EDITORIALS

What Future for the Indian National Congress?

A complacent Congress is unaware that it is rapidly losing all credibility.
he Indian National Congress is none the better after its 83rd plenary session in Burrari, Delhi, which also marked the 125th anniversary of its founding. For the rst time since its unexpected return to power in 2004 as the head of a coalition government, the Congress Party is in deep trouble. In less than 18 months after the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) that it heads was re-elected, the party is beset with allegations of corruption, incompetence at the centre and in the states where it is in power, factionalism at all levels and it nds itself without a mass base of any kind. The only force driving the Congress Party is the follow the leader sentiment, which has kept the party aoat since 1998 when Sonia Gandhi took control. The excitement around the heir apparent, Rahul Gandhi, has begun to wear thin. While the younger Gandhi is credited (wrongly?) for the triumph in 2009 and he has made some attempts to rebuild the party at the grass-root level, the disaster in the recent Bihar assembly elections has removed a good part of the shine on the general secretary of the Youth Congress. If anyone expected the Congress to introspect about the mess it now nds itself in, they would be guilty of being unaware of its recent history of riding out crises by expecting the magic of the Nehru-Gandhi family to bail it out. The Burrari plenary only reiterated the supremacy of Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, giving them a platform to posture on certain issues identied with their persona. In her address and interventions, Sonia Gandhi pledged a war against corruption calling for doing away with the discretionary quota system vested with chief ministers, apart from recommending that the government make the processes of awarding contracts and licences more transparent. But these statements were interspersed with self-righteousness, claiming that corruption was systemic and affected all political parties. The party went on to make a song and dance about how it was more prompt than the Bharatiya Janata Party in getting errant party persons in power to resign. This is scarce consolation, for even if it is true that the opposition is equally tainted as the corruption-plagued Karnataka state government led by the Bharatiya Janata Party

exemplies the measures taken by the Congress to prevent corruption have been piecemeal. The plenary simply skirted the issue of the Congress Party distancing itself from corporate and moneyed interests. There was no mention of how to tackle other forms of moneyed interests affecting Indian democracy, beyond making a cursory call for state funding of elections to solve the problem. Rhetoric about inner party democracy and elections within the party organisation at various levels was expressed during the plenary session, but this ignored the fact that the many wings of the party are basically led by self-seeking patrons, hardly immersed in any form of agitation or mass work. Speeches called for the party cadre to be geared up for political work beyond electoral organisation. But no specic agenda was advanced other than taking on the oppositions supposed stealing of credit for the successes of centrally-sponsored welfare schemes. The achievements of the rst UPA tenure the right to information, the employment guarantee programme and larger allocations for the social sector were much touted, but it is plainly visible that the second tenure of the coalition has been largely unimaginative and purposeless. The Congress had promised to take up progressive legislations such as the womens reservation bill and formulate a comprehensive policy on land acquisition and rehabilitation. But the party leadership is hostage to special interests and political expediency which have together halted such moves. It should not be surprising that the Congress Party is unable to reinvent itself. Now, more than ever before it is a party driven by a top-down approach. The Nehru-Gandhi family gives directions down the line and every functionary from the general secretaries to the chief ministers implements them. The Congress has an appointed prime minister in Manmohan Singh whose asset of personal integrity is insufcient to lead a nation or head a government, power brokers and mediators in Pranab Kumar Mukherjee, A K Anthony and P Chidambaram who do not have any mass base and a long line of self-seekers whose hearts are more in strengthening their personal positions than in reviving the party. What future then for the Indian National Congress?
vain, though without surprise. The hard, uncompromisingly nationalistic, Sinhaleseloving core of Ceylon, the Buddhist population, which contributed very largely to the success of Smt. Bandaranaike in the elections, could not be expected suddenly to overcome its distaste for Tamil. This is a stark reality which the Ceylon Tamils cannot ignore or even hope to conquer by calling for a hartal or threatening to resign en masse from Parliament or worse still, by asking the Tamil speaking civil servants not to learn Sinhalese. ...Persuasion and not compulsion or force can solve the problem ultimately, and that calls for patience rather than rashness...

From 50 Years Ago

Vol XIi, No 52, december 24, 1960

weekly notes

Tamils on War-path
On the eve of Mrs Bandaranaikes departure for India, the political situation in Ceylon, badly disturbed by the unrest over the take-over of denominational schools, was unfortunately further upset by the Federal Partys call for agitation against the Governments language

policy. The Governments decision to introduce Sinhalese as the ofcial language in the island from the new year has roused the ire of the Ceylon Tamils who feel that they have been badly let down by a party which they had helped to achieve power. Threats of a hartal and of collective resignation from Parliament have emanated from the Federal Party, representing the Tamils of Ceylonese origin, who live mostly in the northern and eastern regions. By extending whole-hearted support to Mrs Bandaranaikes party in the last elections, the Ceylon Tamils must have been hoping for a change of attitude to their demand which however has proved to be in

Economic & Political Weekly EPW december 25, 2010 vol xlv no 52