Watch out: The country is churning

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Two factors have led to the enviable position the Congress is in today – and its popularity is not one of them. The real factors are that (a) the BJP has lost its acceptability in the imagination of the general public and (b) the Left has collapsed as an ideological platform. The prominence the Congress has achieved as a consequence is sure to be a passing phase. India is in the midst of a vast churning process. Uncertainties, shifting alignments and ad hoc patchups are part of such a transition. Two or three more game-changing elections like this and we will have moved from a dynastic system closer to a mature democracy.

That BJP’s sun was setting was clear towards the end of Vajpayee’s term. With hindsight even his critics would now agree that it was Vajpayee who made BJP acceptable to people outside the Hindutva core. He was politically moderate besides being personally popular as writer and poet. By contrast Advani was inextricably identified with hardline Hindutva. He was perhaps the first to recognise this as a liability. Hence his attempt to soften his image with stratagems like the Jinnah-was-secular speech. But it boomeranged.

The spectre raised during this campaign, that Narendra Modi is the one to follow Advani, will have scared more people away from the BJP. The fundamental reality remains that India, which of course is a Hindu-majority country, has not given the BJP blanket victory at any time other than during the Vajpayee interlude. This is because the majority of the people the BJP claims to represent obviously do not subscribe to the Hindutva brand of intolerance. That is the best guarantee of India’s future as a democracy.

For the BJP to regain public confidence, it will have to re-invent itself. This will require visionary leaders of the kind the BJP is not currently blessed with. Those it has are unable to think beyond the likes of Modi. Unfortunately this proclivity prevents the BJP from developing into a balanced right-of-centre party for which a need exists in India.

The need exists for a truly left-of-centre party as well. It is one of the tragedies of India that from the time of the Congress Socialist Party, the leftwing in the country has always lacked coherent, farsighted leadership. With the 1948 Communist Party policy of “armed revolution now”, the Left lost ground across the country. The base it retained in Bengal and Kerala have been steadily eroded. In three decades of unchallenged power, the Left Front Government in Bengal was unable to address basic issues like poverty and infrastructure. When it finally made an effort towards industrial progress, it was so heavy-handed that it only took an eccentrically led formulation like Trinamool Congress to prick its balloon.

The CPM in Kerala for its part turned into an unabashed corporate enterprise with mafia squads to enforce its power over others, including other leftwing groups. The infighting between the party leader and the party’s chief minister had reached obscene proportions. The party’s arrogant and dictatorial ways were causing perceptible disgust among the people. But the Politburo had no eyes to see what all others could see. The result is that Prakash Karat can no longer save India from the clutches of America.

Can Manmohan Singh? The Congress is in danger of getting entrenched in its dynastic ways and the dealmaking for which its managers are famous. This time it will be directly accountable for its commissions and omissions. To that extent it is on the firing line. By giving a fairly clear mandate to one party, the people have won this election. Whether that party will win remains to be seen.

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How foolish can Madam’s Party be!

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Never before has the Congress been so perverse in its selection of candidates. Tickets have been given to netas who should have taken to vanaprastha long ago, and netas who have no chance of winning, and netas who are too controversial to do the party any good. The shoe hurled at P. Chidambaram in Delhi merely dramatized the Congress’s appalling foolishness.

Was that shame necessary to bring the party to its senses? It is a fact that Congress leaders unleashed murder and mayhem against Sikhs in the wake of Indira Gandhi’s assassination in 1984. It is also a fact that the Congress did nothing to atone for its sins in the 25 years since.

It did just the opposite when it gave tickets to Jagdish Tytler and an accomplice. A CBI certificate of innocence will not make these men innocent in the eyes of the public. As long as public opinion holds them responsible for the anti-Sikh atrocities, they are a political no-no for any party. Yet, amazingly, the Congress chose to add insult to the injury it had inflicted on Sikhs.

Is Jagdish Tytler such an important national asset that the Congress Party had to pick him at any cost? Outside a pocket or two in Delhi, he is a nobody. His omission would have done the party no harm while it would have done the country some good.

Why then did the Congress act so dumb? Everyone knows the answer. A small coterie of operators, on the strength of their closeness to Madam, manipulate everything in the Congress. Madam, very intelligent and very sharp when it comes to protecting her own and her family’s interests, is not so sure about the intricacies of India’s convoluted regional politics. So the coterie is left free to give full play to its egos and its vested interests.

Consider, for example, the tickets given to Margaret Alva, Veerappa Moily, Jaffer Sherief. Consider K.V.Thomas of Kochi who was not even in the list sent up by Congress leaders in Kerala. Are these personalities so outstanding that India’s future would be in jeopardy if they are not in Parliament? Don’t these veterans deserve some rest after serving the country for so long?

Omissions are as revealing as commissions. In the heart of Bangalore, the Congress’s original gut feeling was to field S.M.Krishna. That would have provided a badly needed boost to the lethargic Congress campaign. But petty rivalries were allowed to keep Krishna out. Now a leaderless, idealess, valueless Congress is poised to confirm its surrender of Karnataka to the BJP.

Coterie rule also prevents the Congress from using one of the most important tools in election politics – strategic manoeuvring. Ahmedabad is a good example. Against L.K.Advani there the Congress has put up a man called Suresh Patel, a remarkably unknown person although he is a legislator. What is the point of such a candidate against Advani? Instead, a smart strategist would have left he field clear for Mallika Sarabhai. She is a credible candidate. With some help, she could put up a reasonable performance. That would send a timely message to the country – and the Congress could derive satisfaction from it.

Alas, nothing of the kind works when small minds play with big issues. It is another matter that Madam’s Party may win enough seats to become a player in the next Government. That will be because Advani’s Party is in a more terrible mess. Are we condemned to choose between the worse and the worst?

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