Please Save The Party

CONSIDER this cautionary tale: a highly respected 111-year-old company, which for most of its commercial life not only made profits but operated as brand leader, is in very serious trouble. In the last five years, the company, under a new management, shows signs of gradual decline and then swiftly moves towards bankruptcy. Much to their horror, the shareholders discover that the person who doubles as Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer has not only been guilty of gross mismanagement but he and his cronies (some of who are in jail) have systematically looted the organisation and indulged in other criminal activity. Not surprisingly, a cry goes up insisting that the culpable chief be sacked and replaced by a dynamic MD and CEO whose personal integrity is high. Happily, the firm has on its payroll employees who fit the bill for company renewal. Meanwhile, the corrupt management resists removal shamelessly; it is only the imminence of a jail sentence which forces the leader to quit. Subsequently, the directors of the company get together in order to elect a new MD and CEO amidst widespread expectation and hope that the company will make a new beginning. So, what do you think happens? The corrupt and discredited head is politely asked to relinquish one of the two positions he holds; he is then requested by the other directors to help choose his successor. Not surprisingly, he selects an old and infirm ‘loyalist’ who immediately declares that he is proud to be a clone of his predecessor and will function in the predecessor’s infamous style. How would you characterise such a company?

Demented, is a pretty accurate description, but then the Congress party, which is a company of sorts, has just displayed dementia in the extreme. Sitaram Kesri, we are told, is a consensus candidate (which means he is a threat to no one) who has no enemies (which means he has been so marginal in the party power structure as not to offend any potential candidate). The Congress is not short of individuals with leadership ambitions and the argument goes that the aspirants agreed to the new arrangement in the hope that they will live to fight another day.

Alas, time is not on their side. The history of India’s oldest political party shows that once installed in office, the occupant simply goes on to consolidate his position and is virtually unremovable. Mr Narasimha Rao, after all, was seen as an "interim" Congress President in 1991. And when the Syndicate foisted the "dumb doll", Indira Gandhi, the doll turned out to be not so dumb and in fact ousted the Syndicate.

Moreover, the luxury of fighting another day is available only to a party which has many days to live. Not to a party hurtling towards extinction. DB-MRAS, the research agency which conducted last week’s Outlook opinion poll in Uttar Pradesh, told us the Congress vote-share in the state today was not the paltry eight per cent it totted up in the last Lok Sabha election; it was closer to four per cent! The agency concluded that to win even 15 seats the party depended largely on the mobilisation of the Bahujan Samaj Party cadre in the 126 seats the Congress is contesting. Therefore, if nothing else, the instinct for self-preservation should have persuaded the wise men of the Congress Working Committee to make a different choice.

And why was the person (A.K. Antony) who had the best qualifications for reviving the party rejected? The official version is that a senile, old rival—as discredited as Rao—thwarted the Antony bid with a spurious objection relating to geography. The real reason for rejecting Antony, of course, lies elsewhere. With Sitaram Kesri at the helm, PV’s writ still runs in the party. The same could not be guaranteed with Antony. Even if the Kerala leader was unacceptable or unavailable, there were other individuals who could have come to the rescue of the party. Rajesh Pilot, Digvijay Singh—and why not Manmohan Singh? In reality, the self-destructive CWC made no serious effort to look for a leader who could begin the process of revival.

One feels sorry for Sitaram Kesri. At the age of 78 and in poor health, he should have spent his last years playing with grandchildren and tending the garden. Instead, he is likely to preside over the liquidation of the Congress. In the next general election, the Congress and the CPI will probably run neck-and-neck in the quest for a dozen or so seats. That is the future of the party Mr Kesri now leads.

The nation is understandably absorbed in the fate of Narasimha Rao. But his future is irrelevant since the damage he has done is done. What should really concern us is the larger, infinitely more salient, fate of the Congress. Indian democracy is not so rich as to contemplate life without the party which unshackled the country from the colonial yoke. We do not need Narasimha Rao but we do need the Congress.

One of the main reasons for the disenchantment of our electorate with the practice of democracy today is the lack of meaningful choice. The party most likely to fill the breach, the BJP, gives sleepless nights to many decent citizens because at its core it is animated by a vision of India which defies history. Even if one avoids the word ‘communal’, few will deny that the party is caught up with minority-bashing as a matter of policy. At the moment, things are going well for the BJP with Mr Vajpayee adopting a moderate course. However, one can be sure that if the party suffers electoral reverses, it will find another mosque which offends "Hindu self-respect".

In the other corner, you have some humane people who have joined others to form the United Front. Unfortunately, the base of this formation is supported by rampant caste and regional chauvinism. Federalism is an unexceptionable mantra, but scratch its surface and you find parties and leaders who cannot see beyond their state. Communalism is undoubtedly a bigger danger to our republic than casteism or regionalism, but the latter are not far behind.

We are left, then, with an organisation which is steeped in self-aggrandisement and one which is disappearing fast from the electoral map. Nevertheless, for hundreds of millions spread across the length and breadth of the country, the Congress is the only refuge. Because for all its venality and depravity, it is neither communal nor casteist. Sure, it has frequently courted both these evils but it was, and could again become, a party striving for a society in which a citizen is not identified by his religion or caste or state.

Such a society is what our founding fathers envisaged. We cannot allow Narasimha Rao and Sukh Ram and Shankaranand and Satish Sharma to destroy the organ which once promised that dream.