“India has bled. We have paid a heavy price. We have been restrained in our responses. It was time that there was retaliation, but it was measured and calibrated,” Congress leader Anand Sharma said recently about India's global outreach on Operation Sindoor. In saying that, the former Minister of State (MoS) for External Affairs was the latest to break ranks with the official Congress line, which has chosen to criticise the outreach as a “diversionary tactic”. This was significant, given that Sharma was among the original names furnished by the Congress - and the only one to be co-opted - in the official delegation.
Coming after the public defiance of the Congress party by leaders such as Shashi Tharoor and Manish Tewari, who are part of the delegations themselves, it reflected the divergence between these leaders and the party's official stance, represented by Leader of Opposition (LoP) Rahul Gandhi. Even as the Congress backed the government wholeheartedly when India's strikes on Pakistan were on, it struck a discordant note following the ceasefire announcement, going as far as labelling External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar a ‘mukhbir', meaning ‘informer'.
A Tug Of War
The dissonance in the grand old party lays bare a larger ideological tug-of-war playing out between the increasingly Leftist posturing adopted by the party under Rahul Gandhi, and the contrarian position represented by Tharoor, Tewari and Anand Sharma. Even someone such as P Chidambaram has adopted a position similar to the trio's in the wake of Operation Sindoor, diverging from his own United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government's approach of strategic restraint that was exercised in the aftermath of the ghastly terrorist attacks in Mumbai in 2008. In fact, something from the 2019 Balakot strikes comes to mind: in the aftermath of that attack, Rahul's close associate, Sam Pitroda, had boldly stated, “Attacks happen all the time. We could have reacted by sending our planes following the 2008 Mumbai attack, but that is not the right approach. Eight people come and do something - you don't jump on the entire nation [Pakistan].”
Today, the contrasting positions taken by Rahul and team and dyed-in-the-wool Nehruvians such as Tharoor, Tewari and Sharma on Operation Sindoor are essentially an extension of the rebellion the G-23 group of leaders had waged in 2020, calling for introspection and collective decision-making. That Tharoor, Tewari and Sharma were also a part of that team is no coincidence.
The Battle Over Ideology
“We are the G-23, but definitely not Ji huzoor [yes-men] 23”, Kapil Sibal had famously declared at a press conference five years ago, before his outbursts eventually led him to chart an independent course. Sibal was referring to the increasing democratic deficit in the Congress, with the coterie surrounding Rahul Gandhi influencing policy decisions and yes-men such as KC Venugopal blindly implementing them.
The Congress has always been a liberal party with a big-tent approach, where its leaders constituted an ideological spectrum from the Left to the Centre-right. Of late, however, the party has taken a distinct Left turn, though whether that's out of electoral pressures or a deeper ideological shift is another debate. In fact, Rahul had himself once claimed that the 1991 reforms ran its course by 2012. Regardless, the leftward tilt only seems to have eroded the middle-class base of the Congress over successive elections.
The radical turn could also be a reflection of the gradual withering of Left parties in India, with the larger Left ecosystem being on the lookout for a platform to articulate their politics, hijacking the Congress.
It is well-known how Rahul is close to many Left-leaning intellectuals in Delhi. Congress has also seen an influx of young Left leaders in recent times. Beyond Kanhaiya Kumar, they include Rahul's close aide Sandeep Singh, Shahnawaz Alam, Sudhanshu Bajpayee, Raghunandan Yadav, Sarita Patel - all formerly associated with the All India Students Association (AISA), the student wing of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist). Rahul's bromance with the late Sitaram Yechury, the general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), was also legendary.
Shrinking space
When a political party adopts an extreme ideological posture, it also leads to the shrinking of internal democracy and space for dissent. Lately, the Congress under Rahul has been trying to impose a singular outlook, without broad consultations. Veteran leaders are expected to toe the line when it comes to Rahul's aggressive social media posts, without any attempt to forge consensus.
The intolerance to differing opinions manifests as personal attacks and even defacing of property, as in Kapil Sibal's case - something that prompted P Chidambaram to lament that “the safe harbour to which one can withdraw seems to be silence”. Anybody who questions the official line is immediately dubbed a traitor or a ‘closet Sanghi' with suspect loyalty.
