Nobody knows for sure whether Rahul Gandhi will stay the course. It is not a question that can be answered by either psychoanalysis or speculation. He is aware of the gravity of the political situation and understands the malaise in the Congress party.
The old guard and the young brigade across several states are insisting that he must reconsider his decision to quit as Congress president.
The overall impression in the media is that he is merely putting up an act and will be back in the saddle soon. Some others feel that he is irrationally or irresponsibly stubborn. A few ‘Rahul watchers’ say that he is sulking, mainly because of his frustration with losing Amethi.
Columnists like Pritish Nandy have strongly argued that he must continue as Congress chief. Strangely, they feel that the party needs a Nehru-Gandhi family member at the helm.
There are others, like intellectual-historian Ramachandra Guha, who have stridently demanded his resignation. Lord Meghnad Desai has said that Rahul Gandhi must quit politics for good and settle abroad.
Also read: Not Gandhi dynasty, but a Narasimha Rao-like figure can save the Congress now
Non-Nehru-Gandhi members on top
The question that is often raised about the future of the Congress is: Can the party survive if a Nehru-Gandhi member is not at the top?
The first time this question was asked was when Jawaharlal Nehru was alive and in action. In 1963, W. Hangen in his 300-page book titled ‘After Nehru, Who?’, offered several names who could succeed Nehru. The idea of a so-called ‘dynasty’ had not crystallised then. In 1964, Lal Bahadur Shastri succeeded Nehru as India’s Prime Minister, not Indira Gandhi.
It is important to note that there have been several Congress presidents from non-Nehru-Gandhi family – Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy (December 1959 to May 1962), S. Nijalingappa (1968-69), Jagjivan Ram (1970-1971), Shankar Dayal Sharma (1972-1974), D.K. Barooah (1975-1977), K. Brahmananda Reddy (1977-1978), P.V. Narasimha Rao (1992-1996), Sitaram Kesri (1996-1998).
The party was split twice during this period, in 1969 and in 1977. In 1977, Indira Gandhi and the ‘first dynast’ Sanjay Gandhi were defeated. Many analysts had then said that it was a ‘second Independence’ under the leadership of a ‘second Mahatma’, Jayaprakash Narayan. They were sure that the ‘Nehru era’ was over with the comprehensive defeat of the mother and son. Few even thought that the country had been freed from the yoke of the Congress rule (‘Congress-mukt’ was a term that was not in vogue then).
Dynasty revived by arch foes
If the ‘Peoples’ Revolution’, as the Janata Party’s victory in 1977 was described by some, had not collapsed within the next three years, the ‘dynasty’ would have ended then and there. But the ‘dynasty’ was revived by its arch foes.
Also read: Why the Congress party should stop apologising about dynasty
Charan Singh challenged the Morarji Desai government and toppled it in 1979. He took Indira Gandhi’s support and became Prime Minister. The deal between Indira and Charan Singh was struck by Sanjay. Later, Indira Gandhi withdrew her outside support to the Charan Singh government and it collapsed.
The 1980 Lok Sabha election brought Indira Gandhi back to power.
It was Indira Gandhi’s assassination that brought Rajiv Gandhi into limelight. Sonia Gandhi was fiercely opposed to Rajiv taking over as the PM (My Years with Indira Gandhi by P.C. Alexander). If Sonia was keen to continue the ‘dynasty’, she would not have opposed Rajiv Gandhi becoming the PM.
It is amusing that neither Varun Gandhi nor his mother Maneka Gandhi is ever accused of carrying forward the dynasty.
They find prominence in the BJP essentially because they are members of the Nehru-Gandhi family. If instead of Sonia Gandhi, the family baton was passed on to Maneka, then would it not have been described as dynastic succession?
Recognition for dynasty
After Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination in May 1991, there was no Nehru-Gandhi member at the top of the Congress for nearly seven years. Almost immediately after Rajiv’s assassination, the entire Congress Working Committee had unanimously decided to make Sonia Gandhi the party president. She politely but firmly refused.
It was after the defeat of the Narasimha Rao government in 1996 and the collapse of three successive governments (Vajpayee’s 13-day government followed by Deve Gowda and I.K. Gujral’s short stints as prime ministers) that Sonia decided to join active politics in December 1997.
If in those seven years, the stars in the Congress, like Sharad Pawar, Madhavrao Scindia and Digvijaya Singh, had established their leadership within the party, Sonia Gandhi would not have joined, or they would not have felt it necessary to request her to come and take charge of the party. So again, the ‘dynasty’ did not impose itself on the party, but was urged by the top leadership to rescue the party from further decline.
Also read: The political dynasty nobody is talking about: Sardar Patel’s
Sonia Gandhi had failed to lead her party to success in 1998 and 1999 elections. She was labelled a failure. The opposition and the media condemned and ridiculed her for her accent, for being a foreigner and for not understanding a complex country like India. (The same commentators later called her sagacious, confident and even statesman-like).
