A Crisis of Faith in Congress

Sometime in 1995, HY Sharada Prasad, that elegant and wise but also the most discreet counsellor to the Gandhis, allowed himself to be persuaded to talk publicly about India’s first political family. The talk he delivered in Dhvanyaloka (in old Mysore) was entitled ‘One Family: Three Prime Ministers’. An arresting theme. It was a rare occasion when this privileged insider meditated openly on “the swings in the reputation of what is called the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty.” Never suspected of any weakness for rhetorical or personal flamboyance, Sharada Prasad was expectedly understated in his formulations as he went about listing the qualities that defined this family and perhaps set it apart from others.

As Sharada Prasad saw it, even though all three Prime Ministers from the family—Jawaharlal Nehru, his daughter Indira Gandhi and her son Rajiv Gandhi—began at the top, they all took care to work “their way downwards” and “drew sustenance from the soil”; they were all over the country but identified themselves with neither a particular caste nor religion or region, they marketed themselves as a truly pan-Indian brand; and, all three displayed exemplary “coolness” under trying circumstances. And, above all, all three understood that leadership in a democracy

is anchored in “a basic obligation of compassion and constitutionality.” The burden of Sharada Prasad’s reflection was that there was a certain cachet to this family and that the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty deserved our attention and indeed our respect principally because it was endowed with a certain nobility of character, a distinct high-mindedness of purpose, and an undiluted commitment of an unalloyed deshbhakt to steer this ancient land towards its “tryst with destiny.”

Historians may have many reasons to quibble with this distinguished Nehruite’s insight into the three Prime Ministers and their leadership styles. To be sure, all these assets and attributes were honed when the three presided over the Indian state. But, implicit in Sharada Prasad’s historical understanding is a belief that these qualities can perhaps be deemed to be flowing from the family’s particular bloodline. A mythical suggestion.

Even if this family chronicler is granted his thesis about the uniqueness of a family, it should be more than evident to any student of modern Indian history that the post-Rajiv crop of the Gandhis—Sonia, Rahul and Priyanka—who assert a claim on our attention, if not affection, conspicuously fall short of Sharada Prasad’s own yardsticks. The new Gandhis may —and, do—preen themselves as heir to Nehru’s legacy as also to all the privileges inherent in that claim, but it has become painfully obvious that the young Gandhis, especially the brother and sister, have wantonly overdrawn on the family’s dynastic capital. It is this Nehruvian deficit that is at the core of the Congress’ existential crisis, so gloriously brought home by Jyotiraditya Scindia’s defection to the saffron camp.

The Gandhis and the Congress find themselves locked in mutual dependency. There is a leadership paralysis: the mother is old, unwell, and uncertain; the son is sullen, unreformed, and unwilling to fade away; the daughter has left herself no line of retreat

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Granted, history has an unkind habit of judging the losers too harshly just as it heaps high praise on the winners. We may pause and ask of ourselves whether it is fair to judge Sonia, Rahul, and Priyanka harshly simply because they have failed to lead the Congress back to power. Would we have judged the bhai-behn differently had the 2019 Lok Sabha elections results gone the other way?

After all, let it be recalled, that after the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, very wise and erudite editors and the all-knowing opinion-manufacturers were hailing Rahul Gandhi as the game-changer, an heir apparent, our very own Prince Charles. This was as par for the course. As a society we are prone to worship the rising sun. Just as after the 2009 vote the commentariat stumbled over itself to praise Rahul Gandhi, we have predictably been over eager to discern great qualities in Narendra Modi and Amit Shah because they are successful for now in the game of gaming elections. After 2009, it was only natural that the young Gandhi should have bought for himself this inflated image as the man of destiny; only a saint could have resisted the durbaris’ sycophantic exertions. And we do know Rahul is no saint.

It is no secret that over the last four decades everybody, almost everybody, in the Congress stable has conspired to give the family an exaggerated but false sense of uniqueness. Because Sonia Gandhi was not a born Gandhi, she perhaps did not allow herself to be totally overwhelmed by this ‘a family born to rule’ spiel. She knew and worked within her limits. But her son, Rahul, had no choice. He was encouraged and goaded by canny and cunning Congressmen, from the seniormost Cabinet minister like Pranab Mukherjee to the district-level Congress operative, to believe that the Kingdom was his to be inherited, and it was for him, and him alone, to choose the time to claim his inheritance. Specially during the UPA-2 years, ministers and party bosses used to take turns to tell the reluctant and the unsure Rahul Gandhi that he was more than ‘ready’ to take over as prime minister.

So heady proved the fawning durbaris’ brew that Rahul Gandhi refused to sober up after the 2014 mauling administered to the Congress by the voters. He found it distasteful to recognise that Narendra Modi had come to occupy an office which he had been led to believe only the Nehru-Gandhi family had a lien on. Instead of steering him to new realities of a changed and changing India, the rest of the Congress cheered Rahul Gandhi in his petulance and waywardness. Consequently, the 2019 rebuff was even stronger than the one in 2014.

Yet, the Congress still does not know what to do with the Gandhis. More to the point, neither do the Gandhis know what to do with themselves. That remains the rub. And it is a humongous vexatious rub for the Congress.

Not that the Congress had not faced a crisis of monumental proportions before. Indeed, as early as 1952, Jawaharlal Nehru had warned his Congress colleagues of dangers that would come the organisation way as they experienced the corrupting temptations of power. He wrote: ‘the Congress has been, and should continue to be, a great people’s organization. Unfortunately, there was a tendency for it to become confined to narrow groups and cliques. That itself was very wrong. I warned it many times. Where this development took place, difficulties arose sometimes for some Congressmen.’

