34 5 august 2019much better at the hustings as a free agent rather than by leading
his flock into battle. This, despite the fact that it was clear–espe-
cially after the Balakot air strikes–that Narendra Modi looked
invincible.
Meanwhile, a section of the party’s senior leadership has
been making a desperate effort to keep the Congress pulling
together against the imminent danger of its falling apart. While
veteran Karan Singh suggested four working presidents from
different regions to avoid infighting and chastised the top lead-
ers for wasting a month pleading with Gandhi to take back his
resignation, others favoured a CWC decision favourable to the
Nehru-Gandhi family on a leader with his or her feet firmly on
the ground.
The quest for new leadership is fraught with contradiction. A
strong section of the party, which believes in the indispensability
of dynastic rule, would not like to take a risk and would prefer
that someone like Mallikarjun Kharge kept the seat warm for
Gandhi until he could be ‘persuaded’ to return to office, after a
decent cooling-off period.T
HERE IS ANoTHER school that feels somebody young
should be given a chance. Jyotiraditya Scindia, Sachin
Pilot and the like were automatically ruled out since they
suffered from a major handicap: they were entitled and intrinsic
to Lutyens’ Delhi, making them risky replacements for Rahul
Gandhi. There was, crucially, also the danger of their overshadow-
ing the reluctant prince. Someone like Mukul Wasnik, who rose
from the Youth Congress ranks, has been favoured by others as
an alternative to Kharge or Sushil Shinde. He is considered safe
and is the leadership’s man with no base of his own. So he can’t
be much of a problem. on the other hand, this relatively young
leader from the Dalit community could prove problematic in the
larger caste calculations.
Collisions are expected among those putting forth these vari-
ous calculations once the Monsoon Session of Parliament ends,
exposing the farcical arrangement of leading the party through
an amorphous office called president of the AICC as a completely
unworkable proposition.
There is, however, a larger issue beyond the leadership crisis
that should be a worry for the Congress. It is whether the party is
at all likely to course-correct the manner in which it conducts its
politics. If it persists in its politics so far, the party can only hopeto fixate on the rearview mirror, savouring the glories of the past,
while the ground shifts significantly towards a Hindu polity. The
Congress leadership’s response to that transformation has been
leaden-footed to say the least. Erratic ‘soft Hindutva’ on the one
hand (‘janeudhari Brahmin’, temple visits by Rahul and Priyanka
Gandhi, for instance) and heavy reliance on minority votes on
the other, representing knee-jerk, old-school secular politics,
whereby the leadership conceded to the demands of conserva-
tive or hardline Muslim clerics.
The problem that confronts Rahul Gandhi is that the major-
ity community is no longer willing to accept the old-fashioned
secularism. The demands of the Muslim community, unlike in
the decades immediately after Independence, have now acquired
an ‘in your face’ dimension that upsets the majority community.
And a significant section of the Hindus sees a parallel between
Islam’s global intransigence and its local manifestations.
What is also complicating matters for the Congress is the fact
that Hindus have pruned the space for parties to engage in ap-
peasement gestures. In fact, the Congress’ 2019 defeat was influ-
enced by the twin factors of Rahul Gandhi’s leadership and the
Hinduisation of the polity. The Congress was unable to respond
to either issue and what followed was a sharp decline.
That the party has not learnt any lesson was evident last
week in the Lok Sabha when its leader in the House, Adhir
Ranjan Chowdhury, had to struggle to get his party MPs not to
rush to yoke themselves to AIMIM leader Asaduddin owaisi’s
wagon on forcing a division on the anti-terror National Inves-
tigation Agency Bill. The current crisis in the Congress mirrors
the developments in the Democratic Party in the US, where the
Left-Liberal ideology of the ‘Squad’ represented by the likes of
Alexandria ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan omar is pushing the party
to take positions against homeland security and in favour of
cancellation of all student debt. Just as this could make President
Donald Trump’s second run easy, Rahul Gandhi’s Congress is
helping the BJP gain more heft with its support for the so-called
‘Tukde Tukde Gang’, with its call for thinning down the Army’s
presence in Kashmir and with its opposition to anti-terror
legislation.
The Congress has Himalayan battles ahead of it, if it wants to
survive and remain relevant in a rapidly changing polity. By all
indications, the party is in no position to challenge the BJP in the
coming round of state elections. Rahul Gandhi will once again be
in focus, for both voters and pundits. To little or no avail. nCover
StorytHe Congress’ 2019 defeat was InfLuenCed by tHe twIn
faC tors of raHuL gandHI’s Le adersHIp and tHe HInduIsatIon
of tHe poLIt y. tHe Congress was unabLe to respond to eItHer
Issue and wHat foLLowed was a sHarp deCLIne
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