My friend, Sanjay Jha, no longer in the party he defended resolutely on channels, seemingly as an insider, has now taken to writing virtual obituaries of the Congress party. But to be fair to him, he has yet to call for funeral rituals, hoping to see a waking.
Like most people, he cannot fathom why the grand old party no longer shines across the political landscape as it did in the past.
It is easy to say that social forces and movements generally do not have a perma-shine, but then again, we might have to respond to the counter-factual. There are a thousand people or more, both inside and outside the party, who have ready-made formulae for getting the Congress to be strong and dominant again. The very fact that they have these pep-up pills, makes them ask why we are still suffering atrophy?
A Political Party Can Only Ascend To Power Through ‘Disruption’
In good time, the party will certainly be able to reconnect with the voter whose previous generations have stood by the Congress in thick and thin. Without necessarily questioning the prognosis ladled out to us on a daily basis, for that is not the purpose here, I venture to suggest that recent history has shown that political power can be garnered only by disruption.
It is now very rare, if not never, that a political outfit ascends to power, or regains it without disrupting the normal scheme of things.
I do not mean to suggest that the status quo is unfairly challenged and ultimately displaced by alternative politics. The last time something like that was attempted was when the India Against Corruption (IAC) movement gathered malcontents and daydreamers to walk the distance to the AAP era in Delhi, crushing the rich legacy of Mrs Sheila Dixit, once the idol of middle classes and the saviour of the disadvantaged.
The jury may be out on whether the AAP is, or even wants to be, an alternative model of politics beyond having provided a platform for ambitious activists unable to find space in established platforms.
Congress Exists For An Ideology
Besides AAP, recent success stories one might recall are those of AGP, TRS, TMC – even CPI(ML) et al – whose no-holds-barred disruption of established order allowed entry to the corridors of political power. How true then, is the adage, that the children of revolution eat up the revolution, will be for them and how soon remains to be seen.
But meanwhile, the Congress remains squeezed between the rock of cooperation – with others to take on the BJP – and the hard place of local parties refusing to give respectable space to it in the hustings. Tough as that is for the Congress, it is a matter of extreme distress for party cadres in the states.
Our periodic pragmatic decisions to fortify local cadres with imports from regional parties, who have been discarded or rebelled, creates more heart-burn and eventual collapse when the imports revert to their past hunting grounds.
The access to power is naturally the ultimate objective of all political outfits, but to think that it is a pre-requisite for existence, is a sad reflection on ideological incapacity.
The Congress, like all other parties, exists for an ideology that we believe is the ultimate guarantee of the good life celebrated in our Constitution. Where there is such an ideology, a political party will embrace it, or a new party will be born to preserve and protect it.
It cannot be the other way that since there is a party it must find an ideology. The present BJP interestingly has a bit of both, and must therefore be described as a hybrid party.
Cracks In BJP Ideology – And Lesson From It
There is presumably a core thought that the RSS encapsulates, for which the BJP is used as a political vehicle. But the core was inadequate to fuel a large party, today claimed to be the largest, and therefore, the BJP conjured an expansive ideology described carefully to make it acceptable.
But that the ideology suffers cracks has become apparent from several allies of the BJP deserting them, as in Punjab and Maharashtra.
To stay in power, the BJP-conjured ideology will need to be altered and compromised. Their inevitable predicament should be a reminder to us in the Congress that such accommodation may not be worth our while – to seek short cuts to power.
Instead we should just wait for the mood to turn, working tirelessly and ceaselessly to nudge the change along. Having been the natural party of governance and having presided over the destiny of the country for long years, we cannot descend to the model of disruption that we saw from riots to mob lynching, large-scale civil disobedience targeting minorities, inciting hate, blocking of essential supply routes – even making assassinations the language of protest.
Absenting ourselves from the felicity of office (thought by some to be ‘facility’ of office) in affirmation of our moral and ideological position, is in the footsteps of Mahatma Gandhi suspending the Independence movement after Chauri Chaura.
If we perish in the defence of our ideology, we would have served our country and party.
But there is a question that remains: what would Gandhiji have advised against inhuman conduct? Furthermore, when does civil disobedience cease, and disruption begin?
(Salman Khurshid is a designated senior advocate, Congress party leader, and is a former Minister of External Affairs. He tweets @salman7khurshid. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)
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