Congress digging its own grave
By Amulya Ganguli
Of all the parties, the Congress’ capacity to shoot itself in the foot is unparalleled. In 1989, it squandered a massive parliamentary lead through two foolish acts in the run-up to the general election. One was to negate a Supreme Court judgment in favour of a divorced Muslim woman in a crass attempt to appease Muslim fundamentalists. And the other was to open the doors of the Babri masjid, which were under lock and key since 1949, in order to please the Hindu fundamentalists. While trying to keep the bigots of the two communities in good humour, the party fell between two stools.
Now, it is engaged in frittering away the opportunity provided by its electoral successes of 2004 and 2009 by misreading the political leaves as two decades ago. In the earlier period, the Congress did not realise that the people were fed up with its cynical manipulation of castes and communities for the sake of votes and were eager to enter the 21st century, which Rajiv Gandhi promised before being engulfed by the Bofors scam.
Similarly, the Congress hasn’t understood this time that voters turned to it, first, in 2004 to escape the BJP’s communalism as exemplified by the 2002 Gujarat riots, which were blamed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee for his party’s defeat. And, secondly, that the people reaffirmed their faith in the Congress in 2009 because of the economic upturn provided by the reforms, which were beneficial for the rich and poor alike, and especially the 250/300 million strong middle class.
Instead of building on these popular hopes, the party decided to return to the feudal and socialistic legacies of the Nehru-Gandhi family, which were best exemplified by the period of authoritarian rule by the mother-and-son duo of Indira and Sanjay Gandhi, who saw the dynasty as the arbiter of India’s destiny. Not only that, they regarded the tax-and-spend shibboleths of socialism – under Indira the tax rates reached a high of 97 per cent – as the answer to the country’s problems.
Now, the mother-and-son duo of Sonia and Rahul are following a similar path. They, too, believe that “progress” cannot take place via capitalism, as preferred by the “dream” team of Manmohan Singh, P Chidambaram and Montek Singh Ahluwalia, but by doling out gargantuan subsidies with the help of “resources”, which have to be found, as Sonia Gandhi told parliament during the debate on the food security bill. Neither she nor her son is bothered if such profligacy spells doom for the reforms. It is worth noting that this particular word has never escaped their lips in all these nine years, presumably because it is a dirty word for socialists.
Not surprisingly, in a recent speech, Rahul excoriated the opposition parties by saying that they believe that “building infrastructure, roads, bridges and airports are the only markers of progress”. Apart from the fact that roads and bridges have been “markers” of progress for centuries, what the young prince does not seem to have realised is that their construction generates employment by itself and leads to further employment since connectivity boosts the economy.
But, feudal attitudes probably frown on the people securing jobs without help from the zamindar. Instead, what the Congress seemingly prefers is their dependence on the family for handouts in the name of its various members – Indira or Rajiv – so that the grateful recipients will remember who to vote for. The family’s distaste for reforms has also persuaded its sycophants to block the reforms in their own ways. Among them are the former and present environment ministers, Jairam Ramesh and Jayanthi Natarajan – aka the “J virus” – whose role in setting up roadblocks before industrial projects made the prime minister say that the licence-permit-control raj remains active in the environment ministry.
Since the stalling of the reforms and the consequent slowing down of the economy leave no option but to depend on reservations to provide jobs, it is not surprising that one of Sonia Gandhi’s major initiatives was to call for the inclusion of castes in the census enumerations after a gap of 80 years. This regressive suggestion was preceded a few years ago by the Congress’s move to bring the private sector within the purview of the quota system. More recently, the party has been toying with the idea of extending reservations to the backward castes among the Muslims, knowing full well that such a step will run afoul of the Constitution, which prohibits quotas for religious communities.
The Congress is not bothered if its decision is struck down by the judiciary since all it wants is to claim that it tried its best for Muslims, but the judges came in the way. Similarly, the party does not care that the Right to Education project has led to a situation where Class V students cannot read Class II textbooks because the system of annual examinations has been done away with till Class VIII. All that the Congress wants is to be able to claim that it has given the right.
It is Sonia Gandhi’s preference for a closed economy and the “dream” team’s failure to convince the party that an “outdated ideology” – in Manmohan Singh’s words – does not work, which have led to the current stagflation and undermined the party’s electoral position. (IPA Service)