Making Congress relevant

Congress VP Rahul Gandhi is wrong when he says that all of India runs on dynasties

India’s Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi is wrong when he says that all of India runs on dynasties. Ruling means wielding power at the centre. Only Jawaharlal Nehru’s family has had the opportunity to do so. Nehru ruled for 17 years, his daughter Indira Gandhi for 18 years and Rajiv Gandhi, son of Indira Gandhi for five years. Thus, the dynasty has been in power at the centre for 40 years, more than half of the period since independence in 1947.

Nehru saw to it that his daughter would rule, if not soon after his rule but in due course. When I was working as the information officer to Lal Bahadur Shastri, the then home minister, I would tell him to get ready, particularly, when Nehru had a stroke. Shastri told me that “unke man me to unki saputri he” (he has his daughter in his mind), adding that it would not be easy. He would not challenge Pandit ji and go back to Allahabad. But Morarji Desai would not accept Indira Gandhi.

This happened when Nehru died. K Kamraj, the then Congress president, was a staunch follower of Nehru. He wanted one key that opened many locks. Sanjiva Reddy from the South, Atulya Ghosh from Calcutta and S K Patil from Bombay were stalwarts in their own right but were willing to accept Shastri because he did not push himself to give them the feeling as if they were not equal.

I was working as a political correspondent of Indian Express. I wrote at that time that: “In the hush of a summer night in 1963, five men groped their way to a sequestered bungalow overlooking an expansive valley in the temple town of Tirupati down South. One was ungainly and heavy, another portly, the third brisk and breezy, the fourth, slight in stature and the fifth looked like a muscular wrestler. All of them came from different directions to defy detection, and they succeeded in doing so. There was hardly anybody on the streets. Most people had gone to bed to get sufficient sleep before responding to the pre-dawn call of the temple.” After Shastri’s death, power reverted back to the dynasty.

Rahul, is, however, correct when he criticises Prime Minister Narendra Modi for creating an ‘atmosphere of intolerance’. As many as 17 crore Muslims in the country do not figure anywhere. They have also withdrawn from the public gaze. It is as if they have accepted being the number-2 citizen in their own country.

On the other hand, the Hindus on the whole have not forgiven them for partition. Even today, when there is tension between India and Pakistan, the Muslims are seen with an eye of mistrust. Otherwise they are left to fend for themselves in slum localities. Employment-wise, they can be counted on fingers. Very few make the competitive exams. The Sachar’s committee has brought out how their plight is worse than that of dalits.

The Hindus have to retrieve them from the pool of poverty. But they are left to wallow in the abyss of helplessness. Partition on the basis of religion has drawn a line, whereby the Muslims in India have suffered the most and still they are for religious prejudice. Mixed colonies are disappearing and Muslims feel safe among their own community people. With PM Modi’s rule, the gulf between the two is increasing. RSS men are seeing to it that no Muslim holds a key position in the public sector.

Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, envisaged that both countries, one with Hindu majority and the other with Muslim, would conduct affairs in such a way that the religion does not come in the way of state affairs.

It is a pity that the Congress has become irrelevant. Otherwise, it could have provided a secular platform to the country. Rahul would increasingly realise that his party would have to work at the grassroots once again and try to change the temperament of the people.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 18^th, 2017.

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