Priyanka Gandhi is obviously distraught because last week her father-in-law died in suspicious circumstances. The week before that, however, Priyanka did show an interest in the elections beginning April 16. The important point is not that she stepped out into the countryside, but the limitations she imposed on candidates she would campaign for. These turned out to be her mother Sonia Gandhi's constituency, Rae Bareli and the contiguous constituency, Amethi, from where Rahul is the MP. It is clear as daylight that both Sonia and Rahul will win by large margins. What Priyanka was doing was to make assurance doubly sure that the family is not subjected to adverse surprises. So long as the two family members, one Congress President and other aspiring to be youth icon, are in Parliament along with, say, even a 100 more MPs in a House of 543, the family trio is not going to lose any sleep. So, hints are being dropped – not on TV – that the Congress is not interested in power but in “reviving” itself for the 2014 elections which will take place in 2011 because of the impending economic decline and political instability on account of the expected “unprincipled” coalition at the center. There are numerous imponderables in this plot. For instance, will all Congress MP's, who will have returned after fighting their way to the Lok Sabha tooth and nail, be inclined to accept the Myth of the Sisyphus as their fate? And all because Rahul wants to be Prime Minister not now but in the next round. Let us dispense with pipedreams and take up Rahul's project of “reviving” the Congress. The word “revival” entails an ailing outfit which has to be restored to good health. The word indicates a faulty diagnosis of what ails the Congress. The Congress was at the outset the coalition of interests behind a program for freedom. It contained a wide spectrum of interests, ranging from Purshottam Das Tandon, who would have been closer to today's BJP. Krishna Menon would have been more comfortable with the British communist leader, Rajni Palme Dutt than the homespun Lal Bahadur Shastri. Indeed Menon and S.K. Patil, a free market fundamentalist, fought from different constituencies of Mumbai on the congress ticket in the same Lok Sabha election. The Congress, in other words, contained in its womb all variety of social and political interests. A charismatic leader like Jawaharlal Nehru held this diversity together until his death in 1964. In 1967, during Indira Gandhi's Prime Ministership, the Congress lost eight states to governments led by Lohia Socialists who pursued “Hindi” nationalism as different from the “Hindu” nationalism of the Jana Sangh and later the BJP. Even earlier, Communists were eyeing power in Kerala and West Bengal. Imposition of Hindi caused anti-north, anti Hindi riots in Tamil Nadu paving the way for the Dravida parties to come to power. The state is in the stranglehold of the two main and several small Dravida parties. This horizontal splintering introduced a healthy diversity into the political process, but also created a scare of regionalism and a centrifugal pull. This fear was misplaced because Indian democracy held the country together in an unbreakable elastic. What cause turmoil in the Aryan, Hindi heartland of UP, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan was the vertical division of the caste structure. Mayawati and Paswan emerged as Dalit leaders while Mulayam Singh Yadav, Lalu Prasad Yadav and Nitish Kumar consolidated themselves as leaders of the other Backward Castes. It is largely to keep the Hindu caste pyramid from collapsing altogether that the BJP identified the other (Muslims, Christians) as a means for Hindu consolidation. In brief all these formations, particularly the regional and the caste ones, have come out of the womb of the Congress. It is these creatures of the Congress which are directly and successfully challenging it in atleast eight states, leaving it a shell of itself. How will Rahul “revive” this “shell”, emptied of all social and political energy as caste and regional parties? No, the Congress cannot be revived. It can only work towards institutionalised, durable coalitions. So take a shot at power now and work towards lasting coalitions thereafter.
