No screen savers

The Congress’s smart card sounds like a pretty idea. So what is this hollow tinny sound we hear? As reported in this paper, the Congress will soon provide computer chip enabled cards to all its active members. If all goes according to Plan ‘Dynamic Networking Of Party Infrastructure’, the OmVCards will help workers speak with leaders, everyone will be able to get directly in touch with Sonia Gandhi, it will cut bogus membership at the lower levels. Congress will become a Modern Party and Communication will be the good word. Yes, the party has a pretty good idea. But we have a scenario.

Let’s assume the smart card is in place and the Congress chief is sitting in front of her computer. Ordinary Worker has a question on the party’s economic policy. Why, he asks, does the Congress high command swear by the Rajiv regime and yet disown the economic reform kicked off in his tenure and carried on under Narasimha Rao? Why does the Congress declare itself in favour of disinvestment only by parliamentary approval at the Centre even as its governments sell off public sector units with nary a backward look in the states? Foreign policy next. Wasn’t it Indira Gandhi in the early ’80s who embarked on mending relations with the US, so why the rhetorical backtrack now? On coalitions: where exactly does the Congress stand on the ground between Mulayam Singh Yadav and Mayawati in UP? What’s the official take on Sharad Pawar? On Hindutva? And, before you go, Ma’am, last question: how can people like me regularly contribute to policy-making in the party? Should we just mail in directly to you or Ambikaji?

Let’s face it, the Congress needs more than a smart card to become communicative and modern. It needs some clarity at the top, for one. And defined structures of accountability. It needs inner party democracy. A leader who meets the worker’s eye and thinks on her feet. Computers can speed up communication and transparency. But in a larger culture of arbitrariness and whimsy, the leader can also hide behind her computer screen.