Commentary/ Saisuresh Sivaswamy

The Congress is supporting the very groups which cut off its legs

There are not many political parties that can lay claim to dominating the course of a nation's history, as the Indian National Congress can justifiably do. In fact, there is none in the country, although the Third World is replete with instances of movements against colonial rule crystallising into popular parties after liberation.

Even among these, it is debatable if there is one that has squandered such a tremendous advantage among the electorate in so short a time.

Just as there are efforts being made all round to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of India's Independence, we should not overlook the fact that the organisation that led the nation to its freedom has become a fit case for the political ICU. In short, it is perhaps not too wide of the mark to say that the decline in the nation's own stock has been accompanied by the slide in the Congress fortunes.

True, India was never Indira or vice versa, but it does seem as if for some time at least, India and the Congress shared a symbiotic relationship.

That there were chinks in the party's armour was evident to everyone who was part of the movement before Independence. Gandhiji, in fact, was obviously motivated by what he apprehended to be the party's outcome when he suggested its disbanding. But it was the same desire for power among the gerontocrats that saw them hurtle towards Partition.

The Congress was able to milk the freedom factor for at least one generation, for it was exactly 30 years before it lost power at the Centre -- and that too to a conglomeration of freedom-fighters! But if the party's invincibility factor had been blown to smithereens with this, the short span of time the new entity could handle the various pulls and pressures of power, made the party quickly claim there was no alternative to it.

If there were buyers for its indispensability for 30 years, this new factor lasted hardly a decade before it was derailed by the corruption factor. And, the realisation that no one, but no one, was serious about combating corruption led to the return of the Congress within two years -- strengthened once again by the lack of alternative factor.

All along, there was a parallel movement that also crystallised into another political organisation, namely the Jan Sangh. There is still a cloud hanging over its members and ideologues owing to their putative refusal to be part of the Congress-led freedom movement, true -- but they have managed to secure political legitimacy.

And that is the most important shift in the country's political arena over the last five decades. Hitherto, the fight has been between the Congress, with its pretensions to socialism, and those further left of the political spectrum.

In other words, the Congress was the major centrist force and managed to dictate the level of political debate in the country. It is an extent of its domination that even today, although the United Front is in power with Congress support, it is still considered 'Opposition' conglomeration -- that opposition having been to the Congress all along.

Ordinarily the crown ought to have passed on to the Janata Dal and its numerous allies since politics has always been to the left of centre in this country. But the break-up of the ideological cornerstone in the from of the Soviet Union and the latter's own embracing of the forces of the marketplace, left these parties with no mooring. And the political party to take the maximum advantage of this vacuum was not the Congress, which could have quickly repositioned itself as a centrist organisation which it was all along, but the Bharatiya Janata Party.

As the Congress waned, the BJP waxed, it was paradigm shift in the electorate's preferences. The Janata Dal and its allies first took away the underprivileged sections from the Congress; next, the BJP took away the middle-class voter, who had all along hidden his preference for the saffron brigade. The most damaging blow inflicted on the Congress was not by the BJP, but by the JD and allies who weaned away the most steadfast of the Congress' support groups, although the one to benefit most from this was the BJP.

Hence, it is ironical that the Congress is supporting the very groups which cut off its legs. Obviously, the party, calculates that the longer it continues to support the UF, either of two things are possible: one, the OBC, SC and ST voters will realise that even their newfound political masters need the Congress, and might decide there was nothing wrong with the party after all; two, the middle class voters, who have been fickle in their loyalty, may veer around on realising that the BJP's chances of making it on its own are bleak. It is a calculation that has even chances of coming true.

It is against this backdrop that the Congress is going to Calcutta for its plenary session this week. The party is well and truly out of the reckoning in a sense, and yet its importance cannot be easily dismissed. The 1996 election was the first it fought since 1952 without having a charismatic leader at its helm, and the results were not encouraging. It is very clear that 1998 will see another round of elections, and there have been no straws of wind on the role Sonia Gandhi contemplated for herself. As for the Congress president's position in the charisma seep stakes, the less said the better, but he may yet succeed in giving the party a combative edge that it has been lacking since 1991.

That edge, of course, would be blunted by supporting those very governments it had been fighting against. Kesri is relying on the old adage that an enemy's enemy is a friend, overlooking the fact that it does not hold true for politics.

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