Congress: when the centre cannot hold

And geography could prevail over history, when Sonia chalks out her poll strategy this time round. The giant ego factor of the Indira days is gone, an openness for region-specific alliances with local powers is in. So is the left-of-centre ideology, as the leadership slowly comes to the belief that Hindutva is not something to be blindly opposed, but to be assimilated and turned around to counter the BJP plank.

Consider the facts: The Congress party is in power in more than half the states of India. It is ruling six out of the nine states going to polls in 2003 and is the main Opposition party in the other three. It has the political experience of 118 years.

The initial shock over in Gujarat, the party came out with a three-pronged response to the challenge mounted by the BJP. The first was at the electoral level in the form of a statement that the Congress was open to the idea of alliances with other parties. The Panchmarhi Resolution was definitely out.

The second was an ideological response. The CWC met for eight hours and issued a resolution on combating the challenge of Hindutva, for the first time shedding its squeamishness on talking openly about Hinduism, as opposed to references about majority and minority that it has preferred to use.

Third, it initiated organisational changes. Suddenly there was so much coming and going at the AICC headquarters as the chief ministers dashed to Delhi to confabulate with Sonia Gandhi. Heads of several PCC chiefs 8212; of Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Chhatisgarh 8212; are expected to roll in the coming weeks.

With the appointment of a Dalit, Sushilkumar Shinde, as CM in Maharashtra, the party pulled out the old 8216;8216;Mandal8217;8217; card to counter the new brand of Hindutva the BJP unleashed in Gujarat and wants to use in Maharashtra. It also hopes that there would be a fallout of Maharashtra in Himachal Pradesh, which has 25 per cent SC population.

Whether the Congress8217; gambit will work is another issue. 8216;8216;Who says we are defensive?8217;8217; asks senior leader Natwar Singh, 8216;8216;We8217;ve had a smooth transition in Maharashtra. We have our answer to Mayawati in Shinde. We will do well in Himachal. We are taking on the nikardharis and the gadadharis who are abusing Hinduism.8217;8217; By the time the Congress statement on alliances came, the party had already spurned Mulayam Singh Yadav8217;s overtures in UP, and had gone against a tieup with the NCP or the SP in Gujarat, possibly costing it a dozen seats in the state. It was like shutting the door after the horse had bolted.

Except for the possibility of tying up with Sukh Ram8217;s Himachal Vikas Congress, there is no other alliance on the horizon in any of the other poll going states. It is not as if alliances are new to the Congress. After all, the Socialist Party and the Communist Party were all part of the Congress during the freedom movement. Shyama Prasad Mukherji, who belonged to the Hindu Mahasabha, was part of Nehru8217;s provisional government. It was later that he launched the Jan Sangh.

But today the Congress is reaching out to other parties from a position of weakness. With the steady decline of the Congress, the BJP and the regional parties have become major players at the Centre. The Congress has still to come to terms with this new reality, of its own dwarf status. The process of transition has been a slow and a painful one for the mother of all parties.

It is possible to interpret the Panchmarhi resolution whichever way you like. Party leaders argue that while the Congress had indicated its preference to go it alone at Panchmarhi, it had not ruled out alliances whenever the state leaders felt the necessity for them. See interview with Ambika Soni

The Congress President has in her speeches during the last three years defined secularism as going beyond the majority-minority issue. In her speech to the Ramakrishna Mission in January 1999, Sonia Gandhi had said that India was secular because the Hindus were tolerant. She took this theme forward in Guwahati last year at the chief minister8217;s conclave held soon after the Gujarat riots. 8216;8216;The overwhelming number of Indians want to live in peace and goodwill. A handful of Indians seek to disturb the peace by their bigotry and narrow mindedness8217;8217; And now the CWC has taken the debate yet another step forward, openly talking about Hinduism and defining secularism as a battle between Hindu dharma, which is liberal, tolerant and pluralistic and Hindutva propagated by the RSS and the BJP which is 8216;8216;narrow and bigoted8217;8217;.

8216;8216;This is the first time that the CWC has drawn a distinction between cultural Hinduism and political Hindutva,8217;8217; says Jairam Ramesh. 8216;8216;We have to confront this distortion frontally. If you are going to be squeamish about speaking about Hinduism, then Hinduism is going to be hijacked by the BJP.8217;8217;

In recent years, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh has been careful not to alienate the Hindus even as he has wooed the Muslims. It was Kerala Chief Minister A.K. Antony who had

objected to the use of the word 8216;8216;saffron8217;8217; becoming synonymous with the BJP. Today the Congress talks about the 8216;8216;communalisation8217;8217;, and not the 8216;8216;saffronisation8217;8217;, of education.