Mr Rajiv Gandhi must be an innocent abroad if he truly needed reverses in the recent by-election to appreciate the magnitude of the decline of the Congress party even as an election machine. Surely he is not such an innocent despite his relatively brief experience in politics. Surely he would have known that the Congress is a shambles all over the country, including in the states it continues to rule, thanks to the mandate it was able to secure in the surcharged atmosphere in the wake of Mrs Indira Gandhi’s assassination. Indeed, there is no dearth of evidence to show that he has been alive to the need to restore the party to some kind of health. Only he has either not known what to do, or he has not been able to summon the necessary resources and courage to undertake the task. So the relevant question is whether the recent electoral reverses will convince him that he cannot afford to evade the issue of somehow reactivating the Congress, whether he will be able to work out a plan of action which bears some relation with the party’s genuine needs and whether he will be resolute enough to push that plan through.
Clearly he must first diagnose the party’s main malady before he can evolve a worthwhile plan of action. There is so far no evidence that he is sensitive to the central weakness of the party. It is, therefore, possible that his remedies may well aggravate the problem he faces. In order to revive the Congress, Mr Gandhi has to begin with curtailment of his own powers as party president; this he is most unlikely to think of. And no one in his entourage is likely to tell him that unless he restores a measure of democracy in the party, he just cannot revive it. The Congress began to languish long before Mrs Indira Gandhi came to dominate it after the great split in 1969, but emasculated it to a point which was inconceivable earlier. She nominated state and district party chiefs from New Delhi just as she nominated chief ministers and ministers in the Congress-majority states. This was “democratic centralism” communist-style with the additional handicap that, unlike in communist countries, the party functionaries in India have not enjoyed power over the administration. There was a “saving grace” in Mrs Indira Gandhi’s case inasmuch as she knew a lot of Congress workers up to the taluka/district level all over India. Mr Rajiv Gandhi has continued the practice without even the limited advantage of the mother’s acquaintance with the party workers. The result could not have been different from what it has been.
Mr Rajiv Gandhi came to the office of Congress president in 1984 convinced of the need for party elections which had not been held for well over a decade. These could not be pushed through in 1985 because it was alleged that lakhs of bogus members had been enrolled by those determined to capture the organisation for their own ends. Then came the arms deals related scandals in early 1986 which so preoccupied Mr Rajiv Gandhi and his key aides that they could hardly think of the party. So it would be tempting to press the suggestion for early party elections. But in reality that would be an exercise in escapism. Early elections in the Congress are not a feasible proposition. The leadership is just not prepared for them. Equally, if not more, important, the organisation is not in good enough health to be able to cope with the upheaval elections must create. Organizational elections must be held but not before a number of other steps have been taken to strengthen the party.
The best way to initiate the process of reviving the Congress is to allow its state legislature parties and PCCs to elect their own leaders. This will certainly involve a lot of factional infighting. But only those who have less than adequate understanding of the dynamics of politics can be horrified by that prospect. Factionalism has been a sign of strength in the Congress and not a sign of weakness. Factionalism, so long as it is contained within the organisation, helps widen its social base. In its absence in the Congress, aggrieved groups must seek access to power through other parties. That is exactly what has been happening. While the Congress has not been a monolith, it has been too moribund to attract aspirants to power whose number has inevitably been growing with increasing politicization. Also, there is just no other way for the party to throw up men and women who have the stature and the skills to manage the states. Imagine a deputy minister in New Delhi managing the party in UP. No, Mr. Rajiv Gandhi, neither the country nor the Congress can be run from New Delhi. Both are too vast and heterogeneous to admit to being managed from a single power centre. Indeed, the Indian spirit detests nothing more than attempts at undue concentration of authority in one individual centre.