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Journalism of Courage
Sonia Gandhi’s July 28 walkathon is a benchmark in her political career. The determination she displayed to go ahead with it was reminiscent of Indira Gandhi’s sitdown on the Delhi-Haryana border culvert on October 3, 1977, challenging the police to arrest her. It marked the beginning of the tide turning in her favour.
It should not be unusual for a politician to walk 3.5 km to protest against the price rise. That is the least an opposition leader is expected to do.The never-say-die Chandra Shekhar is planning yet another padayatra from Kanyakumari to New Delhi. But Sonia had a different image — cocooned within the precincts of 10, Janpath, constantly surrounded by security, and still to live down the image of expensive holidays during Rajiv Gandhi’s premiership which had made him unpopular.
The march to Rashtrapati Bhavan on a sweltering and a miserable July afternoon, which took even her worst critics by surprise, was calculated to help shed her elitist image and give the impression that she wasgraduating into a mass leader.
Taken with the events of the last week — the entire opposition following the Congress when it walked out of Parliament on prices — it has brought the Congress back to the centrestage of opposition politics.
The Congress is planning a joint strategy with the Left and the regional parties on the election of the Deputy Speaker. They have taken a common stand on the partisan role of the Goa Governor.
Sonia is holding talks with the Left leaders herself. She has spoken to Jyoti Basu, Harkishen Singh Surjeet and A.R. Bardhan. For the first timesince 1977, the tune of the Left parties is changing towards the Congress.
Their policy of equidistance from the Congress and the BJP — which had got the likes of Saifuddin Choudhury thrown out of the CPM’s Central Committee at Chandigarh — is changing.
Regional leaders like Mulayam Singh Yadav and Laloo Yadav have already urged the Congress to take the initiative to form an alternative government to the BJP. They are prepared tolend their support to the party though, in the long-run, an alliance with the Congress in UP and Bihar will hit them as the minorities begin to look the Congress way. The non-BJP formation is becoming a more viable reality today under the leadership of the Congress and Sonia Gandhi is becoming the centrepiece of non-BJP politics.
It is ironical that her acceptance by the political spectrum traditionally opposed to the rule of the Nehru-Gandhi family has increased after she took over as the Congress president. The BJP is not taking her head on, with her preference to rebuild the Congress than go for the kill now, which is giving the government breathing time. Jyoti Basu, who had called Sonia a housewife not long ago, is now prepared to do business with her.
With the gradual acceptance of Sonia as the leader of the non-BJP forces, the sense of instability will heighten in Delhi in the weeks to come, even if the Government continues to muddle on. The Congress has hit the road, the Left is anyway the masterof agitational politics and Laloo held yet another successful "ralla" in Patna against the BJP at which he vowed to give the fullest support to Mulayam Singh in Delhi.
The challenge before Sonia is posed not by other parties today, but by those inside the Congress. The state satraps have tasted independence (from the Family) during the last seven years. She has to take them along.
Had she walked to Rashtrapati Bhavan at the head of a phalanx of senior Congress leaders, the impact of the price rally, which was badly organised — something that does not speak well for a 113-year-old party which has been long at the game — would have been that much greater. The babalog responsible for it had not even made sure that President K.R. Narayanan would be in the Capital to receive the memorandum!
Even as she is modelling herself on her mother-in-law — the price of onions brought Indira Gandhi back to power in 1980 — there is a vital difference between the situation Indira Gandhi faced 30 yearsago and now. The fracturing of the polity and the decline of the Congress make coalition arrangements inevitable. The style used by Indira Gandhi as the head of a monolithic Congress to govern is not likely to be acceptable to the likes of Mulayam and Laloo.
Possibly sensing this, Sonia is encouraging a discussion at meetings she holds with party colleagues in her Parliament office. Congressmen freely express their views. This is a departure from the style of functioning of the Family, which has often worked through a coterie.
Sonia will need a grip over her own party if she has to deal with other groups from a position of strength in any coalition arrangement. This will require balancing various factions inside the Congress without getting identified with any of them. This is not easy in a party full of veterans who have been long at the game.
It is in Sonia’s interest not to marginalise Sharad Pawar but to work in tandem with him. He is a mass leader in Maharashtra and the Congress does not haveenough of his kind today. A united party will only strengthen her own position. She need have no fears for there is no one in the Congress who can challenge her leadership today.
