HVK Archives: Why Sonia treads softly
Why Sonia treads softly - Indian Express
Arvind N. Das
()
April 22, 1998
Title: Why Sonia treads softly
Author: Arvind N. Das
Publication: Indian Express
Date: April 22, 1998
The Congress party is truly like the Bourbons: it forgets not and
learns nought. Despite having been reduced to pathetic stagnation
in parliamentary representation and being deprived of the oxygen
of power which sustains it, the Congress goes on as ever, with
Congressmen engaged more in getting one up on each other than in
unsettling their political adversaries. If the takeover by the
lady from the land of Machiavelli has changed anything, it is
only to add to the internecine intrigue that characterises the
party.
Take the fact that the Congress does not appear to be even
interested in unseating the BJP alliance from power. This is not
so much because Congressmen and Congresswomen have suddenly
recognised that the BJP alliance has got the popular mandate and
the Congress should hence be content with providing what its
leader has delicately termed "constructive opposition". 'The
cruel fact is that Sonia Gandhi's battalions are unable to push
the BJP out of power on account of the Congress' own
"compulsions", a term popularised in recent days by that master
of opportune anti-Congressism, Chandrababu Naidu. To paraphrase a
saying used to deride the strategy of non-violence during the
freedom struggle, Majboori ka naam Sonia Gandhi!
For one, Sonia Gandhi is aware that parliamentary activism at
present can only be led by Sharad pawar, a prospect that would
enable the victor of the Maharashtra electoral battle to claim
greater glory. This is not an attractive idea for what
Congressmen have got used to calling their High Command. In the
imperial system that is the Congress a satrap cannot be allowed
to get too powerful. As it is, Bal Thackeray has queered the
pitch by making allegations of friendship between Maharashtra
strongman Sharad Pawar and Chief Minister Manohar Joshi. Reports
that at least in part the swings of the Jayalalitha mood match
the Pawar pendulum and that the khas Congress of Sharad Pawar
provided some manure for the ghas Congress of Mamata Banerjee are
only intended to add to the unease in 10 Janpath.
Secondly, Sonia Gandhi has also to contend with others who can
ruin her party. Two of her predecessors have a sufficient sense
of self-importance to hate being pushed into her shadow. Sitaram
Kesri is in a deep sulk, and who knows what lies behind the
perpetual pout of P.V. Narasimha Rao? Indeed, not only past
presidents but even those who have graced the position of party
vice-president can become significant power-brokers. In this
respect, the wily Arjun Singh is matched step by step by the
intriguing Jitendra Prasada. And then there are mufassil leaders
with metropolitan ambitions with whom Sonia Gandhi must contend.
Her inexperience showed first when she gave a Rajya Sabha ticket
to Santosh Mohan Deb days after he had bitten the dust in the Lok
Sabha fray. It showed even more when she responded to the fuss
made by Matang Singh, hardly one to carry conviction when he
invokes principles. The likes of Singh got her to say that giving
a Rajya Sabha ticket to defeated Lok Sabha candidates is wrong.
This sealed the fate of Arjun Singh. And it sent him precariously
close to becoming a dissident.
Third, Sonia Gandhi's choice of the committee to revitalise the
Congress also occasioned inner-party carping. Congressmen who are
quick to notice and comment on caste and creed, even as they
claim undying faith in secularism, started whispering sinisterly
that three of the five committee members are Christians. While
this was surely due to basing the selection on merit, the message
that Sonia Gandhi was not adhering to the traditional Congress
Amar-Akbar-Antony formula was interpreted as denominational
partiality.
Fourth, Sonia Gandhi has taken over an organisation which has
lost the most important part of its base in the country's
politically most important part. The traditional vote bank of the
Congress has long been depleted. The upper castes,
euphemistically and often inaccurately called "Forwards", voted
with their feet and moved to the BJP. The Muslims were
appropriated by the likes of Mulayam Singh Yadav and Laloo Prasad
Yadav. The Dalits in Uttar Pradesh became foot-soldiers in Kanshi
Ram's motley army and in Bihar they organised themselves in
radical formations like the CPI (ML-Liberation). And such
Backwards as remained with the Congress parivar, such as Ram
Lakhan Singh Yadav, had more pressing familial concerns such as
shielding offspring like the infamous Prakash Chandra from the
arm of the law.
Fifth, Sonia Gandhi was therefore left only with an appeal to
that small section of the public that says or pretends that it is
"modern", above caste and communal considerations, globalised
Indians and other exotic elements. She also has no choice but to
premise her politics on "issues", and not only those of the
familial kind. In this, she perforce had to echo her public bete
noire, V.P. Singh, who had earlier talked of the need now to
transcend casteism (read aggressive Yadavism) and evolve a multi-
party consensus on national issues.
Sixth, Sonia Gandhi's dilemma was accentuated because while on
the one side politics threw her close to the likes of V.P. Singh
(who even advanced her a conditional "clean chit") and Chandra
Shekhar, she had necessarily also to gloss over the contentious
Jain Commission. Others, however, are not equally eager to
forgive and forget other acts of omission and corn., mission and
even the proximity to power of what has been called the Vishwa
Hinduja Parishad did not guarantee the final silencing of the
Bofors howitzer.
Seventh, the dilemma of the Congress is even more acute because
even as it seeks to stand above contentious caste and communal
matters, it has inevitably to make up its mind about whether to
woo ecular mass leaders like Laloo Prasad, Mulayam Singh and
Mayawati or to fight against them. For when the party seeks to
revitalise itself by shifting from the politics of mandate to the
politics of mass base, it cannot ignore them.
For the moment, however, Sonia Gandhi has decided to concentrate
on rebuilding the independent base of the Congress In Uttar
Pradesh and Bihar' The various leaders of the party have also
pushed her into that direction, as a challenge to her leadership
abilities. And, like an earlier Gandhi, she too has started from
Champaran, an area once made famous and then forgotten. The
people of that unfortunate district may well say that events and
personalities come twice in history, the first time as tragedy,
the second time as farce.
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