoscope. The list of metaphors and analogies goes on. While the underlying conceit behind such a list is to impress upon the reader the difficulty of thinking about Hinduism, two deep truths emerge. One, humans rely on a combination of metaphors, analogies, and similes to comprehend complex phenomena. Two, metaphors, analogies, and similes can illuminate but also obscure and lead us to believe that the metaphor is the world.
In the recently concluded elections, no metaphor was more widespread than ‘chowkidaar’ — a trisyllabic noun upon which was foisted the politics of 1.2 billion Indians. From the shrill chowkidaar chor hein campaign that was met by the fury of main bhi chowkidaar — the 2019 elections may well be remembered as the battle of awkward metaphors.
Changing forms
But metaphors in politics that aim to cut through the noise to distil political messaging don’t stop at the level of the individual or campaign slogans. When viewed from a certain distance, and without the emotional urgencies of the present, political parties can resemble cities. Some large, some small, some mere townships masquerading as metropolises. All, however, have a period of growth that in turn facilitates the creation of elites within, who eventually resist new ideas, which lays the seeds of decline.
But unlike cities, which can sometimes suffer body blows (ask Vijayanagara), political parties don’t always need to die. Instead, they can merely change forms, lay low for a stretch, then when the wheel of time turns in their favour, their ideas can gain currency, reproduce feverishly, and a renaissance can begin.
Viewed thus, the BJP — now flush with victory — reminds one of a city like Shanghai. Cash-rich, marked by energy, steeled by a party leadership that remains unquestioned and, more importantly, filled with a collective optimism that, finally, their time is now. In contrast, a party like the Congress — despairing about the future — reminds one of Kolkata. Once a great, historic city, but now riven with a fraying infrastructure, an old elite who view the rest with condescension, and the young who escape it for greener pastures.
Framed in this manner, the challenges facing both the ‘national’ parties are radically different. For the BJP, it is one of how to sustain its drive and energy, how to keep its pipes unclogged of bureaucratism and factionalism, and ultimately how to make itself acceptable to a wider world that still views it suspiciously as an authoritarian wolf in democrat’s clothing. Narendra Modi’s inaugural speech in the Central Hall was filled with a premonition of these curveballs coming down the line.
For the Congress, however, the challenge is not just diametrically opposite but also more existential: how to become relevant again? While there are tactical answers offered up by many, it is important to recognise that the Congress and its courtiers still talk of the Congress as a ‘big tent’ party, when in reality it is now only an insurgent. What history teaches us is that any kind of political rebirth requires three ingredients — a mass movement, the courage of one’s convictions, and an enemy.
The hardest of all
One, the Congress needs to be heavily invested in a medium-term socio-political struggle that comports with historical forces and demographics, no different from the BJP, which bootstrapped itself to power on the backs of a decade-long Ram Janmabhoomi movement or the caste-based parties that were born from the Mandal agitations.
Two, the Congress must be lucky in that the BJP makes a fatal mistake, but it also must find the courage to capitalise on that error. No different from the BJP, which capitalised on the Shah Bano case.
And the third is the identification of an enemy — a group, in opposition to whom one defines one’s own political identity. This is the hardest of all.
Absent these, it is entirely likely that the Congress will survive — an election victory here and another there, through an assemblage of tactics, cunning, and supplication to regional parties. But, over time, in an act of historical irony, the Congress will have slowly returned to the days of A.O. Hume who founded that old, long-forgotten Congress of the late 19th century, a genteel club irrelevant to the masses.
The writer lives in New York City.
