Congress and the discreet charm of the Dynasty

As Chacha Nehru grew older, he began slowly to groom his daughter to take over the burden of ruling our chaotic, troublesome country, and the Dynasty began. Let nobody fool you into believing that he did not groom her consciously, he most certainly did, but did it with some amount of subtlety.When it came to her turn to find an heir she did it more openly. One once-powerful chief minister described to me just how it was done. “She asked me to come to Delhi and told me that I must support Sanjay because he was young. I said if youth was the criteria then I was young too. I knew what this would mean and sure enough, within two days she toppled my government.” Everyone else who wanted to remain in the Congress Party quickly learned that dissent of even the most feeble kind was quite unacceptable as was any attempt to challenge the authority of the Dynasty.While the going was good nobody noticed that Congress had actually ceased to exist. Nobody noticed that whereas normal political parties should have programme, policies, issues, ideas of governance, Congress had only the leader. At election time it was the leader’s mug on a poster that brought in, or did not bring in, the votes and the leader’s name had to be Nehru or Gandhi. Nothing else counted, no one else counted.

How completely true this was became painfully apparent when Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated and Congress party elders elected his grieving apolitical widow president. It was only when she politely refused their kind offer that the stirrings of a political party began to resurface in Congress. Suddenly, there was dissent. Economic issues were debated, political ideas flung around, hats thrown in leadership rings. With the announcement of Sonia Gandhi’s political intentions, though, everything goes back to square one or does it?

Could it be that the main reason why we suddenly have the possibilities of a real election for Congress president is that the party does not want to cease being a political party so soon after it has rediscovered itself? You would not think it from the amount of cringing and cowering that is going on at the doorstep of 10 Janpath but in politics things are rarely what they seem to be.

And, if you take the trouble to wander out in Delhi’s burning summer heat and take a loaf around the corridors of politics you get to hear some interesting things these days. In my own case, for instance, I have run into quite a few apparent sycophants who confess that very few people are pleased about the return of the Dynasty. In the words of one MP, “You should just sit in Central Hall and listen to what people are saying. It’s hard to find a Congress MP who is pleased with Sonia’s decision to enter politics.”The ones who are pleased are those who did not manage to win last time around and who believe, because it’s the only kind of politics they know, that the return of the Dynasty will ensure victory next time.So, basically, what we are seeing is probably the final tussle between dynasty and political party and if Congress manages to win then it could be the beginning of something new. If on the other hand there is a victory for those who believe that Congress is the Nehru-Gandhi family and the Nehru-Gandhi family, even in its Italian incarnation, is India then the sneering, little couplet that did the rounds a few years ago could well end up coming true. Congres (I) ka ek hi rasta, bolo Italian, khao pasta.