Congress: Grand Old Party, Brand New Problems

Margaret Drabble’s quote “Nothing succeeds, they say, like success. And certainly nothing fails like failure” is the story of BJP and Congress in the country today. Winning election after election the BJP has captured the imagination of the nation over the last 10-12 year, almost dismantling the power and organizational strength that the congress held for a long-time post-independence.

The challenges for the congress seems one to many, even as Leader of Opposition (LoP) Rahul Gandhi consistently raising very serious issues that concerns every citizen of this nation, on jobs, economy, MSMEs, business inequality, healthcare, education, foreign policy lack of transparency, lack of opportunities to OBCs, dalits, tribals and women, capturing of institutions to benefit the ruling party, raise in hate politics and more, the inability of most congress leaders to take the message of  Rahul Gandhi strongly to the masses is more than evident.

Blaming Rahul Gandhi for every failure or decision is never out of fashion, BJP-RSS never loses an opportunity to attack the LoP and the congress leaders who have enjoyed power for long are reluctant to defend their own leader. The most articulate and detailed response of LoP in the Parliament on the Budget was not even made a point of debate across all the states by the congress leaders, least could have been having a press conference and reiterating the breakdown of the economy which Rahul Gandhi elaborated.

Elections and the entire process is key to a strong democracy, any lapses would only means cheating 1.45 billion people’s democratic rights. Irregularities in election process, concerns on the EVMs, BJP using its power to overpower the election commission and other institutions is the greatest danger to the democracy and a direct assault on the soul of constitution of India.

Rahul Gandhi held a press conference along with Sanjay Raut of Shiva Sena and Supriya Sule of NCP and shared the data on how large number of voters have been added in Maharashtra’s electoral roll just before the Assembly elections, and the voting population is almost close to the actual population of Maharashtra, similar view was presented on Delhi too. BJP-RSS using its reach to manipulate the electoral roll is one aspect but the need to examine why the opposition parties have failed at the grassroot level to stop the manipulation in the electoral roll is most important.

As part of the voter addition and deletion process the election commission periodically shares drafts over 5 years, it’s a block level responsibility of every party to ensure the additions and deletions are verified through the booth level agents and objections are raised on every draft. So, the question is, has the draft sharing process been suppressed by the election commission or is this an organizational failure of the opposition parties where their grassroot level workers network is eroded. Opposition parties in India  need to ask themselves where and how their organizational structure has failed, and if the democracy has to thrive in our nation the responsibility is on the opposition parties to stay alert at all times.

Inability of most state congress leaders to stay out of power, lack of ability to strengthen the party at the ideological and grassroot level, choosing money over method, appeasement over ideology has weakened the congress party. Leaders’ unwillingness to speak against Modi and RSS is either out of fear or that they themselves are peddling the soft-hindutva line. What was once a mass-based party where elections were won on policies and programs has turned into complete leaders-based party where the leaders control the party through the power of money, followers and resources.

What is hurting the congress party further is not just the election defeats but the crumbling organization structure at the ground level, the leaders who have got the opportunity to head the party at the state level are not looking beyond their personal growth and the entire organization is made subservient dismantling the inner party democracy. Recently a senior congress leader joked that today in congress its ‘jiski lathi uski bhains’. Most leaders have enjoyed power for a longer time than they deserve and have vast experience than Rahul Gandhi, but for everything that goes wrong the permanent fall guy seems to be Rahul Gandhi and leaders are not held accountable and they seldom own up their failures.

The three important action points for the congress today is to ensure sanitization of electoral rolls by making Aadhaar linking mandatory, demand for election reforms, and building a strong ideologically committed party workers base at all levels.

Congress has a moral and social responsibility towards the nation, it’s just not another political party, keeping the democracy and constitution thriving is its eternal duty. Today’s India is seeking quicker and decisive decisions from the grand old party.

Kavitha Reddy, Member, KBOCWWB, www.kavithareddy.in

Mighty Muddled Middle Class

New York Times article in 1983 described the Indian middle-class as an emerging social class which is aspirational, influential and who embraced consumerism with pride. Post Independence three events that led to the poor escaping their fate to recreate their own destiny were the PSU Jobs, Land Reforms and Liberalization. The power of these events was such that the parents wanting better opportunities & lives for their children became the norm as the poor raised to middle-class.

Today, middle-class comprises of over 41% (McKinsey Report) of the population, segregated as middle-class and upper middle-class who are not only aspirational but cynical at the same time. Initially the majority of the middle-class were from upper caste and OBC, and the narrative of reservation for dalits taking away all the opportunities distanced them from the oppressed classes, they silently mocked dalits as “Reservation Class” and unfairly linked reservation to lack of quality. Eventually as dalits became more assertive and entered the middle-class using the opportunities given to them, targeting them was socially and also politically untenable.

In the late 90’s the political narrative of hindutva politics led to demonizing muslims for taking away wealth and jobs due to increase in the muslim population. The narrative of anti-reservation and anti-muslim constantly propagated by the affluent and political class made the middle-class venerable and even anti-poor. Branding social welfare schemes for the poor that once helped the middle-class escape from poverty as freebies became a common phenomenon.    

As rich are getting richer and have more access to opportunities, the cynicism and anger of the middle-class is even today mostly against the poor for getting benefits  & welfare schemes, though it’s an unfair argument. The mighty middle-class has slowly emerged as a formidable force to reckon with, the political parties seized the opportunity to mobilize people for agitations to further their political agenda and directing middle-class towards the hindutva politics terming it as hindu unifying factor.

The middle-class stood largely divided on the mandal commission report and as the agitations broke the new era of OBC upraise began, but eventually it died with the mandir narrative taking the centerstage, which was an attempt to leverage on hindu sentiments for pure political gains.

The secular parties are struggling to align the middle-class with narrative of progress, policies, and schemes, over the last decade the poison of hate politics has engulfed the lives of the middle-class.

The aspirational middle-class that benefitted from the PSUs, IIMs, IITs, Bank Nationalization and many welfare policies from 1947-1992, who were once the conscience keeper of the nation holding up the values of freedom struggle and the constitution, from where the strongest political leadership grew is today entangled in the hate politics.

The middle-class that has the voice and numbers should have been demanding better infrastructure, opportunity, quality education & healthcare, more financial inclusion, better administration instead has fallen into the narrative that is driving the nation towards the dark ages of hate, unrest and fascism. 

Kavitha Reddy, Member KBOCWWB, www.kavithareddy.in