Valson Thampu

Gulam Nabi Azad has been quitting the Congress at least since 15 February 2021, when he finished his term as member of the Rajya Sabha. When it moved Prime Minister Modi to copious tears, the notice was, in effect, served on Azad’s exit from the Congress. Only that the party did not read the writings on the wall that all else could. Modi is not one to waste his tears. And Azad is not one to waste an opportunity to retain his finger in the pie.
As a rule, shrewd individuals remember ideals, principles, and duties when it is expedient to do so. Call it posturing-for-profit, if you will. Not long ago, Azad was happily lodged in the Congress coterie he now berates with freshly-acquired democratic righteousness. So long as he was kept indulged –Youth Congress leader, Chief Minister of J&K, minister in successive Congress/UPA governments at the Centre, nominated five times to the Rajya Sabha, Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha (1914-2021), a trusted confidant of 10 Jan Path- all was right with the party. Now that the plums are gone, nothing is right with the party.
Well, Gulam is not alone in this respect. He belongs to a bevy of fair-weather Congressmen who are ever ready to roam and range in search of greener pastures. Many have left already. More are to follow, either for what may be gained, or merely for the favour of being allowed to live un-harassed by the ED, CBI and the rest. If Congresswallahs are readily poachable, there are at least three reasons for it.
First, leaders of no other political party suffer from what may be called ‘power-withdrawal syndrome’ as acutely as Congresswallahs do. For nearly half a century, power, not ideology, has been the glue that held the party woodwork together. A party has to pay a price for being in power. The steady erosion of its ideological vitality is that price. You can have either the lust for power or commitment to ideology, especially Gandhian ideology. You can’t have both. The Congress leadership remained blithely indifferent to its on-going ideological soil-erosion for at least three decades, if not more. The problem with power-addiction, whether in politics or in religion, is that it degrades one’s idealism and, with that, the charismatic capital. So, what happened? At least by the time of Rajiv Gandhi, the party became a club of self-seeking opportunists who purchased proximity to power with sycophancy.
This can work so long as a party remains in power. But what happens, when power vanishes? Sycophancy gives way to grumbling. Chair-addicted politicians, who exist insulated from the aspirations of the people, suddenly find themselves plunged into powerlessness. They know only one way to deal with that trauma: blame everything on the party boss. It is as if the Gandhi-Nehru family has an obligation to keep them installed in ministerial berths. If they can’t, they deserve to be denounced and dumbed. That is all that has happened in the present instance. Gulam Nabi Azad now remembers that the Congress party did not adhere to the dharma of inner-party democracy. The truth is that he would have been an early casualty, if the party had adhered to it. For twenty-four years, the Congress working committee remained a nominated, nor elected, body. This was not a problem, so long as Azad remained a member.
Consider this also. In the last seven years, a host of politically momentous issues emerged: issues that had serious bearings on the welfare of the people and the fate of Indian democracy. Have you seen a single Congresswallah of Azad’s ilk, taking up an issue or articulating the party standpoint cogently and courageously? Granted, Gulam is not now heeded by Rahul as he thinks he deserves to be. So, what could he have done? Well, prove that he merits to be heeded. Adopt a parliamentary constituency in his home turf, cultivate in it, and gain the confidence of the new-gen leadership. It is symptomatic that such a prospect doesn’t occur to him.
The BJP, in the meanwhile, is treading the path of the Congress. Election after election is won by the BJP as the Congress used to. A few decades ago, people were urged to vote for Indira. Never mind who the candidate in a given constituency was, people were to cast their votes as if for Indira. The same today; except that the name has changed. Modi goes around asking people in constituencies around the country to vote for him! The people do just that. In the past they voted for Indira. Now they vote for Modi. BJP –the party with a difference- is running behind Congress, late by three decades.
Water, if pumped, will flow upwards. A not-so-hidden political pump is working relentlessly in India today: the fear-factor. Those who have been shady in their track-records are vulnerable to it. If lure doesn’t work with them, fear will.
Be that as it may, consider this: should a party ‘implode’ because a drove of self-seeking opportunists migrate from it? If it does, the implosion will happen not because of desertions, but because of the bankruptcy of the party. Desertion is, after all, the symptom, not the disease. It is the disease that needs to be treated. And if the treatment includes surgical excisions, it needs to be accepted. It is in this respect that, most of all, the Congress misses Indira Gandhi today.
If the Grand Old Party is to be revived, it has to shed the moribund baggage of its past. The last time I met Rahul Gandhi -in early 2011- I tried to impress upon him the need for this. I did so in the wake of the massive corruption in organizing the Commonwealth Games of 2010 the budget of which swelled from Rs.1800 crores to Rs. 70000 crores, nearly three times the amount that China spent on organizing the Olympic Games later. The long arm of that corruption tainted St Stephen’s College too: the reason I decided to take it up with Rahul. I urged him: ‘Denounce publicly and disown corruption and communalism. These bandicoots are eating up your future piece-meal. Let the country know that you can offer a clean, new beginning. Nothing less will do.’ Rahul fell silent. At the end of thirty minutes of conversation, suddenly it became clear to be that he wouldn’t be up to the task. I said so in several of my articles when Rahul became the President of the INC. I say so again now: he is a good man, but he is not the future of the Congress.
What distresses me is not that flotsams are drifting out of the Congress, but that the party is stuck in a limbo and shows no willingness to emerge from it. The Congress can revive itself. The question that the party needs to ask itself is the question that Jesus asked the man at the pool of Bethesda: ‘Do you want to be healed?’