It would be churlish to not recognise that for committed Congress members and supporters, the coronation of Rahul Gandhi as party president is a momentous event. It marks the passing of the dynastic baton from one generation to the next.
The dynastic principle may seem abhorrent to those who believe the republican ideals must necessary shun the principle of family inheritance. However, for the Congress — at least the Congress that has emerged since the split of 1969 — it is all-important. Mani Shankar Aiyar, the ever-faithful loyalist now temporarily ‘suspended’ from the party, wasn’t grandstanding when he spoke about Shah Jehan succeeding Jehangir and Aurangzeb succeeding Shah Jehan. At best he was suggesting that primogeniture wasn’t the governing principle. But the fact that Rahul will succeed Rajiv Gandhi, after a spell of regency rule under Sonia, is a given to the Congress ecosystem. Those who don’t like it can explore other political options.
The dynastic principle apart, the Congress that Rahul Gandhi has inherited from his mother isn’t quite the Grand Old Party over which his grandmother held sway. The Congress is still a very important force in Indian politics, with a presence in all the States of India. However, increasingly, its ability to command has been compromised. There are very large swathes of India in which the Congress exists only as a letterhead. Its ability to win elections and secure political representation in the legislatures is disproportionately dependant on regional players. These regional players — many of them products of subordinate political dynasties — in turn see the national party as a vehicle of convenience. When their local interests or personal ambitions with the High Command’s priorities, there is a greater inclination to break away and establish an independent existence. This is what happened to players as diverse as Mufti Mohammed Sayeed, Bhajan lal, Mamata Banerjee, YS Rajsekhar Reddy, Sharad Pawar and many others.
Till the mid-1990s, the Congress also maintained the pretence that its decline in the election of 1996 was a temporary blip. It was believed that if Congress functionaries took a deep breath and exercised patience and political imagination, it would return as the dominant party. Alas, despite the modest recovery in 2004 and 2009, the Congress now appears to be reconciled to the fact that its role can at best be that of primus inter pares, the first among equals, in a ‘secular’ alliance. This explains why the Congress attaches so much importance to possible alliances with the likes of Akhilesh Yadav, lalu Prashad, M Karunanidhi and even the Communists. Except in a handful of States, the Congress has lost the ability to win elections on its own steam.
For Rahul Gandhi, the immediate priority is the management of decline. If he miscalculates, the Congress has the potential of descending even further in the hierarchy. As it is, having merely 44 lok Sabha MPs is a reality that the Congress finds is deeply wounding to its ego.
The direction that Rahul Gandhi is likely to take is naturally of great interest to all political players. The Congress believed (and many still believe) that Monday morning will witness a modest revival in the party’s fortunes in Gujarat which will compensate for the near-certain defeat in Himachal Pradesh. If the party manages to defy the exit poll predictions, Rahul’s coronation is likely to be greeted with a sense of optimism. The anti-Modi forces are looking very expectantly to Rahul to give ‘secular’ forces a purposeful lead. They believe that anti-Modi sentiment has a momentum of its own and that all Rahul needs to do is to keep his nerve, have a steady hand and not do anything spectacularly dramatic. The feeling is that there is a range of groups from intellectuals to business people and bureaucrats who have been so unsettled by Modi that will back any Opposition, including one led by Rahul. By this calculation, Rahul does not need to do anything frightfully innovative or imaginative. He needs to merely keep his nerve and not make mistakes.
The efficacy of such a passive strategy will depend entirely on how the Narendra Modi Government shapes up in the next 18 months, before the 2019 general election. As of now, Modi’s popularity graph is very high and in a presidential-type election, voters will expect Rahul to wait his turn at some future date — perhaps when he matures more. If this scenario unfolds, the main task before Rahul will lie in keeping the Congress afloat as a viable political party.
There are, however, indications that Rahul will try and experiment with the Congress. His speeches suggest that there is an inclination to stick to Sonia Gandhi’s leftward drift — by roping in the Communists and the NGO world — and twin it with a modernist, social democratic rhetoric. In time, the Congress will willy-nilly acquire a definite ideological dimension under Rahul, although whether it veers towards temple visit symbolism or linking with casteist forces such as Hardik Patel isn’t entirely clear at present. For the moment, all interest will centre on how the Congress performs in the elections in Karnataka and then the all-important ones in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan where there will be a direct fight between the Congress and the BJP.
I am not one who is inclined to write off Rahul on the strength of his indifferent record as Crown Prince. Circumstances could propel him to new heights or sink him more conclusively. The Congress is a declining force but it is a force nevertheless. It is really up to Modi to change the rules of the political game so dramatically that the Congress and the social forces it represents become marginal. At present there is a mismatch between the low electoral standing of the party and the control it still exercises over India’s rather jaded Establishment. That Establishment will do its utmost to ensure Rahul succeeds, despite himself.