Claim the moral high ground

But she disagreed with what they contended. She rebutted them in her letter that stated that though she was born in a foreign land, she was an Indian and would remain so till her last breath. What her resignation tried to make known was that if leaders like Pawar, Sangma and Anwar expressed fears, her foreign origin must have had evoked strong feelings which she had failed to recognise.

That she has an overwhelming majority of Congressmen on her side is not news to her. In the CWC itself, she heard 16 members pressing her not to pay any heed to the objections the three had raised. Still, she submitted her resignation. She saw the point. She is sensitive. She wants the party 8212; and the country 8212; to let her know whether the office of Prime Minister should be held by natural-born citizens alone. She does not want to enforce her viewpoint on the Congress because she is party to it. She has stepped back, unlike her mother-in-law, Indira Gandhi, who never quit any office.

The Congressmen are tryingto evade the issue by making it a matter of solidarity. The issue is neither that of support, not of her leadership. The four Congress chief ministers have offered to resign and so have a horde of office holders in the party. The three, who have written a letter to request her not to be the prime ministerial candidate, have not disowned her leadership. They have given her all the credit for retrieving the Congress from the debris of division and demoralisation where it lay for years. They do not have sordid motives. After all, the US has a law whereby no person of foreign birth can occupy the office of President.

The question they have raised does not reflect racialism. It is an expression of misgiving, which a large segment of people have about Sonia Gandhi8217;s foreign origin. She has sought to give an answer through resignation 8212; a decent and dignified way 8212; unlike Indira Gandhi who imposed the Emergency when her office was threatened. The people who surround Sonia Gandhi have not risen above theirpersonal egos or ambitions to appreciate her stand.

The Congress has not yet departed from the old culture of one leader, one command, right or wrong. One imagined it would develop the norms of internal democracy while staying in the wilderness. This was why the Congress suffered in the past. The three have not violated the Congress discipline. They have presented their case at the highest body of the party, the Working Committee. Then why blame Pawar and his two colleagues?

Sonia Gandhi may be persuaded to take back her resignation letter. But before she does, she wants the party to recognise the point she is making. True, she is pointing out that she, with her Italian origin, is as much an Indian as any one born in the country. But she is also saying that she does not want to impose her point of view. She wants Congressmen to be participants, not mere hand-raisers. She wants them to appreciate her dilemma as she wants others in the country to do so.

If this is her stand, I fail to appreciate why shewould want to be the Prime Minister. She should say explicitly that she would never accept the office. As the Congress president, she can continue to guide the destiny of the party. In fact, till Indira Gandhi combined the posts of the Congress president and Prime Minister because of her fears of the old guard, the two offices were held by separate persons. The Congress president was more powerful because he was instrumental in appointing the Prime Minister. K. Kamaraj facilitated the election of Lal Bahadur Shastri after the death of Jawaharlal Nehru and that of Indira Gandhi after the death of Shastri at Tashkent. It was Kamaraj who was important, not those whom he selected.

It was, indeed, the organisation that guided the parliamentary wing of the Congress. The parliamentary board, which used to decide who should be the prime minister or chief minister, was presided over by the Congress president. True, Nehru was the party, even without being its president, as long as he lived because of his personalpopularity. Still he gave in to the Congress president8217;s wishes. He did not want to dismiss the communist government under Namboodiripad and he told him so. But he had to bow before the dictates of the then Congress president, Indira Gandhi, who was determined to oust the communists.

It was Indira Gandhi who made the party working topsy-turvy. When she assumed power, she did not accept a position where the then party president, Nijalingappa, would judge her or could arraign her before the parliamentary board. Finding that she could not have her way, she split the party in 1969, three years after becoming the Prime Minister. She wanted her father8217;s status at a time when she had yet to establish her charisma. To overcome the limitation, she also became the Congress president.

Sonia Gandhi has revived the office of Congress president. She has given it the stature and the status which both Narasimha Rao and Sitaram Kesri had deliberately denied it. She can continue to keep the organisation, which stringstogether ordinary workers all over India. She alone can ensure that the organisational wing stays above the parliamentary wing so that members are not imposed from above. As the Congress president, she will guide the Prime Minister, if and when the party wins. Any other course may polarise the country, particularly after the BJP8217;s decision to join issue. People do not want to be divided because they respect her, the granddaughter-in-law of Nehru. Sonia Gandhi should realise this.