Valson Thampu

Revival depends on relevance. To revive itself, a party or ideology has to mind the extent and scope of its relevance to the given context. But how can a party do so, unless it has some inclination to know its own plight? The core problem of the Congress Party is that it does not know itself as it was envisaged to be. The second thing a party needs to revive itself is an insightful understanding of the context and the over-all direction that history assumes in it.
As regards the latter, there are at least two things that go against the Grand Old Party (GOP). The first is that the sensibility of the present age has turned its face away from the aristocratic to the plebeian. It was not an accident that the humble origin of Narendra Modi became a significant electoral propaganda in 2014. It acquired special traction in the ambience of the anti-dynastic sentiments whipped up on purpose at that time. This issued from a shrewd reading of the drift of history, taking the clues, inter alia, from Alexis de Tocqueville’s The Old Regime and the Revolution (1856).
The second factor is related to the first: the disenchantment with the old generating the craving for a change. The market, for example, sustains itself on this psychology. Carried away by the commercial fanfare created about it, you feel enchanted by a product. You feel ‘deprived’ for not having it. But the buoyancy of the market depends entirely on turning your present enchantment into disenchantment, which happens when its ‘improved version’ is unleashed in the market. This disenchantment is alleviated by buying the new item of enchantment. It cannot be denied that the BJP, especially Modi, succeeded flatteringly in enveloping the Congress in a miasma of popular disenchantment. Surprisingly, the Congress chose to stay clueless about what this portended, the need to counter it, or how best to do so. That state of dazed, confused incomprehension lingers to this day.
There is a third factor that the Congress Party needs to face upfront. And that is the power-addiction-quotient. More than hard drugs or alcohol, power is the most addictive thing in the world. Congressmen got addicted to power to such an extent that it never occurred to them to merit it personally. It became the business of the Gandhi-Nehru family to win elections and to deposit the self-inflated Congress big-wigs in seats of power. To most, only power mattered: the Congress as a people’s movement evaporated from the mindscape of the Congressmen. It is not surprising, hence, that Congressmen migrate to the BJP -the present enclave of power- without the slightest compunction.
The sad thing is that the Congress outlook is deeply penetrated by the popular appeal of himsa, or violence. The choice of K. Sudhakaran as the President of KPCC points in this direction. His main claim to distinction –as we were told- was that he ‘kicked Pinarayi Vijayan’ in the dim, distant past. The operative assumption is that Pinarayi must be countered by one better than himself in this respect! This logic was tried at the national level –Rahul trying to out-Modi Modi in rhetorical vehemence- and it suffered a humiliating rebuff by the people, who are wiser than our seasoned Congress politicians. It is not the revival of the Kannur model of politics that the people want. It is, instead, the luxury of living in a sane society.
No reference to ideology can dodge, in the present context, the reality of communal politics. Communalising the state is a crime against secular democracy. Parties in Kerala are vying with each other in converting communalism into electoral gains. They are hostage to the superstitious fear that not playing the communal card will cost them dearly. This baseless fear overlooks the fact that voters in Kerala have, for the most part, emancipated themselves from their subjection to religious authorities. They do not vote as directed by them. More and more people now resent being interfered with in regard to their democratic duties. If the Congress wants the people to believe that it has a modicum of commitment to secular democracy, it has to renounce the communal route to power. There is every reason to believe that the people of Kerala will appreciate this now more than ever before.
A terse choice faces the INC at the national and state levels. Does it want to accept the risks it takes to revive itself, or does it only want to suffer a gradual death by persevering with strategies that are assuredly unwise? The decisive insight Gandhiji evolved for the Congress Movement was that ‘sacrifice’ –not power-brokering- should be its enduring strength. Congressmen and women have no excuse for not knowing it; for, as recently as in 2009, Sonia Gandhi demonstrated the power of renunciation, which made her a near-saint in the eyes of the people of India. I could sense the utter demoralisation that this plunged the BJP into, which began to breathe life only when UPA-2 disintegrated into corruption and political bankruptcy.
The INC has undone itself by abandoning Gandhiji. In a sense the Congress is primarily responsible for the current idolisation of Godse and Savarkar. Had the Congress not abandoned Gandhi, circumstances conducive to perpetrating this outrage on the conscience of India would not have arisen.