The Indian National Congress has done it again. Having lost its way in the murky world of factional politics for a decade, it has bounced back to re-establish its credentials as a national party. Political analysts, some of whom had prematurely written the Congress obituary, have been proven wrong for the umpteenth time. Though the road to Delhi is still bouncy and strewn with difficulties, the Congress may succeed in wresting the political initiative from the ruling coalition in the near future. Meanwhile, its leaders can draw confidence from their refurbished image and gain comfort from the support extended by the beleaguered minorities, the OBC and Dalit groups.It is not as yet certain whether the outcome of the assembly elections represents a decisive shift in politics or not. What is amply clear is that the BJP, having squandered the opportunity to provide a stable government, has been checkmated by an alert electorate. Equally, the return of the minorities, the Dalits and the OBCs to the Congressfold is a singularly important development.In case this trend is replicated in UP and Bihar, especially if the Muslims soften their hostility towards the Congress, the Third Force, already fragmented and plagued with personal rivalries, may cease to be a major force in these states. This would bolster, despite the caste configurations, the Congress chances of picking up some seats in UP and Bihar.Whatever may be the immediate fallout of these elections, in the long run much would depend on how the Congress leadership, learning from its mistakes and errors of judgement in the past, responds to and comes to term with its electoral gains in three out of the four states that went to the polls.Much would also depend on Sonia Gandhi's ability to contain and manage factionalism in the Congress, revive the party's linkages with its traditional allies, energise the organisation through democratisation, and harness the skills and talent of younger Congress leaders, including the chief ministers of MadhyaPradesh and Rajasthan. She should, above all, be wary of the cliques, blasted by her husband in 1985, that enmeshed the living body of the Congress in their net of avarice, their self-aggrandisement, their corrupt ways, their linkages with vested interests - and their sanctimonious posturing.In short, if the Congress is to reposition itself as a major player, it must act, in its new incarnation, as the bulwark against authoritarian and communal tendencies. If it is to sustain its liberal and secular image, which was badly tarnished during the Emergency, the anti-Sikh riots in 1984 and the Babri Masjid episode, it must act as a left of centre party. The voters would no longer settle for empty slogans.If the past is taken as the key to the understanding of the present, the Congress recovery, so to speak, is consistent with its record during the liberation struggle. Remember the split at Surat in December 1907 between the so-called moderate and extremist leaders. This split, the first of its kind since1885, was necessary for the rejuvenation of the Congress. The question, wrote one of its supporters, is to bring the party into contact with the living life of the people.It came to fruition at the Lucknow Congress in 1916. As a result, a far more unified and revitalised Congress rallied around Gandhi's Rowlatt Satyagraha and the Khilafat and non-co-operation movements. Many who worked for the Congress programme during that period lived in a kind of intoxication. ``We were full of excitement and optimism and buoyant enthusiasm'', recalled Jawaharlal Nehru.Suspension of civil disobedience in Febru-ary 1922 (after the Chauri Chaura incident) caused widespread resentment in many circles, sharpened old communal antipathies, and led to serious internal dissension in Congress. For the next six years or so, the Congress, caught up in its own contradictions, survived in a lackadaisical manner.Its members reverted, within two years of Gandhi's imprisonment, to their lazy habits, reminiscent of the closed-shoppolitics of the early Congress, and played out their own struggles for power, using caste and community as the weapons for political survival. The Mah-atma's own position was weakened. Some said that his popularity was waning and that he had become a spent force.Nehru observed that a leader does not create a mass movement out of nothing, as if by a stroke of the magician's wand. He can take advantage of the conditions themselves when they arise; he can prepare for them, but not create them. This is precisely what Gandhi did when the British government appointed an all-white Simon Commission in 1927 and when the Viceroy Linlithgow arbitrarily declared in 1939 that India was at war.The agitations that followed, i.e. the salt satyagraha of 1930 and the individual satyagraha campaign of 1940-1 revived the dwindling fortunes of the Congress, gave its activists a new sense of unity and placed the party at the head of political life. As the Liberal leader Tej Bahadur Sapru commented: ``In the first place theCongress has got a powerful organisation. It has got energy and has got money and manpower and it does appeal to the imagination of the people firstly because it professes to represent the forces of freedom and secondly because it has gone through some suffering.''The dawn of freedom did not sensitise most Congressmen to the massive task of national reconstruction. Having spurned the Mahatma's plea to wind up their organisation, the leaders, fired with dreams of achieving office, became part of an unwieldy club, embroiled in intrigue and factionalism to control the levers of power.Our energies, Nehru wrote in 1949, are concentrated in disruption and destruction. As weeks and months roll on, one will have to wait and see which way the wind is blowing, and whether the Congress will make the best of the opportunity and not allow itself to fade away before our eyes. One can only hope that its leaders will pay heed to the admonition of Mira Behn, one of Gandhi's favourite disciples. The Congress, she hadstated in 1952, should recognise that it was the ideals that conquered, and it is those ideals alone that can successfully overcome the difficulties and dangers which today surround us on all sides.
