Congress Undemocratic Ideology - 4

[ramana]

The Week From Kerala



Slip of Tongue?



This is a significant article for it shows some change in INC strategy in Indo-Gangetic heartland.

Slip of the tongue? - Suman K. Jha





Politics

Congress sources say that Rahul Gandhi only meant Bangladesh's liberation



"India being a big country, it needs a massive push to start it rolling, but once it starts to roll, it takes a massive push to stop it. If you look 30 to 50 years ahead, which is where one should look, I am pretty certain India will be one of the top five powers. The issue is whether we will be among top three or not.... That will make a big difference to how we impact poverty. Equally important is how we'll behave in that position. Will we be a complete bully, or will we be a power that is more accepting...?"



Rahul Gandhi in an interview (late 2004)



Rahul Gandhi sought to tread a hitherto uncharted path during his fourth leg of Uttar Pradesh jan sampark abhiyan (public contact programme). The Congress heir had focused exclusively on development ("Has your lot improved one bit in the last 15 years, when several parties tried to divide you on the lines of caste and religion?"), the youth ("The youth, who comprise 70 per cent of the state's population, will take the state forward to its past glory"), and the state ("Elections or no elections, I'm here to stay") in the first three legs of his roadshows. Save for a response to a question by THE WEEK that triggered a political storm in Uttar Pradesh ("Had anyone from my family been active, the Babri demolition would not have taken place"), Rahul had consciously avoided raking up any contentious issue.



In the fourth leg of his Uttar Pradesh foray which began on April 13, he added the 'first family' to his three-point agenda, described as a "tactical shift" by a senior Congress leader. "My job doesn't end with the elections. I'm here till we have a Congress government in the state. Other parties should know that I come from a family that matches its actions with deeds," he said in almost all the 10 public meetings he addressed in three days. While the entire opposition cited this as yet another expression of how the Congress had become subservient to the Gandhi family, Congress strategists felt that the Nehru-Indira-Rajiv genealogy would strike a chord with the party's traditional support base.



It was his speech at Badayun and at Bareilly that, besides inviting Pakistan's wrath, had party honchos scurrying for cover. "I come from a family that doesn't shy away from its responsibilities, whether it is the freedom struggle, breaking up of Pakistan, or ushering in a new era of technology and IT," he said.



The after-tremors could be felt from far and wide. Pakistan foreign office spokesperson Tasnim Aslam said that Rahul's remarks proved allegations that India interfered in Pakistan's affairs and tried to destabilise it. "India took advantage of the circumstances to dismember Pakistan, and the scion of Nehru family has accepted the real Indian motives for the intervention," she said. Some peaceniks in Delhi even accused the Congress leader "of derailing the Indo-Pak peace talks".



While this sounded a little far-fetched, and the cacophony died down in a couple of days, as expected, the entire political class spent countless hours deciphering the text and context of Rahul's "breaking up Pakistan" intervention.



"Who is advising him on matters like these?" one of the tallest Muslim leaders in the Congress thundered. "Are we trying to be one up on the Bharatiya Janata Party?" asked another senior Muslim Congress leader, and said the reference was avoidable. A leader known for his proximity to Rahul tried to reason that he was probably trying to match the "BJP's nationalist rhetoric in one of their strongholds". While the Congress has been known for its old trick of playing community cards selectively, one is not sure if Rahul would find the analogy flattering. There were even voices against the "corporate types" advising Rahul on political matters.



Those who know Rahul said that while he was open to various viewpoints, he was known to speak his mind. Hence, the "breaking up of Pakistan" marked a clear and disturbing departure from what Rahul has sought to symbolise so far.



While an Akhand Bharat votary might tom-tom this as "an achievement", how is the "breaking up of Pakistan" relevant to Rahul's espousal of Gandhian nationalism? Congress spokesperson Devendra Dwivedi countered that he was speaking "at an election campaign and not at a seminar". Another top Congress leader argued that Rahul only meant "liberation of Bangladesh," as distinctly different from the "breaking up of Pakistan". A plausible explanation, but are the future prime ministers allowed the luxury of retakes in their public pronouncements? And, how does this idea fit into Rahul's idea of India "as one of the top three powers that is more accepting"?



In the earlier legs of his Uttar Pradesh foray, Rahul had talked about "opening the doors of the Congress for the state youth," something that many thought signalled a welcome democratisation of a dynasty-obsessed Congress. It was back to the dynasty in his fourth leg, so much so that Congress spokespersons were not unanimous on how to defend the move. While Satyavrat Chaturvedi wanted to put other parties under the scanner, Dwivedi argued that the Gandhis' political lives were coterminous with the life of the republic. BJP leader L.K. Advani blasted the Congress: "This shows a mindset that one family alone is fit to rule the country."



"While the BJP is the polar opposite of the Congress, is there any fundamental difference between the Samajwadi Party or the Bahujan Samaj Party and our party? Our failure to produce a Mayawati or a Mulayam Singh Yadav reflects how the party has become entirely dynasty-centred," said a senior Congress leader. In one of his works, political observer Pratap Bhanu Mehta describes the phenomenon as "the decline of the very institution of political party".



Even with a section of the Congress convinced that the dynasty alone keeps this disparate organisation together, many thought Rahul would be keen to make the party relevant by democratising it. If Rahul had a blueprint for the same, one didn't get to hear about it amid the talk of the dynasty and the party in UP.

My take is the inner core of the Indo-Gangetic plain's heart is set on the tremors of the PArtition and undoing it will reap huge benefits to whoever does it. And the INC leadership whcih understands it is moving to the center nationalist stance.



Will x-post in BJP thread....