Whether the Congress Party is introspecting on its disastrous results in the Lok Sabha election is open to question, but party veteran A.K. Antony has caused a flutter by suggesting that the perception of the party being partial to minorities — read Muslims — is harmful to its cause of secularism.
It is understood by everyone in the party that one person who will finally pronounce on the party’s failings is its president Sonia Gandhi. A party president might have said it in different times that “India is Indira (Gandhi) and Indira is India”, but the Family remains the fulcrum of the Congress, more so in its reduced state.
What is interesting is that the Congress’ defeat has given rise to an open debate on the suitability of the heir apparent, Rahul Gandhi, to lead the party and the country. Digvijay Singh has put it down to his temperamental aversion to leadership, his passion being to fight injustice. Others have said it in different terms by rooting for Rahul’s sister, Priyanka Gandhi, to be brought into the thick of party affairs.
It is not Rahul’s fault that his métier is not for the cut and thrust of politics. Rather, it is the compulsion of circumstances that much as he would want to pursue other interests, he is forced to put his nose to the grind as a politician in the hoary tradition of his family. After all, the entire decade of Manmohan Singh’s tenure as Prime Minister was geared to keep the seat warm for Rahul to ultimately wear the crown.
The ideal time for Rahul to have taken the Prime Minister’s chair was in 2009, when the Congress bettered its 2004 record. But he said he was not ready and his mother reluctantly let Dr Singh carry on. Rahul was instead made the party vice-president and without being named as a prime ministerial candidate, was placed at the head of the Lok Sabha campaign.
The contrast between the consummate politician Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi, often the passionate amateur, was too great to be missed. In effect, Rahul was telling his mother that he was doing his best. But the harder he tried, the more apparent it became that he was not cut out for politics.
Mr Antony made a pertinent point by homing in on a perceptional handicap the Congress is suffering from, but the entire debate in the party has become a proxy for the near universal view of Rahul’s unsuitability for the job of the party leader. Psychologically, it is a great blow for Mrs Sonia Gandhi.
It must be recognised that Mrs Gandhi brought the Congress from the wilderness to power. She was thereby paying her debt to the illustrious family she was married into. It was the same family obligation that made her so dedicated to keeping the party leadership in the family by grooming her son to keep the flame alive.
What Mrs Sonia Gandhi did not factor in, or chose to ignore, was Rahul’s real lack of interest in the rough world of politics. Even as he tried hard, he emerged as a dilettante pursuing harebrained schemes, such as selecting candidates after the American pattern, of being remote as far as the quintessential party worker was concerned while ostentatiously fraternising with the poor and the dalits. In Indian political terms, it simply did not add up.
No one is waiting with bated breath for the results of the self-introspective exercise. There will no doubt be a suitable conclusion drawn by the party president and the party will move on. The future shape it takes remains uncertain because if Rahul is ruled out, Priyanka comes with the baggage of an unsuitable marriage and must decide on whether she wants to take the leap into politics.
In a sense, the average Congress worker feels like an orphan. For as long as party workers can remember, the Family has provided inspiration and fulfilled its obligations by winning elections. There was the traumatic phase of Indira Gandhi losing elections after the 18-month-long Emergency she imposed on the country. But like a true leader, she resurrected herself and the party to re-emerge victorious and masterfully won the 1971 Bangladesh War.
The Congress lost again, this time to the Opposition led by the Bharatiya Janata Party. But Rajiv Gandhi seemed to be on the comeback trail when he was assassinated (a double family tragedy), and it was left to P.V. Narasimha Rao to cobble together a functioning government. Mrs Sonia Gandhi was mourning her great loss even as she was later to be dragooned into taking over the party leadership for the good of the party and the country.
It is indeed to Mrs Gandhi’s credit that she put life back unto the party justifying the bond that she had formed with her mother-in-law Indira Gandhi to learn the finer points of realpolitik as practiced in India. Judging by the results, she proved an exceptional pupil. Rahul’s performance, therefore, has come as a double shock to his mother.
Statistically, this was the party’s worst performance in a general election, but more painfully it has brought to the fore Rahul’s inability to keep the Family flame burning. These are difficult times for Mrs Sonia Gandhi with her fierce loyalty to the Family. Disentangling her daughter Priyanka from her family responsibilities is not easy, yet there is no one else who can carry on the family tradition.
If Mrs Sonia Gandhi throws in the towel, it would represent a signal defeat. Yet, given the state of her health, she cannot indefinitely carry on leading the party. To the extent she does, what will sustain her, given the possibility of a party in decline without a Gandhi/Nehru to lead it?
