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Journalism of Courage
Can things get any worse for India8217;s Grand Old Party? It is a telling comment on the state of affairs within the Congress that the only thing in recent times to have energised its rank and file turned out to be Jitendra Prasada8217;s rather innocuous challenge on Sunday to Sonia Gandhi8217;s leadership. More significantly, it has perhaps taken the execution of a much recommended remedy 8212; a show of courage by a Congress leader to lend a semblance of inner-party democracy by enforcing elections for the post of party president 8212; to highlight the glaring lack of options available to India8217;s natural party of governance of yore. That Prasada8217;s challenge is doomed from the very beginning is more than clear 8212; from the fact that he was compelled to invoke the ghost of as insignificant a leader as Sitaram Kesri to drum up support; and from the desperation evident in his attempt to secure the posthumous blessings of Rajesh Pilot, whose own candidature for the hallowed post Prasada turned a blind eye to not so longago.
And yet, it would be naive to underestimate the gauntlet thrown down by this chronic loyalist-turned-dissident. In a party which construes a challenge to the Nehru-Gandhi family8217;s hegemony as akin to the severest manifestation of blasphemy, Prasada8217;s five meagre sets of nomination papers 8212; against Sonia8217;s 80-plus 8212; have shattered a few myths. For one, they have struck at her very raison d8217;etre: the presiding mother goddess of the Congress party, the precious adhesive that keeps India8217;s largest opposition party together, the soothing balm that quells all dissent. Ever since the 1998 coup in which Sonia replaced Kesri in the course of a working committee meeting, even through the admittedly limited exodus engineered during the Amar-Akbar-Anthony revolt last summer, her spin doctors have not tired of reminding everyone 8212; the nation and their own partymen 8212; about her magnetic qualities. Sonia may still be the most acceptable leader to vast sections of the Congress 8212; indeed the forthcoming partypolls will surely bear this out 8212; but every vote registered by Prasada will carry a message. That there are enough party members who demand from her much more than a smile and a wave; that the dynastic halo in no way compensates for a repeatedly demonstrated reluctance to emerge from her ivory tower and take up the rough-and-tumble duties entrusted to the leader of the opposition.