The Congress could have dumped her as Sharad Pawar indeed tried in 1999, by splitting the party on the question of her foreign origin and creating a new outfit, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). But Pawar’s breakaway group could not inspire confidence and except for a few, most Congress leaders remained with the Sonia Gandhi-led party.
In Sonia Gandhi’s nearly two decade-long tenure as Congress president, the ‘dynasty’ tag became a stigma. Although there was criticism against Sanjay Gandhi in the 1970s and Rajiv Gandhi in the 1980s, dynasty was either accepted as part-and-parcel of realpolitik or tolerated because ‘there was no alternative’.
In 2004, when the BJP thought that Sonia Gandhi would become the Prime Minister, all hell broke loose – Sushma Swaraj threatened to shave her head in protest while Uma Bharti said it ‘will be the darkest day in the history’ of India if Sonia became the PM.
Sonia’s refusal to become the PM made her a living legend and later the one wielding the ‘remote control’ of the Manmohan Singh government. The alleged indirect ‘dynastic control’ was condemned, but the political class also took it in its stride. All parties, including the BJP, always looked up to Sonia, even when Manmohan Singh was the Prime Minister. It was a kind of recognition for the ‘dynasty’.
Revival & survival
The term ‘dynasty’, however, became an expression of virulent abuse and disgust only after Rahul Gandhi took to the political stage. For the last 10 years, Rahul has been the target of the opposition and the media. He has been viciously ridiculed and derided as unintelligent. He has been widely abused on the social media. Prime Minister Narendra Modi almost took a wicked pleasure, like a bully in school, in running down the persona of Rahul Gandhi. Perhaps, no other person has suffered the kind of humiliation that Rahul has.
And yet, from Akhilesh Yadav to Uddhav Thackeray, from M.K. Stalin and Kanimozhi to Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, Sukhbir Singh Badal and Omar Abdullah, everyone is party of dynastic politics. But the national condemnation and barbs are reserved only for the Gandhis.
Also read: Smriti Irani’s makeover: From being most disliked Modi minister to dynasty slayer in Amethi
The Indian National Congress is currently in dire straits, but still enjoys a vast following among people and has a legacy of over 130 years. It can revive itself and survive with or without the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty. If the Congress could march ahead after Nehru’s death and Indira and Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination, falling and rising again, why can’t it do the same after Rahul Gandhi’s resignation?
But Rahul has made it amply clear that he is not retiring from politics (to oblige Lord Meghnad Desai) nor running away from the mission he has chosen. Can we say that the Nehrus do not retire, nor do they give up?
The author is a former editor and Congress member of Rajya Sabha. Views are personal.
“Perhaps, no other person has suffered the kind of humiliation that Rahul has.”Ketkar should analyze why this has happened. Partly it has happened because Rahul has not based his arguments on facts. Why say that Modi gave Ambani Rs 30000 cr ? Why say that Swaraj got money from LaMo? None of these accusations have a shred of documentation or evidence to support them. He has diverted attention from the main issues in Rafale and l’affaire LaMo. IN doing all this, Rahul has diluted his ( justified) attacks on the poor performance of the BJP. Instead he has invited Modi, Swaraj and others to retaliate and recall the past and make ( untrue) accusations against rajiv gandhi on the Bofors affair.
Rahul has vastly lmproved. He made a sincere attempt and worked very hard. Unfortunately the people like Kumar Ketkar could not help him. They enjoyed the thick envelopes coming their way while they were posing as independent journalists and now they are enjoying the fruits of being RS members. Tehseen Poonawala has rightly pointed out this. These parasites are the main cause for Congrss debacle. Rahul should keep away from being the head of the party for couple of years. Let some confident member like Aslam Sher Khan be the head of the Congress. Rahul can study the situation and enter at appropriate time. Till then the only thing he needs to do is to recognise the parasites and get rid of them. They may flatter him and his party to survive.
Rahul’s relation to Modi makes me think of the Harry Potter stories. Voldemort is supposed to have “chosen” his opponent, and by attacking him gave him strengths that he otherwise would not have had. Like Harry, Rahul has become the “chosen one”, thanks to Modi’s attacks. Have the relentless attacks given him strength? If he stays on to fight (as Congress president or not) and manages to leverage LOVE against HATE, he may yet win.
Well, hope he is reading your comment and gets a copy of Harry Potter delivered to him; he has 5 years to read and learn from it. Congress got 12 core votes, and perhaps you were one of those who voted. Don’t you think that for the sake of getting a robust opposition that’s worthy of earning the respect of people, Congress should elect a leader outside the family in a transparent manner. Let names be proposed, and candidates contest for the top position in a party that made so much contribution to India. MMS was a worthy choice for the PM’s position, but what use is a leader who cannot counter and assert his/her authority? This debate is not just about love and hate, it is about leadership, decisiveness and vision. I am sure that many of us will vote Modi out if he doesn’t deliver BUT he must be given a fair chance to deliver, and that means a second term.
