ELECTIONS '98
COMMENTARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ARCHIVES

Sonia makes just the right moves

No one ever expects Congressmen to come out in the open and question the leadership, not today, not 30 years ago. Perhaps they did so at the height of the national movement, but again, I have my own doubts here as well. Considering the way Vallabhbhai Patel made way for Jawaharlal Nehru, or the earlier stifling of Mohammed Ali Jinnah and Subhas Chandra Bose, perhaps it won't be entirely incorrect to say that the Congressman has been conditioned over the years to kowtow before the leadership.

The only kind of opposition that members and office-bearers of this elite political organisation specialise in, is the variety perfected in the jungles of the North-East and other rebellion hotspots. Guerrilla warfare. It was how the only challenge to a Congress president's authority fructified, when V P Singh took on his former friend Rajiv Gandhi. It may well be the only way that ambitious Congressmen like Sharad Pawar could yet stop the Sonia juggernaut.

But if the recent Congress session at Pachmarhi was any indication, those with fire in their bellies have all but decided to bide their time, another trait that Congressmen have always been famous for, if not kiss their ambitions goodbye.

My own belief, however, is that those from non-Gandhi/Nehru backgrounds can eradicate even the slimmest hopes of making it to the helm of the party or the government, unless the family itself were to make way.

Since the latter seems highly improbable, I think Indian politics is going to live with the dynasty's second coming for a long time to come.

The Pachmarhi session was full of pointers to the way Sonia Gandhi's mind works, her modus operandi in fact, that we will be seeing in the days ahead.

Prior to this special session, conventional political wisdom believed that she would continue to occupy the top position in the party, and allow one of her confidants to become the prime minister, as and when she believed the time was ripe to bring down the Vajpayee government. This was not mere kite-flying by underworked and over-imaginative political commentators, but a credible point of view. After all, it was more than evident that the BJP-led coalition government was surviving more on Sonia's sense of noblesse oblige than any inherent cohesion on the part of its constituents.

This view also took into account Sonia's lack of experience, in both political and administrative spheres, as also her foreign origins, and believed that she would undertake a process of orientation, while the throne was kept warm on her behalf. She could not have been blind to the fact that her husband treated his prime ministership as an orientation course, and seemed determined to not repeat the mistake.

Among the list of confidants who were mentioned in this regard, no one seemed more of a cinch than Manmohan Singh, although there were others like Arjun Singh, Madhavrao Scindia who were given an outside chance of making it. Sharad Pawar, leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha and a natural choice to head the CPP if the Congress were to make a bid for power, was nowhere in the reckoning.

Pachmarhi, however, has shown that Sonia is in no hurry to grab power, power that will not come without a price, extracted not merely by Jayalalitha, but by the likes of Mulayam Singh Yadav, his cohort Laloo Yadav and the arch rockers of the boat from the Left who together are enough to make the most valiant among us quail.

Rather than take help from these esteemed gentlemen and form a coalition that would make the teetering regime of Vajpayee and Co seem like the Rock of Gibraltar, Sonia has wisely chosen to focus on converting her weaknesses into strengths.

She has made it clear that she will forsake temporary gains for permanent wellbeing. Naturally, it has brought forth criticism from those goading her from the sidelines into pulling down the BJP government so that they themselves may play Magi to a goongi gudiya. Sonia has shown that she is neither dumb nor a doll.

Pachmarhi let it be known that she would rather focus on strengthening the party base in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, its strongholds till recently and where it is in tatters today, thanks to the very same gentlemen who are cosying up to her. If Sonia were to play their game, she would have condemned her party to the ICU for eternity, for that would be the price the two Yadavs would demand of her, to let them alone in order "to stem the communalist forces" in their states.

The Congress is the only political organisation that has the wherewithal and the potential to take on the BJP across the nation, and Sonia Gandhi has acknowledged this fact when she frowned upon coalitions.

Another thing Sonia has done is to disabuse notions some may have entertained about heading a Congress government. Manmohan Singh, a 10 Janpath loyalist and the front-runner in this connection, found his economic policies rubbished. Arjun Singh, the man whom minorities look up to in the party, was not allowed to present his forthright views on Muslim support to the Congress. Pawar saw the writing on the wall, and occupied himself with sundry matters. And P V Narasimha Rao, the only non-Nehru politician to have headed an Indian government for its full term, sneaked in and out of Pachmarhi, unsung, unheralded and, I daresay, unwanted. The fate of his successor in the party was even worse -- Sitaram Kesri lay sulking on a hospital bed.

Sonia has accomplished two things in Pachmarhi. One, she has let the Opposition know that she is in no hurry to replace Vajpayee, that she is not overkeen on playing footsie with a bunch of untrustworthy cads, that any future electoral pact will be on terms that will benefit the Congress and not them. Two, she has let those entertaining ambitions know that she is the undisputed leader. Needless to say, I am impressed with the mature way she is going about things, and political maturity was not something I had credited her with when she announced earlier this year her decision to enter electoral politics.

I must confess here that Sonia Gandhi holds special significance for me. Having missed out on the chance to study the rise of the previous Mrs Gandhi in Indian politics -- for no fault of mine, let me add, but for that of my father who sired me a little too late -- I am excited at watching her moves, from the sidelines. Yes, in the interregnum, there was another Gandhi who became prime minister, but it is obvious that in 10 Janpath, the trousers are worn by the women, isn't it?

How Readers responded to Saisuresh Sivaswamy's recent columns

Saisuresh Sivaswamy