Behind the exodus from India’s Grand Old Party

Azad’s exit isn’t the problem. It is a symptom of a deeper problem. A party with a 140-year-old legacy is today bereft of vision, leadership, and organisation, leaving Indian democracy poorer

What is the role of a political party in a democracy?

In two national elections now, the Indian electorate has decisively rejected Gandhi.   (Arvind Yadav/HT Photo)

A party is based on a set of principles to which a group of like-minded individuals subscribe. In a democracy, the task of a party is to articulate this vision, and expand the political appeal of this vision. In the process, the party is both an agenda-setting formation and an aggregator of interests.

Fulfilling this task rests on the leadership. A leader has to become a credible messenger to sell the party’s vision, weave in personal charisma, and evoke faith in citizens.

The task of selling the vision and generating trust in the ability of the party leadership to implement this vision then falls on the party organisation. This organisation needs to be rooted in society. It needs to play the role of an intermediary between the leadership and social groups. It needs to provide the infrastructure for political campaigns. And it needs to translate social support into votes on polling day.

When a party gets this mix of vision, leadership and organisation right, it succeeds. Consider the post-2013 Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The vision rested on both a negative impulse — we are not the old, corrupt, and dynastic Congress, we are not hostage to regional interests or politics of “minority appeasement” — and a positive impulse — we will provide vikas (development), we will give Hindus a sense of pride, we will protect India’s national security, and we will give a strong government.

In Narendra Modi, this vision had an effective vehicle. He was able to project himself as a strong leader, committed to both “development” and Hindutva. Irrespective of what one thinks of the prime minister’s record, there has been no more effective salesperson of the vision of the BJP in all of the party’s history than Modi.

To sell the vision and the man, the BJP built the most powerful party organisation in Independent India’s history. This organisation works 24*7. It is there to defend the PM’s record and create an environment of support for the government. It is there to expand the BJP’s ideological base through consistent messaging. It is deeply rooted in the form of a booth-level structure that tracks and targets voters, village by village, household by household, individual by individual.

Now, go back to the Congress.

Is there any clarity on what the Congress stands for on the most urgent issues of the day? The party may suggest that the upcoming Bharat Jodo Yatra rests on three pillars that form its agenda — political which critiques the government’s increasing authoritarianism, social which critiques the regime’s social agenda, and economic which critiques the BJP’s alleged tilt towards crony capitalism and the persistence of unemployment.

This may sound like an effective seminar-room attack. But politically, a critique of the incumbent has to be accompanied with a positive agenda.

What is the Congress’s vision of Indian secularism? Is it a reversal to the old or is there a new framework that accommodates majority and minority interests and representation? What is the party’s vision of national security? Is there a road map to take on China’s growing belligerence (while being aware of the asymmetry in power and historical errors, for which the Congress is largely responsible)? What is the party’s vision of Indian democracy? Is it returning to the old where the Congress too misused institutions or is it the creation of a new, where the party will commit itself to the idea of individual freedom? What is the party’s vision of economic growth and justice? Is there a way to avoid cronyism (which the Congress encouraged too) while enabling the rise of private enterprise? Is there a way to take care of the vulnerable without relying only on the politics of welfare?

This lack of a clear message is coupled with the question of leadership. Rahul Gandhi’s paradoxical relationship with power — he grew up surrounded by power and is disdainful of it, but he isn’t willing to let go of it and wants to exercise power without responsibility — is at the root of the troubles. But so is the fact that in two national elections now, the Indian electorate has decisively rejected Gandhi.

Gandhi has also an inexplicable antipathy for the so-called “old guard”, but has done little to enable the rise of the young guard which is politically rooted. Instead, he has relied on a set of apolitical advisers and rootless leaders who have consistently lost even state-level elections.

Gandhi’s ad hoc experiments, from changes to the party’s youth and student wings in his early years to a change of guard in Punjab most recently, are a litany of failures. His ability to communicate his ideas is so dismal that even smart suggestions get drowned in the gaffes. His tendency to veer towards the abstract is a lesson in how not to speak to citizens. His effort to come across as anti-establishment when his family is synonymous with the establishment hasn’t worked. But nowhere was his streak of irresponsibility more visible than in his decision to suddenly resign as party president in 2019, while retaining all the levers of power in private. Add to this his frequent foreign holidays, and if he doesn’t come across as a serious agent of change, the Congress shouldn’t blame the media or citizens.

In this mix of a visionless and a leaderless party, it would be naive to expect the Congress organisation to perform robustly. The party already starts with the disadvantage of being a mass-based rather than a cadre-based formation. The Congress machine has always rested on patronage. In the absence of power (the party runs only two state governments), this has meant an erosion of patronage opportunities at all levels — from the district up to the Rajya Sabha. Morale is low. Conditions for exit are ripe, especially when a worker or a leader can see that deserting the barren land of the Congress and crossing the political bridge to another side can lead to political rewards.

The Congress organisation’s ability to sustain popular campaigns is non-existent. It has burnt its bridges with various social groups — from its old social coalition of Brahmins-Muslims-Dalits in the heartland to its champions in big business, from the young and aspirational lower middle classes in urban areas to the more assertive backward communities in rural areas. And its ability to convert even the support it has to votes on polling day is limited due to a weak footprint on the ground.

Add it all together. And it isn’t a surprise that Azad — no less than the party’s leader in the Rajya Sabha till last year — has joined the list of leaders leaving the party. As the Congress heads to a nationwide yatra and internal polls, it must go back to first principles and figure out why it is in politics in the first place. Otherwise, it is betraying both the 120 million voters who expressed faith in the party in the last elections and Indian democracy itself.

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