” Congress should elect a leader outside the family in a transparent manner” … and you are naive enough to think that BJP internal elections are transparent and it may one day elect a leader outside the (sangh) parivar?
You should (re?)read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows to see how the ministry subverts the truth, how a “non-political” organization comes to be inseparable from the government – child-stuff but scarily pertinent. I think of the series with which many of us (admittedly a privileged English-speaking book-reading lot) grew up because like many epics, including Indian mythologies, it speaks of a war between forces of Love and forces of Hate. No prizes for guessing who wins in books but who wins in reality? And if you talk to a dalitor tribal scholar about our epics, things get murky, confusing. but fight hate, we must.
The Love of Christians always lead to Pagans Genocided. No Thanks.
Varun Gandhi and his mother Maneka Gandhi are not accused of carrying forward the dynasty because they don’t represent any dynasty. Just because mother and son both are in politics doesn’t mean they have a dynasty. Dynasty has meaning only when it’s associated with a King and not a servant son and a servant mother both serving the King.
The sycophants of Nehru Indira dynasty very often present arguments and rationalize those arguments that make sense to them and the supporters of the dynasty only.. The rest of the majority neither see rationality nor any valid basis and they have no option but to reject those arguments. I have heard Kumar Ketkar in TV debates. On most occasions his arguments are mere twisting of words to fit in the Congress narrative. Most viewers see it through. With this approach there is no way Congress can attract new voters.
Anil Maheshwari’s points valid . It is said that the Goddess Laxmi is Chanchal ( fickle) and stays in a dynasty not more than seven generations. But it seems that Rajya-Laxmi is even more fickle. So the thumb rule of four generations may be correct. Take the example Mughal dynasty. Though founded by Babur, he died soon after his victory in the first battle of Panipat. Thereafter his son Himayun was driven out of India by Sher Khan. So, the dynasty was founded by Emperor Akbar and in real sense of the history, the dynasty lasted till death of his great grandson Aurangzeb. Thereafter, it was total decline, as Aurangzeb’s successors were more or less Pappus. It comes to four generations not more.
Unfortunately sycophants like Shri Kumar Ketkar give journalism a very bad name. For four decades he was masquerading as an independent journalist, when all the while he was eyeing a sinecure as a Rajya Sabha member by being a hagiographer for the Nehru family.
Forget what others are doing, can the writer go beyond sycophancy and his Rajya Sabha seat, and say the dynasty principle is antithetical to democracy?
That it is a slap to the billion plus Indians that leadership of a century plus old party can only come from one family?
1. Whether Congress President Rahul Gandhi withdraws his resignation or not, it is absolutely clear that Rahul Gandhi is a burden for his party because he has still not realized his blunders have cost his party as the citizen-voters’ have responded strongly to his insensitive criticism of PM Narendra Modi. This I am saying in context Rahul Gandhi’s recent speeches in Kerala. 2. Fact is that there are now fewer and fewer takers for Congress party with its so-called secular agenda and vague economic agenda. It is obvious that Congress party’s promise of minimum income (of Rs 72,000/-, per year) was an empty promise, made without any serious calculation of resources required to pay that kind of money to crores of poor citizens. Citizen-voters have rejected all such empty promises. 3. I believe that the Congress party has a future as a centrist (to be precise, left of the centre) political party and the citizen-voters too wish that the Congress should reorganize to become such a centrist party, provided the seniors in the party work to rebuild organization. More importantly, they should reconsider party’s secular agenda which depends too much on minority voters for survival- this I suppose is an important lesson of 2019 LS election results. 4. Would today’s Congress leadership be able to make a break from the past and grow? Let us hope that senior Congress leaders do some a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis of the organization and take remedial steps to move out their party from the current pathetic situation.
KEtkar’s facts are true and clear. And we should look at his campaign. Hear his speeches and press interviews. He may have lost election but he came out as a good human being and logical campaign.dont judge by old biases.
No doubts about Rahul’s sincerity and hard work. Only thing he needs to do is to get rid of parasites like Kumar Ketkar.
Bootlicking
The logic presented by Mr Ketkar has big hole.
The Rahul Gandhi is Dynast and need not any defense to hide the fact. The way he has been promoted to become Vice President and
then President of party is not how political party should function in a functional democracy.
He has realised that it is more convenient to control system with massive benefits and no obligation like his mother showed during UPA I and II.
The whole process or drama whatever you call is to find a new subservient Congress President who would be ready to accept failures as his but successes would be ascribed to guidance of Sonia , Rahul and Priyanka.
Really spot on analysis Mr. Rajesh!
