The Great Disconnect

FOR ALL THE THEORIES ABOUT THE DECLINE OF THE WEST, IT continues to set the global agenda in many ways. It shapes taste in music and cinema as well as in technological advancements. Its pervasive nature has led people to complain about the re-emergence of colonialism in a different guise and the use of soft power to coerce, much like hard power was once deployed. Things started changing, however, partly due to a range of factors, including globalisation that has made distant geographies seem closer, facilitating easier travel and mass movement. Consequently, it’s easier to discern what’s in and out and adjust preferences and political persuasions accordingly.

Congress is a tragic case in this respect. It has had more exposure to the Western world than all its political peers combined. Its leaders have attended elite institutions. Despite all the advantages that should have positioned them to gauge the shifting moods, they remain enthralled by wokeism. This persists despite a backlash against wokeism and DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion), especially on the US campus. There is now a realisation that things were taken to ridiculous extremes. Everywhere, people are questioning thought-policing.

Unfortunately, the Congress leadership hasn’t realised that, as evident in the party’s manifesto for the 2024 General Election. According to the manifesto, Congress will establish a diversity commission that will measure, monitor and promote diversity in public and private employment as well as in education.

The manifesto has plenty that is divisive by contemporary standards. Some of the most divisive parts of the document are couched in the language of “social justice” and “federalism”. To sample a few of the promises, Congress has promised to remove the 50 per cent cap on reservations fixed by the Supreme Court in its Indra Sawhney judgment of 1992. Even more dangerous is the demand for a caste census. It was for good reason that such an enumeration was not carried out after 1931. Successive Congress governments, under Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, were aware of the fires certain to be fanned by such measures. The idea of jitni abadi, utna haq (every group’s rights are proportionate to its share of the population) sounds socialist but, in reality, it will lead to an economic wasteland and a country socially scarred. ‘Enumeration’ in this context is a dog whistle to unleash caste conflict. And everyone in India understands that.

If that were not enough, the section on ‘Federalism’ is dan­gerous for the unity and integrity of India. The second item in that section reads: “India is one and many at the same time. Its unity gets strengthened when its diversities are accommodated and celebrated. This has always been Congress’ stance and will remain so. Article 1 of the Constitution begins with the words ‘India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States.’ This is the guid­ing principle of federalism in our country.” This is as good as pleading for the vivisection of India. But there’s more: “We will immediately restore full statehood to Jammu and Kashmir. We will amend the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution to include the tribal areas of Ladakh.”

The Modi government has, in principle, agreed to restore statehood to Jammu & Kashmir. But the actual timing of the transition is a matter of the security situation and the disarming of the kind of politics that had led the erstwhile state into peril. By making a promise of “immediately” restoring statehood and giving Sixth Schedule status to Ladakh, a part of India that faces serious external security challenges, Congress has spelt out its intentions. The manifesto is littered with dangerous economic and social promises.

By these throwbacks to the past, Congress wants people to believe that nothing has changed. Apart from the hypocrisy of the proposed measure—let’s not forget Congress sat on the Kaka Kalelkar Commission report of 1953; delayed the implementa­tion of the Mandal Commission report, which was set up by the Janata Party government; and that Rajiv Gandhi played a role in fanning the anti-Mandal agitation—when a party makes an about-turn, repudiating the stance of its forebears, an apol­ogy for its earlier position is expected. The dishonesty becomes starker as the party that carried out a socioeconomic survey dur­ing Manmohan Singh’s tenure as prime minister doesn’t have the courage to call it one, or its state government in Karnataka doesn’t release the results of the caste census.

Opportunism is only one of the problems facing Congress. Now the party has come up with a line to the effect that caste cannot be ignored. But it forgets that such issues have ceased to be as emotive and volatile as they once were. After the caste census results were unveiled in Bihar—billed as the biggest rev­olution of the decade—the state didn’t even see a dozen people assembling at the Dak Bungalow Chowk (Patna’s main protest site) to agitate against it. This only goes to show that people have finally realised that government jobs are not going to solve the problem of unemployment and that reservations can benefit only a fraction of people in certain communities.

No wonder Prime Minister Narendra Modi told a rally in Ajmer that Congress is a party unfit to govern. “Wherever there is Congress, there cannot be any development. Congress never thought about the poor, the marginalised and the youth. These people considered looting public money their ancestral right. In the past 10 years, Modi has provided a permanent cure for the disease. It’s a party of dynasties and is equally a corrupt party… Modi has pulled down the shutter of their shop of loot. That is why they are in a panic,” he said.

