Repeating a historic blunder

The Congress would have much greater cause to celebrate if Sharad Pawar had only stayed put in the party. His exit may well turn out to be the party8217;s nightmare. For this, one would blame the tall poppies in the party hierarchy; a judicious mixture of buffets and boons should have quietened him. Their other monumental failure, for which the Congress may have to pay a heavy price, preceded Sharad Pawar8217;s exit. This was the political message from Pachmarhi, way back in September 1998, to many of its potential allies. It was ill timed and ill advised, because there was no objective reason for the Congress to exude that kind of confidence so soon after Sonia Gandhi8217;s entry into the political arena. At that juncture, as indeed after the Assembly elections, an open-ended policy on coalition, may have served the Congress better.

By closing itsdoors on like-minded parties, the Congress dimmed its prospects in several crucial states, notably Uttar Pradesh. Agreed, Mulayam Singh Yadav is a hard nut to crack. Agreed, the logic of caste and community politics makes the distribution of seats so much more difficult. Yet the Congress had no business to occupy the high moral ground and drive him into the 8220;enemy8221; camp, so to speak. He should have been forgiven, in the interest of a secular front, for his numerous political indiscretions. Likewise the Congress should have worked towards an alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party in order to refurbish its secular and pro-poor image.

The controversy over the coalition issue has dogged the Congress for decades. It surfaced in 1937, sparking off a major Congress-Muslim League row. Times have changed since; so have the players. But the Congress ambivalence, if not hotheadedness, on coalition politics continues to plague its leadership. In 1937, Jawaharlal Nehru took the lead in opposing a Congress-Leagueministry in Uttar Pradesh. More than six decades later, a member of the same family is trying to cope with, though in a different context, much the same legacy. They say history repeats itself. Who can deny this bald assertion?

The Congress truculence over a coalition with the League was a political miscalculation for various reasons. It created the space for the League8217;s revival, offered Jinnah the chance to establish his hold in UP, a province where his initial overtures were repeatedly spurned, and bolstered his claim to represent 8220;Muslim India8221;. Bringing the League into government may have accentuated inter-party feuds, but rejecting its representatives created a far broader unity among the League factions and greatly hardened their stance thereafter.

The Pachmarhi declaration proceeded on the assumption that the Congress would romp home on its own. The Congress success in the 1937 elections had led its leaders to reach a similar conclusion. Thus Nehru explained the 8220;breach of faith8221; in terms ofthe unexpectedly large Congress majority in the elections, which made all talk of a coalition indefensible. I believe the optimism, then and now at Pachmarhi, was misplaced. True, the Congress ministries survived until the outbreak of World War II. But the coalition issue cast an ugly shadow over its performance in UP and elsewhere. Congress8217; democratic and secular ideology featured in the 1937 campaign, and was underlined in the Pachmarhi manifesto as well. But it has repeatedly erred in acting as the sole custodian of democracy and secularism. That is why it tends to construct the image of the Other and, for this reason, refuses to accommodate other interest groups.

In this light, consider the Muslim League8217;s status in 1937 and its relationship with the Congress. Their election manifesto had a great deal in common, and their workers campaigned for the same candidate in quite a few constituencies. Their differences, though exaggerated in public pronouncements, were by no means irreconcilable. This is whyJinnah talked of a 8220;united front8221; when the Congress accepted office in March 1937. 8220;There is no difference,8221; he proclaimed in September, 8220;between the ideals of the Muslim League and the Congress.8221;

If so, it was a mistake to portray the League as a political adversary or a counter-force. It was right to make clear the Congress discourse on nationhood; equally, to expose the League8217;s predominantly feudal character, its links with government and with the conservative social classes. What was, however, lost sight of was that not everybody was swayed by the League8217;s communal claptrap at that juncture. A coalition ministry may have weaned away such elements from the League and sapped its organisational strength. Second, berating elite forms of compromise-hatching was legitimate, though inconsistent with the Congress8217; record of pacts with the Muslim League in December 1916, and with other sectional groups, such as the Akalis in Punjab. Lastly, it is hard to make sense of Nehru8217;s unwarranted rhetoric, in1937, against the League. After all, he was the one who had told a Muslim Leaguer: 8220;I do not quite know what our differences are in politics. I had imagined that they were not great.8221;

In effect, a Congress-League coalition failed to materialise for reasons that had little to do with lofty ideals. Otherwise Nehru would not have referred to the feeling in Congress circles that without the League they would be freer to quarrel with UP8217;s governor, and break with him on his own terms. One would await the historian8217;s judgement on the consequences of the Pachmarhi stand on coalition.