“It is amusing that Varun Gandhi and his mother Maneka Gandhi are never accused of carrying forward the dynasty.”. That is because they never exercised power and looted the country like Sonia and her brood have done. This writer’s credentials speak for the varacity of his “views”, consisting mainly of loyalty to the dynasty. Forget journalism!
“It is amusing that Varun Gandhi and his mother Maneka Gandhi are never accused of carrying forward the dynasty.”
this is because they are not at the helm of a political party that is continuously failing .
Mr. Pappu is still singing the same tune as he was before elections (modi spreading poison and hatred, and only Pappu can spread love and compassion.. RIDICULOUS) .. this shows he is arrogant and adamant, and not ready to learn from his mistakes.. Pappu blamed other senior party leaders that they kept their family interest before party’s.. he does not has the intellect to understand this is reason why he is leader of AICC.
I think these comments coming from the leader of the second largest party in parliament is lame.. and Rahul Gandhi needs to show some maturity in terms of his deeds and decisions that he makes or else hang his boots..
He is weakening the Indian Democracy by not being a strong opposition.. He is leader of the party (and a GANDHI.. i mean who can stop him).. he is feels he is to blame for the humiliating loss, he should resign.. who can stop him.. this is just drama
To borrow observations of scholar Najmum Hoda: Results of the recently concluded General Elections has recalled for us Ibn Khaldun’s theory of dynasty wherein he says that by the fourth generation a dynasty goes into complete decline. Those who have read Al Muqaddimah would agree that his deductions, inferences and generalisations make one feel how every history is contemporary history and how the present is a replay of the past.
But howsoever perceptive Ibn Khaldun might have been, he knew nothing about caste, the leitmotif of our social existence. His focus and main analytical tools were tribe and its élan vital, Asabiyya — the spirit of group consciousness, social solidarity and corporate cohesion.
Caste is different from a tribe in myriad ways and, therefore, what is true for one can’t be extrapolated for another.
So, dynasty, anachronistic as it may be, is integral to our political ethos insofar as a caste-based society has the principle of dynastic succession inherent in it. This may be the reason why most criticisms of dynastic politics have been disingenuous, opportunistic and tactical in nature, focussing on one while condoning others, and rarely from the principled position of republicanism.
In the dialectics of Tradition and Modernity, as the latter began conceding space to the former, and social categories became political, caste became the vehicle for mobilisation and the seat of solidarity. But voting en bloc is a secondary and temporary function of the caste. Its primary and permanent role is to pass on to the next generation one’s social status occupational position. No wonder even new professions like cinema, medicine and entertainment have as good as acquired the characteristics of caste. In this scenario, it would be strange if politics had remained untouched by it.
The paradoxical situation of democratic spirit slowly ebbing away from the largest democracy, even as it keeps expanding by including ever new sections in its embrace everyday, can be ascribed to recidivist relapse into caste which, in turn, has been a consequence of the weakening of the enlightened ideals of Modernity. It is because of the rebooting of this primordial instinct that most of the political parties — those who run democracy — have become starkly undemocratic companies. That the family run undemocratic concerns should be running this democracy has been as much a marvel as a farce working to discredit and delegitimise the participatory politics. It’s not strange that even the biggest among them is the political wing of a large ideological group, not a political party in the conventional sense despite having all the trappings of being one.
This situation brings to mind historian JF Richards’ characterisation of the Mughal administration as Patrimonial Bureaucracy. If the terminology could be borrowed for contemporary application, today’s polity may very well be called Patrimonial Democracy.
As we are witnessing, a democracy sucked dry by the incubus of caste is easy prey for the spectre of religion.
Caste does not exist in India. Hereditary classes such as in England, Japan, France, and Russia also exist in India. Yes, untouchablity also exists, as it has in Japan and France. Yet, slavery only came to India with Muslims and Christians, serfdom was unknown in India. However, Casta is a foreign concept to India, except areas ruled by Portuguese and Whites in New World. Europe has a lot of dynastic politics, yet Casta? Also the supposed caste based parties are dissapearing and Hindu consolidation is occurring. A nation is being formed of Indic Hindus, just as Finnish society is formed of Finnish Protestants. There is room still for Lipka Tatars and Indo-Musselmans. Finally, growing wealth will erase much of the social divide, especially as white collar work spreads.
Unbelievable sychopany!
Totally agree with Dilip’s comments. Kumar Ketkar is a fawning sycophant. His writing lacks maturity and does not offer progressive ideas.
It’s A4 page size boot licking , not worthy of publishing.
The Print must take serious note of such writting.
It’s annoying for good readers.
Same Dilip that spews venom in IE? Articles are too difficult for you to understand.
Congress must inculcate internal democracy. Let the dynesty members start at the grassroot and prove through election like Soniaji or Varun. No one would complain.