The Questionable Lineage of Congress Party
When Congress
repeatedly states it is the party that won Independence, one is tempted to ask -Really?
-Is Congress the same Indian National Congress (INC) that fought for India’s
freedom?
Going into
some details about this, we find that INC (that is, pre-Independence Congress) was
founded as a ‘platform’ for the Indians to ‘struggle for greater freedom’
within English rule, but later became a movement for gaining total
Independence. Thus, INC was organised to fight for nation’s freedom and not to
rule the country, though it did contest some elections and ruled for brief
spells before Independence. The objective of the present Congress is quite
different- to win elections to rule.
Those in
the freedom movement were generally idealistic and self-sacrificing. Whereas,
those in political parties look to gain privileges through political power and to
have their way in the affairs of the nation. So, it is unrealistic to expect
any political party to be like INC; consequently, it is futile for any political
party to pretend to be like INC or claim its legacy.
The
ideology of Congress is not, as likely to be assumed, the same as INC’s; at
best it is Indira Gandhi’s, -not Nehru’s in spirit or vision. In contrast, INC
had no specific ideology except those of its leaders, which varied widely from
Hinduist ideologies of Tilak, Lajpat Rai, Malviya et al, Islamic Identity of
Jinnah, to those of different ideological groups embedded within INC, such as
Forward Bloc (1936), Congress Socialist Party (1934), and even Communists who briefly
joined the last mentioned in 1936. Significantly, two INC stalwarts, Malviya
and Lajpat were in Hindu Mahasabha. Clearly, INC was more of an organization of
freedom fighters than an ideological grouping.
Other
leaders of the Independence movement like Bose, M N Roy, Ambedkar, JP, Rajaji
and revolutionaries like Bhagat Singh and Aurobindo subscribed to many different
ideologies, including Marxism, Socialism, secularism, free-market and ‘Back to
Basics’, and more.
But leaders
of INC subsumed their ideologies in fighting for Independence, and it was their
collective wisdom that shaped it and determined the course it took over the
years. Of course, Gandhiji’s ideology was once thought of as the ideology of INC
but not for long after Independence.
The lineage
of the present Congress is quite convoluted. When the Congress of Nehru-Patel
combine began to rule, INC, having achieved its stated goal, had spiritually
ceased to exist. In fact, Gandhiji, famously wished that, having ‘outlived its
use’ as a political outfit, INC should be ‘disbanded’ to ‘flower into a -Lok
Sevak Sangh’. Indeed, such a ‘Sangh’ could have legitimately claimed the legacy
of INC.
Immediately
after independence, the Congress, like INC, did support plurality of opinions
in the party and cabinet. These opinions, harboured or expressed, varied from pro-Hindu
(Munshi, Tandon, Shyam Prasad et al), pro-Supressed Classes (Ambedkar),
Socialism, secularism, free-market (Rajaji), Western-liberalism (Nehru) and so
on. But after Patel, it was Nehru’s ideas all the way when those who disagreed with
him left. The opposition wilted as Congress dominated, backed by the enormous
goodwill of INC, eclipsing competing ideas in the national discourse to the
detriment of the nation.
After
Nehru, several regional ‘Congresses’ broke away, while its core leadership,
including Indira remained. When Indira, ousted from Congress by the ‘Syndicate’
(1969), formed Congress(R), the remainder- Congress (O)- was awarded the
original election symbol by EC. But when Congress (R) won the next general
election it became the ‘real’ Congress. After the defeat of 1977 elections,
Indira again left the ‘real’ Congress (1978) to form Congress (I) which the EC declared
as ‘real’ in 1981. But like the multiple images in opposing mirrors, none of
the Congresses was ‘real’ in the real sense.
Congress
(I) dropped its (I) in 1996, to claim the legacy of INC, as if that magnificent
legacy going back to 1885 was in her personal custody all along, or like Mary’s
little lamb, followed her or the protean election symbol of the Congress, as the
Party stumbled, turned and split multiple times like an amoeba. Else, did the ‘legacy’
rapidly change hands among the ‘real’ and ‘unreal’ Congresses as they vanished
one-by-one, till Indira’s Congress was the only one left holding it? It has
since been passed down the Gandhi-cum-Congress-lineage like a family heirloom.
In any
case, how credible is the claim of the unidimensional, dynastic Congress to the
legacy of INC, sans the latter’s qualities like spirit of service, nobility of
purpose, individualism, internal democracy, and intellectuality?
To put the
question at rest, the true legacy of INC can only be in its rightful place- in
the history of India and its people-nowhere else. Likewise, India owes its
Independence to those who fought for it, and not to their putative
descendants. If the Congress claims the
credit for winning Independence citing its tenuous ancestry, so can other
parties that were founded by freedom fighters or share their ideologies - like
Forward Bloc (Bose) Communist Party (Roy, Dange), SP (Lohia), BSP (Ambedkar), BJP
(Lajpat, Malviya, Shyam Prasad) and so on. But, if INC had retained its noble character
and remained united till now, its claim to its legacy in its present form could
have been credible.
The British
left India no doubt due to the moral pressure exerted by INC. But if the tired British,
imagining a finale to what started in 1857 and simmered till the 1946 Naval
mutiny, chose to hand over power to the outstandingly honourable INC in a high
moral act rather than to lose it at enormous cost of lives and loss of face,
the revolutionaries too get credit for our Independence.
All those who
fought for India’s Independence, including those in INC, came from all over
India, from all sections of its society, held multiple ideologies and trod many
different paths to reach that goal; the present generation can only be grateful
to them, and no group can have exclusive claim to that legacy.
Hopefully, the
Congress might someday attain a level of excellence rivalling INC’s, needing no
conjured-up legacy.
________________
Venkatraja
U Rao
