Should the Gandhis disengage from the Congress?

The strength of the Congress is the Nehruvian thought and the family represents it

July 17, 2020 12:05 am | Updated 10:28 am IST

NEW DELHI, 23/12/2019: Congress party president Sonia Gandhi along with former AICC president Rahul Gandhi, AICC general Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and other party leaders during a sit in and silent dharna against Citizenship Amendment Act, at Rajghat in New Delhi on December 23, 2019.
Photo: Shiv Kumar Pushpakar / The Hindu

NEW DELHI, 23/12/2019: Congress party president Sonia Gandhi along with former AICC president Rahul Gandhi, AICC general Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and other party leaders during a sit in and silent dharna against Citizenship Amendment Act, at Rajghat in New Delhi on December 23, 2019. Photo: Shiv Kumar Pushpakar / The Hindu

The Rajasthan political crisis has once again highlighted an age-old problem afflicting the Congress Party — the power tussles between the old and the young. It has also raised questions on the ability of the Gandhis to hold the grand old party together. In a discussion moderated by Varghese K. George , two Congress leaders — Rajeev Gowda (who recently completed his first term as an MP in the Rajya Sabha) and Kumar Ketkar (Rajya Sabha legislator) — discuss the role of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty and the future of the party. Edited excerpts:

There is a view that the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty is, actually a drag on the Congress Party.

Rajeev Gowda: Not at all. The family has a tremendous role to play in leading the Congress Party forward and they have led the party through the ups and downs over the last few decades. Now, [there are] two things you must remember: one is the fact that across the entire length and breadth of the country, there is support for the Congress; and second is the fact that there is tremendous faith and trust among the people for the Nehru-Gandhi family. And, this is not just because of their dynastic connections, it is also because they have walked the talk on social justice, compassion and secularism. So, basically, we are very, very happy overall. And, we all realise that the party is going through tough times. We have to strengthen their hands rather than asking them to abandon the ship.

 

All these qualities may have worked for the Congress at some point, but may not be relevant today. That is the criticism.

Kumar Ketkar: It is presumptuous to say that it is not working now. Who decides that? Not some liberal intellectuals or media commentators. In 1998 and 1999, the Congress lost. And therefore, in 2004, everyone was asking: how could Sonia Gandhi, a person who can’t even speak Hindi, become Prime Minister? Current-day critics may have good intentions, but I think the perceptions are totally wrong, misplaced; they don’t understand what is happening on the ground. The tremendous sympathy and love and affection that the family enjoys is beyond what they can do. It is not a question of success and failure. It is a question of heart and mind and soul and they have that relationship with them.

But it is difficult to argue that the family is as popular as it used to be.

Rajeev Gowda: I would not say it has anything to do with the family, per se. I think the party is going through a stage where a former president has stepped aside, and we have an interim president arrangement, and then, there have been other disruptions such as the lockdown.

Kumar Ketkar: Electoral results cannot be the only mark of efficiency. No other family has taken a firm stance on secularism, democracy and liberalism like they have. The basic fact is that the Congress is the only party which fights for secularism and the family is the fundamental symbol of the secular and democratic principle.

Is the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty more popular in the south than the north?

Rajeev Gowda: You go to any village in India, you will find Congress supporters. But your point is also valid. If you draw a line from Kanniyakumari to Kashmir, west of that line, the Congress has a strong organisation/government in some of the States. To the right of that line, including southern States, we are weaker. In Tamil Nadu, there is a lot of affection for the Nehru-Gandhis but we are not organisationally strong. Some of it has to do with organisational strengthening, which is required. And you must [also] admire the fact that Priyanka Gandhi has taken up the most challenging task which is in Uttar Pradesh.

Analysis | A year after he quit as Congress chief, Rahul continues to shape party’s stand on key issues

People who have been very loyal to the Nehru-Gandhi family are leaving the party. Do you think that is a failure of the family to keep them sufficiently inspired?

Kumar Ketkar: Well, that is a wrong perception. Sachin Pilot was elected as MP at the age of 26. And now he is 42. In between, he was a Cabinet Minister, a Central Minister, and a Deputy Chief Minister. He was, he is, very much a respected leader in the party. Has he come out and said that he does not accept the secular-liberal democratic line that the Nehru-Gandhi family has taken? Is he objecting to the ideological position or is he objecting to the organisational structure? People talk about Jyotiraditya Scindia. He had a tremendous responsibility to rebuild the party in Madhya Pradesh. But he lost his own constituency, Guna.

It is the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is more obsessed with the so-called ‘dynasty’; I would prefer to use the word ‘family’. In dynasties, you never lose power. The BJP wants to finish the [ideology of the] Nehru-Gandhis because they know that the strength of the Congress is in the Nehruvian thought and the family represents it.

Also read | Gandhis will remain the conscience keepers of the Congress: Shashi Tharoor

But why are these people leaving the Congress Party in such large numbers?

