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The appointment of R. K. Dhawan as General Secretary of
the Congress has put the seal of finality on the process
that will lead to the election of the Congress President
on January 21, 1997. In a year of repeated setbacks,
nothing could be better news than this. And we have
Seshan to thank for making political parties do what it
is in their own best interest to do.
In his celebrated Congress centenary speech at Mumbai in
December 1985, Rajiv Gandhi had castigated "the brokers
of power" who had captured the organisation and the
political life of the country . Many within the party saw
this as a low blow at the toiling lower leadership that
had kept the party together through crisis of such
magnitude as the challenge of the Syndicate, in
association with the Grand Alliance, through 1969-71 and
the post-Emergency exile of 1977-79. The media certainly
saw this as a prelude to inner-party blood-letting.
Neither set of views could have been farther from the
truth. The whole purpose of identifying the power
brokers as the source of danger to the continuance of
democracy, both within the party and in the country at
large, was to start a process of rejuvenation that would
ensure that the Independence we had won for the country
translated in as large a measure as possible into freedom
for our people.
For the country at large, this meant turning our country
from being the largest but least representative democracy
in the world into a vibrant reality of development
through democracy at the grassroots. And within the
party it meant the building of an organisational
structure from primary member to AICC President through a
process of free and fair elections.
There was resistance to both processes. It was far less
the brokers of power - professional politicians - than
inertia in the system which delayed the movement forward.
It took all of seven years from December 1985 to December
1992 for the Panchayati Raj Constitution amendments to be
passed into law. And it will be several more years
before the systemic dynamic makes itself felt in the
lives of ordinary people.
Within the party, the proposals of Uma Shankar Dixit for
restituting inner-party democracy were found not too
conservative but, in fact, just the opposite: too radical
for some tastes. The debate eventually resulted in the
elections at Tirupati in April 1992 which, while
confirming P. V. Narasimha Rao as President of the party,
gave us our first elected Working Committee in decades.
It was wrong among the others who failed miserably in
getting elected to the Working Committee, but the sense
of personal disappointment was more than compensated by
the thrill of finding the party on an elected and.
therefore, consensual track.
Unfortunately, the euphoria was short lived. Where party
elections, according to the party constitution, were to
have been held every two years, close on five years would
have elapsed between the constitution of the Tirupati
Working Committee and the body that will replace it next
January. Happily, the external compulsions of Seshanism,
which one prays will outlive Seshan's CECship, will
ensure that party elections become as regular a feature
of our political life as the Constitution now provides
for the panchayats and the nagarpalikas.
What kind of a President, then, should the Congress be
looking for? So much of the speculation centres around
personalities that it would, perhaps, be more rewarding
to look for qualities than merely at the khadi topis
being cast into the ring. I believe that the winning
candidate will have two distinguishing characteristics:
an ability to invest the party with an ideological
identity that sets it apart from the others in the field;
and a reputation for personal integrity. These are what
the party and the country are looking for.
Ideologically, the very success of the Congress in
establishing the basic parameters of our contemporary
nationhood has meant that our political clothes have been
stolen by many others flattering - but also that some of
us are tempted to try on the political uniforms of our
rivals dangerous. The four basic parameters are:
democracy, socialism, secularism and non-alignment. All
four are under challenge in a way that was inconceivable
even at the time of the Congress centenary.
The biggest threat to democracy comes from
disillusionment. Few seem to thrill at democracy as
independent India's single greatest achievement. Partly
this is because a continent-size polity finds it
difficult to make comparisons - as a nation we are so
turned inwards that there is little realisation of the
travails of non-democracies, even those in our immediate
vicinity. But the more important reason for this
disillusionment is that our democracy has been so
non-participatory that except at election time (which is
increasingly becoming vengeance time) the average citizen
sees himself as a helpless victim of circumstances rather
than as the captain of his fate and the master of his
destiny.
A Congress President who is able to carry conviction in
the country that the citizen will be given a larger role
in the governance of the nation is a Congress President
who would rejuvenate both the party and our sadly jaded
polity.
It is hard to recall in this post-Manmohan era that
"socialism" was still so recently an invincible rallying
cry. The leader who is able to marry the economic
allocations of the market to the ballot-box allocations
of the hundreds of millions outside the market is the
neo-socialist the country is looking for.
On secularism, the temptation to compromise has to be
resisted. Our soiled off white khadi should not be
washed into a paler shade of saffron. And the pride in
being Indian, even if it means Ekla Chalo Re, which our
stand on the CTBT has rekindled, should become once again
the leitmotif of our foreign policy as it once was in
the' heyday of non-alignment.
It is the leader who is best able to impart a fresh
impetus in the realm of ideas who is most likely to be
chosen to lead the Congress into the 21st century.
Provided always that he - or she - meets the most
exciting demand of them all: probity and a reputation for
probity.
It is personal integrity that attains its apotheosis in
leadership by party acclaim; tragically, it is the
exercise of leadership which then turns into the
crucifixion of fame without name. That, alas, is what
makes so many good men - and women - shy away at the
brink of the rink.
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