Rocking The Foundation
The Left pivot of the Congress has seemingly begun to alter the fundamental character of the party. Today, it is being claimed that the party's ideology has always been ‘centre-left', with its radical turn being defined in ‘left-liberal' terms.
This is a flawed argument. From the Gandhi-led pre-independence era to the UPA years, the Congress has always been a centrist party. In fact, the term ‘left-liberal' is an oxymoron in itself.
Nehru, who is routinely championed by Marxists these days, used to be criticised heavily by the likes of AK Gopalan and socialists Jayaprakash Narayan and Ram Manohar Lohia. Nehru didn't pin a fresh rose to his jacket every day as a socialist symbol, but as a mark of remembrance for his wife Kamala. Indira Gandhi's socialist turn in the late 1960s was merely transactional in approach, as exemplified in her last term (1980-84). And Rajiv Gandhi was very much a change agent.
Narasimha Rao's reformist zeal needs no recounting, and the UPA under Manmohan Singh carried forward that momentum. True, the UPA had the National Advisory Council (NAC), a parallel governance structure led by Sonia Gandhi, to contend with. However, it would be worth recalling that when UPA-II ran into trouble following the India Against Corruption (IAC) movement led by Anna Hazare, many of those in the NAC were the first to turn against the government.
Rediscovering liberalism
The dissonance in Congress today is not limited to the question of nationalism or national security alone. There is a much larger ideological confrontation. Recall Anand Sharma's letter on caste census to party president Kharge ahead of the 2024 election, on how it was a historic departure from its policy of not “endorsing or engaging in identity politics”. Sharma referred to Indira Gandhi's clarion call in the 1980 election, “Na jaat par na paat par, Mohar lagegi haath par”, and Rajiv Gandhi's speech on the Mandal Commission report, “We have problems if caste is defined to enshrine casteism in our country…”.
Similarly, legal eagle Abhishek Manu Singhvi had said in a now-deleted post, “Equality of opportunity is never the same as equality of outcomes. People endorsing #jitniabadiutnahaq have to first completely understand the consequences of it. It will eventually culminate into majoritarianism”. Ahead of the induction of Kanhaiya Kumar into the Congress, Manish Tewari went on to recall a 1973 book by Mohan Kumaramangalam, Communists in Congress, which talked about the infiltration of Marxists into the party.
Both Anand Sharma and Manish Tewari (as well as Ghulam Nabi Azad, another member of the G-23 part of the Operation Sindoor outreach) have served as presidents of the Indian Youth Congress, unlike Rahul, who once ironically, but famously, remarked that “poverty is a state of mind”.
Just A State Of Mind?
Perhaps Gandhi needs to be rescued from this course by the Nehruvian liberals in his party. Not too long ago, Shashi Tharoor shared a tweet by Milind Deora - who was then still in the Congress - plugging an article in The Economist, which argued how classical liberals must reclaim lost ground from the radical fringe to ensure economic progress. Tharoor was unequivocal on how liberalism is the best engine for equitable progress. “We have to strengthen the progressive centre of Indian politics, which is where Congress has historically stood,” he had said.
That doesn't, by any stretch of imagination, imply, as the Marxists are often prone to protest, being BJP-'lite'. In fact, more recently, Tharoor went on to explain unambiguously why he cannot join the BJP: “I have always been a classical liberal. I oppose communalism and believe in social justice alongside economic growth”.
The clash in the Congress, then, is not between classical liberalism and social liberalism: it is very much a clash of ideology between left dogmas and liberal principles. Ahead of the 2024 polls, Rahul Gandhi promised to erase India's poverty in one fell swoop with blanket cash transfers to the tune of a lakh - “khatakhat khatakhat” - for people below the poverty line. Classic Left tropes such as doles and appeals to identity politics reflected Gandhi's inability to engage with the youth and India's aspirational middle class. Just like a Jeremy Corbyn or a Bernie Sanders, Gandhi may have built for himself a cult following. But with the Congress's founding ideological principles diluted, this may only damage the party.
(Anand Kochukudy is a senior journalist and columnist)
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author