Is it just continuing diffidence or an instinct to follow whatever reigns supreme in terms of ideology in Western capitals? Or is it opportunism that guides Congress? It seems to be much more than that, and that’s something India should worry about—a divide-and-rule policy. This follows from a hard-nosed realisation that the party has lost the Hindu vote in two back-to-back General Elections. No matter how hard Congress tries, it can only get a slice of the Hindu constituency, with the major chunk solidly backing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Congress’ positions on issues like the Ram temple that agi­tated Hindus for centuries, its top leaders finding a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) worker in the Mumbai attacker Ajmal Kasab, and other ideas like minorities having the first right to resources could have contributed to this meltdown. There was some admission of its losing political heft. This in­cludes the AK Antony committee’s audit of the 2014 results and Sonia Gandhi’s rare display of candour in Mumbai, admitting that BJP had successfully portrayed Congress as a Muslim party.

But this has not led to any course correction. There is no remorse and no reappraisal of its positions. What remains are anger and bitterness—anger that the party can no longer do things it had been doing. Congress is now caught out and pun­ished. What’s more, it has been evicted from power—some­thing the party had considered its natural preserve.

That anger is reflected in the divide-and-rule tactics being used in calling for a caste census, questioning the caste compo­sition of the workforce in private companies, etc. Is that just a shot in the dark? No. There is a clear plan. By now Congress and its leaders are sure that they are the clear favourites of Muslims and Christians. The assumption is that, since the Muslim is­sue is sealed, a division in the Hindu vote can help it mount a challenge against BJP.

As strategy, this makes sense. After all, this has paid dividends in the past. For Congress, appeasement has been an article of faith for long. It has found expression in dramatic moments like Nehru’s refusal to be part of the reconstruction of the Somnath temple, the law to deny a paltry alimony to Shah Bano, not recog­nising and addressing the jihadist dimension to the insurgency in Kashmir, and airbrushing the ethnic cleansing in the Valley, among a host of other matters. The list is practically endless.

SADLY FOR CONGRESS, large sections of Indians have seen through the game. Apart from being seen as appeas­ers, Congress members are perceived as corrupt and inef­ficient. And they have been paying the price for it in successive elections. Such was the scale of corruption that the memory still lingers and causes revulsion among people.

This time, however, Congress is playing the divide-and-rule game transparently—attempting to cause a fresh caste divide that has been largely healed. It is camouflaged in the language of diversity and inclusion. But the game is the same old one. Recall Rahul Gandhi’s inquiry about the caste of a journalist’s employer at a public gathering. Either he was naïve or mischie­vous. But where does he get the confidence to do something like that with impunity? As if unemployment emerged only after 2014 or India has suddenly become capitalist?

Such confidence stems from two assumptions. First, that support for Hindutva and nationalism is largely an upper-caste Hindu phenomenon. While Modi may have succeed­ed in bringing others inside the tent, their support has not solidified into conviction yet, so they can be weaned away with some concerted effort. Second, individual dissatisfaction plays a role in people’s political choices. No one is going to feel completely happy unless they are a sanyasi or tycoon. People will have their grievances, and they could attribute them to some injustices.

Both assumptions are incorrect and risky as strategy. First, Hindutva and nationalism are no longer confined to the up­per castes and classes. They were initially, but so were the lure of communism and the appeal of the freedom struggle—both of which became mass movements only when other sections of society, including the prosperous and educated intermediate castes, joined. Dalits followed. BJP has followed a similar trajec­tory. Second, individual grudges and discontent may not derail the Modi story. The role of satisfaction has been a subject of de­bate. In his book The True Believer, American social philosopher Eric Hoffer says: “True believers were not seeking self-advance­ment but rather self-renunciation, swapping out their indi­vidual identities with all their personal disappointments for a chance to acquire raw elements of pride, confidence, hope, a sense of purpose, and a worthy association with a holy cause.”

People can make decisions that they know will not bring them material benefits. But they will still take those decisions. They want to be part of the collective. It elevates them in their own eyes and in the esteem of others. It’s often a combination of both. This is achieved not against something tangible. For instance, the question “Are you better off today?” may not be measured by how much a person is saving. Many people could feel that having 5kg of free rations makes them better off than they were in 2014, or that living at a time when inflation hovers around 6 per cent makes them better off than they were in 2015 when inflation was in double digits.

Apart from these, there are some intangibles too that people take into account. Some derive satisfaction from being citizens of a nation that is on the rise. Or, the “ghar mein ghus ke maarta hai (goes into the enemy’s home to strike)” statement—one can debate how far the soldiers went, but the statement dispelled the myth that unless India continued to turn the other cheek, it would be risking a nuclear conflagration. The success of the G20 summit, getting the African Union at the high table, and the ability to hold our own in the face of collective Western hectoring to pick sides in the Russian-Ukraine conflict—all of these reflect well on a prime minister who has a good track record.

Rahul Gandhi, at most, can save face by taking his party’s tally just above 50 in the Lok Sabha polls. But even that will require him to come up with something original. Foreign campuses and their vaunted names will not help. Ram Baran in Maharashtra’s Ramtek is not going to change just because some Ivy League dean hosted Rahul Gandhi.

2024 Elections2024: The CountdownCongressGeneral election 2024hindutvaMallikarjun KhargeNarendra ModiRahul GandhiSonia Gandhi