Kumar Ketkar: That happens because personal ambition becomes more important than the party or the ideology. Is it that the so-called aspirational generation doesn’t have any ideas, doesn’t have any ideology? It has only aspirations and no ideology? It is not as if the masses are following them out of the Congress.

Rajeev Gowda: Let’s make this clear: Mr. Pilot has not left the party. If they [younger leaders] had asked me, which they haven’t, I would have said, ‘why don’t you wait for your time?’ You know, you [Pilot, Scindia] are both in States where the Congress is strong, where it has the opportunity to come to power again. And you guys are in your 40s, when the other seniors who are currently holding office are in their 60s and 70s.

Comment | From Gandhi’s last testament, a lesson for the Congress

Is there a tussle between the ‘old guard’ and the new generation that is making the party dysfunctional?

Rajeev Gowda: I don’t see that. The people we spoke about, they may have reacted a little too hastily to what I would call ‘normal politics’. Normal politics is a situation where people are constantly competing; we are all in the same party, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t necessarily compete within the party. While competing with our political opponents and ideological opponents, there is competition within the party too. And so, you need to figure out ways to choose which battles to fight and which ones to avoid. And, how do you consolidate your own position? And, sometimes, you let others get ahead. You need to be marathon runners, I would say.

Also read | The young versus the old divide in Congress

Unlike the BJP, the Congress has no coherent ideology and that makes it entirely dependent on the family. The disarray in the family becomes the biggest weakness of the party hence…

Kumar Ketkar: To say that the BJP-RSS has a large organisational base is not true, it is a media creation. Secondly, the RSS has been shifting its political positions frequently.

But they have an ideology unlike the Congress.

Kumar Ketkar: I think their ideological stance has been changing according to their political positions and political opportunism is what determines that identity. [Their] organisational strength is much of a chimera, it is much of a myth. The organisation is there, but the Congress cannot be compared with the RSS. The Congress is loose; it should not be so loose, but it cannot have an organisation like the RSS, which is fascist in nature. Congress is a loose liberal democratic platform.

Also read | Regional satraps may hold sway in Congress

This loose organisation, at some point used to be the key strength of the Congress. Do you think that it is also now dragging it down?

Rajeev Gowda: See, the Congress’s ideology is not narrow. It is you know, we’ll hear phrases like the ‘big tent’. We calmly do multiply voices. We do respect the fact that there are multiple ideological streams that contend and we reject those viewpoints which are focused on dividing Indians, especially on the basis of religion, which is what the BJP stands for. But the fact of the matter is that the kind of tolerance and the broad approach that the Congress has historically taken [is] that a looser ideology is actually what represents the essence of India. And what India will come back to.

Comment | It no longer runs in the family

Is Rahul Gandhi a reluctant inheritor of family legacy? Do you think he is a reluctant politician in the sense that he does not remain consistently engaged with a political battle?

Kumar Ketkar: That you can say in the sense that Rahul Gandhi is not a 24x7 politician like Mr. Modi is, or many others are; he has a different kind of personality and he has a different kind of approach, but I think it is also the more introspective qualities [that you should consider]. Mr. Gandhi has not been going directly to the masses as Indira Gandhi or even Sonia Gandhi did.

Rajeev Gowda: Rahul Gandhi is not power-hungry, like you’re seeing on the other side. The desire to gain power by any means that has undemocratic outcomes — in Goa, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, where the BJP has been defeated. They are so hungry for power, they essentially undermine democracy, bribe their way through and destabilise elected governments. Right? That kind of power hunger is what you need to be, as a media representative, out there calling out and criticising. And instead, you are expecting that our leaders who are much more focused on India’s future should be demonstrating the same kind of negative greed for power; that’s not what Rahul Gandhi is all about. And, people will realise his value and the fact that he represents the Indian ethos; we do our duty without worrying about the fruits.

Comment | Whither the Congress Party?

What should the family be doing differently for it to revive the Congress?

Rajeev Gowda: One of the things that the lockdown has taught us is that technology allows us all to communicate wherever we are. The party leadership needs to find ways to communicate and engage well with the length and breadth of India, with every Congress person out there. Ms. [Sonia] Gandhi, our president, just had a virtual meeting. And in Karnataka, we had an inauguration of a new party president, D.K. Shivakumar, where we got every panchayat to participate in the ceremony virtually. So, these sorts of things can be scaled up. And it is a new possibility; even in a big national convention, only so many people get in to the actual event. And, here is an opportunity for us to try and engage with many more.

Editorial | Facing the debacle: Congress cannot look away from the dynasty dilemma

Kumar Ketkar: The first thing that the Congress should do is to see that those people who come to Congress only for power, the leadership has to identify and keep them away from the organisational and political work and do this political work directly, which is itself an ideological work. [Sometimes] those who talk more, or show themselves more in the media, get identified as the people who represent Congress. They don’t. So, some of the Congressmen are the people responsible for the decline of the party, not the family.

Kumar Ketkar is a Rajya Sabha MP; Rajeev Gowda recently completed his first term as an MP in the Rajya Sabha.

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