Grand old, tired party

The beautiful people and their eloquence in Vigyan Bhawan over the last two days was just a blip in the radar for an audience riveted to regular blockbusters from Varanasi, Myanmar and Sydney. The subtlety of Nehru-Gandhi chic is apparently no match for the razzle-dazzle of sartorial variation emanating from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s stable.

To put it bluntly, the first sign of political activity from a semi-comatose Congress — in the form of the Jawaharlal Nehru Commemorative International Conference — turned out to be a bit of a damp squib.

Modi rules hearts, minds and TRP ratings, so even a usually obliging channel turned its attention entirely on Sydney’s Allphones Arena, albeit after beaming a flash of Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s exhortations on Nehru.

And if secular hearts rejoiced in sighting the Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi engaging CPI(MP) general secretary Prakash Karat in a rather lengthy dialogue, their hopes were soon to be dashed. Karat scotched reports of any tie-up with Nehru’s party in the near future.

The parliamentary Left, CPI(M) and CPI, only ceremonially marked their presence as did socialists of all hues, from HD Deve Gowda of the Janata Dal (Secular) to Sharad Yadav of the Janta Dal (United) and emissaries of Lalu Prasad Yadav of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). Congress’s former fragments, DP Tripathi of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Mamata Banerjee of the Trinamool Congress (TMC), responded to the personal invites sent by the Congress president.

But in the absence of a common programme, a charismatic leader and a vision for the future, secularism is clearly a weak glue to bind these disparate elements. To an outsider, the gathering at Vigyan Bhawan reflected the growing insecurity of each of the participants in the face of an ascendant BJP under Modi.

Accordingly, it is difficult to interpret Mamata Banerjee’s offer to join hands even with the CPI(M) to “fight communalism” as anything but a distress call in the face of the BJP’s advance in West Bengal.

The socialists have so far shown better political acumen with a quick resolution to regroup the erstwhile Janata family binding Lalu Yadav, Nitish Kumar and Mulayam Singh Yadav, to curtail the BJP in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. The communists, with their enviable indifference to the loss of electoral clout, claim to be working to unite the mainstream and independent Left groups.

In this melee, the Congress is clearly the odd man out, without either Lalu Yadav’s native cunning or the CPI(M)’s, academically speaking, resolve to chart out a common programme with other Left groups. While the grandstanding on Nehru can be hailed as a sign of the Congress at least gathering its political wits about, it also raises questions on how exactly the Grand Old Party plans to make a connect with contemporary India.

If I remember correctly, Rahul Gandhi’s reading of the political situation a couple of years ago was that Modi does not really pose a political threat to the Congress. He believed that the Congress had more to fear from someone like Atal Behari Vajpayee who represented a more holistic vision and did not polarise the electorate. He also believed that the Congress was a natural home for Mamata Banerjee and even Mayawati. With such prophecies and political sagacity, it is no surprise that the Gandhis failed to see the ground shifting beneath their feet.

From what we saw at Vigyan Bhawan in the last two days, the Congress still does not seem to have grasped the reality of the political challenges it is facing, nor is it willing to concede that a family name alone is hardly likely to revive the party’s political fortunes. What, for instance, is the political programme for the future? In the face of a ruling party with a charismatic leader and a civilisational agenda, what alternative ideas and leadership does the Congress offer?

It is no use snapping at the media as Anand Sharma did for the “total blackout” of their grand function. For making news, contemporary relevance is a pre-requisite. Homilies to an iconic leader whose policies and ideas were consistently reversed by the Congress while in power are hardly likely to enthuse an electorate that continues to be hostile to them.

The signs are that while provincial satraps will give what it takes to stop the Modi juggernaut in their respective areas, the Grand Old Party will follow its time honoured tradition of benefiting from the opponents’ mistakes or simply waiting for voter fatigue to set in.

While there is some merit in both these presumably inadvertent strategies, the Congress seems to be forgetting a critical element in today’s political chemistry. In Modi, they have an inexhaustible and creative opponent. He is capable of consistently remodelling and refashioning not just contemporary reality but also recreating the past.

The Congress will achieve precious little by invoking the past under such circumstances. The glory of ancestors is not usually a reflection of greatness in their progeny. In Rahul Gandhi’s case, it only serves to magnify his rather obvious vulnerabilities.

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