As the long-winded election campaign plods on, a lot has already changed on the Indian political scene. For one, the main opposition Congress party for the first time in more than a decade can clearly and in sharp relief articulate its political position before the electorate. This is the Indian National Congress firmly to the left of centre, less a question of degree and more a question of direction and position and the quadrant in which the party sits in the current political landscape. What is emerging from the party of liberalisation and privatisation is now no more a tentativeness with the agenda of social justice, wealth/income inequality, or workers’ rights; it is a clear placing of the flag, a sharp turn to the Left never before as clear as it was during the era of bank nationalisation under Indira Gandhi. The response of the electorate, just anecdotal at this stage, shows that the party is finding resonance and is in sync with the mood of the nation.

A commitment to this sharp ideological positioning is critical to the revival of the Congress, and while some will say the position has been forced by circumstance, it nevertheless appears to have been embraced wholeheartedly by the rank and file and the top leadership. This is one significant election outcome long before the announcement of the poll results on June 4. Do note that the BJP because of its sloganeering and expectation-setting has to cross its previous mark of 303 to be seen as victorious; the INDIA alliance has to pull the BJP below 272 to claim victory. Barring the possibility, extremely remote at this time, of the Congress and/or the INDIA alliance faring very poorly at these polls, what we have is a party that will shape the direction of policy in India in the days ahead. This is a role that the Congress had abdicated, sliding into irrelevance and ceding ground to the BJP in the absence of a clear political direction tied into a cogent positioning of the ‘what’, ‘how’ and ‘why’ of the party. Without that, what we had was a plain and toothless attack on the communalism and corruption of the BJP that did not carry conviction and did not work with the electorate. The story has now changed.

BJP's missteps 

The decade-long slide of the Congress, and its quieter slide even while it held power at the Centre, was the inevitable consequence of a party noted for leading a neo-liberal agenda, given that its only accomplishment in recent times was the 1991 economic reforms. The reforms, too, were forced by circumstance. They attempted an unleashing of “animal spirits” on the one hand but also led to the curbing of workers’ rights and the fuelling of widespread corruption on the other hand; this corruption moved from public sector hegemony to private sector brazenness in the absence of strong governance and weak or non-existent policing or collusion. Broadly speaking, these developments unsurprisingly fuelled the rise of the pro-BJP moneyed classes, who in alignment with the other assorted gentry in terms of class, caste and status, cited the cases of high corruption under the Congress to work for bringing the BJP to power. The deplorable role played by Anna Hazare, who led the India Against Corruption movement but has stayed silent since then, even in the face of emerging monumental corruption scandals from the BJP stable, has already been exposed.

In this frame, GDP growth at any cost became the talking point of the Indian elite looking to cash in on the coming business boom. The BJP in power took it to its extreme by hand-picking its favourite business houses for special honours while others were asked to settle disputes via the Enforcement Directorate. The rest of India was left to wallow in the failed ideas of trickle-down economics and food coupons that feed 800 million Indians today, more than half of India, under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana.

Rahul's emergence

Adding further strength to the Congress today is a leadership that is looking ready and robust, willing to take on the challenges before the nation. Rahul Gandhi has bloomed in the leadership role and is looking good in the seat, sending out the right messages and signals as he mixes stories and experiences from the Nyay Yatra to create exciting political narratives that are bold, grounded and refreshing. Remarkably, Rahul Gandhi has been able to do that with a campaign that has stayed away from any bitterness in the face of innumerable odds, and a bitter and hateful BJP campaign that has focused a large amount of its resources on denigrating him and his family. Rahul Gandhi’s emergence also proves that there is a limit to reliance on ‘pundits’, some of them giving questionable advice and one even questioned the timing and wisdom of his hugely successful Nyay Yatra (March for Justice).

What this resurgence of the Congress has also done is derail in part the BJP campaign, which led from the very top by Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself has tended to focus on what the Congress is doing or its perceived ills rather than what the BJP has done and what it promises for the next five years. This marks an internal collapse for the BJP, and if the party is not careful to pull back that slide, it will be walking into a trap of talking more about the opponent than about itself. 

Lastly, it is important to note that the Congress has rejected former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and all that he brought to the table, whether it says so explicitly or not. This is a necessary condition for the new Congress to build credibility. In the end, Manmohan Singh was a bureaucrat who may have succeeded in the sub-set of economics but failed miserably in the super-set of politics. The former is a tool; the latter is a philosophy. Efficient use of any tool is dangerous in the absence of an understanding of why it is being used and where it will lead. This should be a warning to today’s Congress to stay away from retired bureaucrats. It will have to keep a sharp eye on corruption. And the Congress will need more young blood and people of commitment to build a team so that the party can remain vibrant, whether it is in power or not.

(The writer is a journalist and faculty member at SPJIMR, Mumbai. Views are personal. By special arrangement with The Billion Press)