In the early years after Independence, it was natural that the comrades during the freedom struggle should have fallen out on matters of policies and directions most suited to the new nation. Many of them parted company with the Congress. Tall leaders like Acharya Kripalani, NG Ranga, Rafi Ahmed Kidwai and many others of stature felt strongly enough to walk out of the Congress. But there was nothing personal or petty about their exit; it was an honourable parting of ways, not like the shabby desertion of the young Jyotiraditya Scindia.

The Scindia defection highlights the changed nature of the Congress in the Sonia, Rahul and Priyanka reign. From Nehru’s conception as a ‘people’s organisation’, it has converted itself into a band of rapacious men and women, devoted solely to furthering their families’ fortunes. They masquerade as political functionaries, trafficking in public welfare, but deal only in the currency of power and greed. The Scindia treachery is not an isolated phenomenon. Rumblings have been heard in Gujarat, Rajasthan and Assam as Congress legislators have made themselves available to anyone willing to pay a price.

The Gandhis’ leadership limits are all too visible. Neither Rahul nor Priyanka has the ability to seduce loyalty, induce admiration or command compliance. The bhai-bhen jodi simply does not have what it takes to inspire or to create a sense of excitement and romance among tired and dejected Congress legions. Instead, claims of the entitled abound, even as personal weaknesses and perversions stumble out of the closet. Perhaps the National Herald business was a case of shoddy legal advice, but there is nothing morally deeming about hawking the Rajiv Gandhi painting to Rana Kapoor. Even the most well-meaning friends of the Gandhis are struggling to understand this damning association with a fraudulent banker.

Rahul and Priyanka have overdrawn on the family’s dynastic capital. This Nehruvian deficit is at the core of the Congress’ existential crisis, brought home by Jyotiraditya Scindia’s defection

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Yet there is the craven refusal of Congress leaders to tell the emperor that he has no clothes. They find themselves sucked into the Gandhi quagmire. Long years of personalised leadership—now so well-epitomised by the totally undeserved and unearned pre-eminence the brother and sister enjoy—have rendered this century-old organisation deeply de-institutionalised. The obligation to constitutionality of which Sharada Prasad spoke so eloquently stands jettisoned in the face of the rites of family fiefdom.

In private, even the seniormost Congress leader bemoans that there is no forum, no mechanism to talk about what has gone wrong and how to fix it. There is no appetite either. The result is organised anarchy of three power centres. There is the official—but, only, officiating—president, Sonia Gandhi, with the trusted Ahmed Patel by her side, playing the major domo; Rahul Gandhi’s entrenched coterie, unwilling to allow their man to fade away decently to a quiet corner; and, third, the restless Priyanaka Gandhi Vadra, kibitzing on social media and all too prone to get steamed up at the drop of a hat.

These three groups within the Gandhi clan are functioning exactly like Nehru warned against in 1952. Cumulatively, the three centres have produced a discernible dysfunctional overload, generating an unyielding crisis in the Congress parivar.
More than a leadership crisis, there is a crisis of faith—faith in the Gandhis’ ability and attributes, faith in the organisational resilience of the party, and a faith in the inherent collective wisdom and experience to work its way out of the dark tunnel.

The Gandhis also have a corresponding crisis of faith. Rahul Gandhi is reported to have privately voiced his frustration as to why he should slog it out if, at the end of the day, a Kamal Nath becomes Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh or an Ashok Ghelot just brushes aside a younger Congress claimant to power. There is, of course, a self-serving presumptuousness about this because he has no qualms in accepting or extracting ‘tributes’ from either of them, an arrangement that sustains him as he plays the leadership games.

On the other hand, party activists find themselves locked out of the loop. They feel frustrated at the family’s preference to operate only through a ‘coterie’, a mechanism which in turn values ‘family connection’ and wealth as operating currency. Merit, idealism, service, or dedication long ago ceased to be a priority. The coterie, by definition, operates through a protocol of factions and groups. Manipulation and machination become tools of the trade. All of this has come to pass because the current royal family never felt the need to draw “sustenance from the soil”, as per Sharada Prasad’s prescription.

The Gandhis and the Congress find themselves locked in mutual dependency. Everyone recognises there is a leadership paralysis: the mother is old, unwell, and uncertain; the son is sullen, unreformed, and unwilling to fade away, and seems to be enjoying waging a kind of guerrilla war on the seniors; the daughter, now fully bloodied in the brutal game, has left herself no line of retreat.

Can the Gandhis change their spots? Perhaps not, because they refuse to see that ‘dynastic’ politics was a 20th century, if ever, phenomenon, whereas the 21st century has its own demons to kill.

As the globalisation project has faltered in the 21st century, a new politics has replaced the old politics of democracy and markets. All over the world democracies are courting new passions and new pursuits. It is the age of political tribalism. As Amy Chua, the author of Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations, notes: ‘Vote-seeking demagogues find that the best way to mobilize popular support is not by offering rational policy proposals but by appealing to ethnic identity, stoking historical grievances, and exploiting group fear and anger.’ The very Nehruvian qualities, once so sacrosanct and so morally appealing, no longer seem efficacious. And neither do the Gandhis.

About The Author

Harish Khare

Harish Khare is a senior journalist and commentator