What ails the Congress?

A Strategy for rebuilding the party in the face of Hindutva wave.

Defined constituency:

From 1947 to 1984, you might characterize Congress’s politics as paternalistic.  

It was a Brahmin led party, but with an enlightened outlook in the Nehruvian mode, that sought to build a coalition that could support modernity - more equality for the Dalits & Adivasis, more liberal in the social sphere, a strategy of rapid industrialization through state garnered capital, but not denying a prominent role for the private sector, and modern education.  

The strategy matched its broad political constituency - a core of Brahmins 10%, Dalits 20%, Muslims 12% - gave it 42% of the vote.  

To this add others floating votes, largely from those who could identify with the Nehruvian idea of modernity, and the party held undisputed away over the electorate.

The Base began to fray.

By the time IG came to power, the base had begun to fray.  

Firstly tokenism began to creep in.  The Dalits and Muslims were fobbed off with tokenism at the grassroots level, even as their leadership continued to enjoy power. Congress hold over them weakened.  

Upward mobility unleashed by the Congress drive for modernity produced an educated cohort of rising middle castes, what we call the OBCs today, who were unable to enter the Congress at the grass root level, because they saw no reason to defer to the Congress Brahmanical hegemony.  They preferred to rise on their own, & challenge the Congress. IG’s reign saw a host of such parties rise in the Hindi heartland. 

Indira Gandhis response to the challenge of middle castes was more class polarization, using the Communist parties as an ideological vanguard.  The rhetoric helped stem the rising tide of OBCs challenge to Brahmin hegemony, but only for a while.  

The Congress citadel was shrinking.  

Its core constituency sensed that Brahmins were no longer interested in sharing real power.  By the time Rajiv Gandhi arrived on the scene, the opposition had learned how to forge alternate combination of caste alliances - form more organic and granular coalitions at the constituency level - as opposed to Congress’s rainbow alliance held together by the theme of modernity - to beat the Congress.

Identity vacuum

Congress started groping around for opportunistic ways to hold on to power in the 1980s. 

The Dalits had found a leader in Kanshi Ram and his protege Mayawati.  Congress’  Dalit core was rapidly dissolving.  The Congress needed a replacement for the core, and sought to find it in the BJP core of traders, merchants and conservative Hindus, cutting across caste. Hence the opening of Ayodhya Temple doors.

This was a disaster. Congress failed to win BJP’s core, but ended up with Muslim suspicion of Congress’ good faith.

Once the tailwind of 1984 sympathy wave was spent, class and caste asserted itself, and Congress was shown the door in 1989. 

Increasingly, UP and the Hindi heartland, were growing out of the Congress mould, but it was unable to accommodate and co-opt the rising castes, because they wouldn’t accept the hegemony of Brahmins that dominated the Congress; and who were a spent force anyway.

The Rise of the BJP.

Since the early 70s, BJP had stuck to its core constituency of upper castes, traders, merchants, and conservative Brahmins, careful not to disturb its core, even as it built alliances with other political parties, who represented the rising OBC castes, to share power.  

And then it hit upon the temple issue, not so much to attract more adherents to its fold, as to expose the the Congress fault line of pretending to be too many things, to too many different people. To some extent, it was retaliation for Congress trying to expand its base among Hindus, by reopening the Ayodhya Temple doors.

The gambit was wildly successful. 

Congress was caught between the devil & the deep sea, while the BJP was seen as the better & more honest Hindu party.  From then on, the BJP began to accommodate the Congress Brahmins to its fold at the local level, whittling away the core of the Congress grassroots level leaders and workers, leaving the part without any roots. Especially in UP and the Hindi heartland.

BJP thus became the party of Conservative Brahmins, and other Conservative Hindus, who weren’t wedded to Congress’ by then empty secularism, and/or social liberalism towards Dalits; and it was this newly invigorated alliance that ABV led to victory in 1998/99.  

Since I am not writing about BJP, I will end this brief by noting that BJP added Modi, and a more hardline Hindutva, to the BJP kitty, to attract some of the OBC votes to the BJP fold.  Essentially, most if not all Brahmins, have moved over from Congress to BJP. BJP became the new party of the Brahmins, albeit the more Conservative lot.

Congress Party sans base:

It is a tribute to the Congress’ founders that it can still muster a  20% legacy vote, on a pan India basis, even without any well defined constituency.  But the BJP jib that Congress is a party of the Muslims only, illustrates how the Congress has been unable to reformulate its identity, social base, ideology or strategy.

Today, analytically speaking, apart from such minorities such as the Muslims, Sikhs, or the Tamil Dravids, who simply cannot see themselves in the same boat as the BJP, Congress has no other natural constituency.  

The OBCs have their own parties - though not in all states, as do the Dalits.  Brahmins have already shifted over to the BJP, except for some die hard liberals.  

With the BJP having taken the Brahmins, along with its 25% conservative core, the party now starts the race at 35% of the vote, to Congress 20%.  

At the margins, the BjP only needs some small adjustments at the local level, plus some polarization, to ratchet up its vote share to 40%, the level needed for a majority, in our first past the post wins electoral system.  

In fact BJP is being propelled to overkill by its extremists.  It doesn’t need that much polarization to win, so long as Modi brings in some OBC votes.  And the Dalit vote can be split at the constituency level through electoral engineering.

Congress response so far:

Frankly, I have not seen the Congress discuss and debate its future so far.  Congress is being consumed by its leadership issue.  

Unless it has a clear leader, with a clear vision, and new sense of what its core constituency is, with a strategy to create a new rainbow coalition that adds up to 50% of the vote, Congress as party has no future, though it may still be catapulted to power by the sheer scale at which the economy is going to the dogs under Modi.  

Had it been anybody but this Congress in the opposition, Modi would be unable to govern today.

While I have no idea what Congress has in mind, to me its is clear that Congress will have to be rebuilt from scratch.  

It can still ride its legacy vote until it does the rebuilding.  But it has to recognize that it is no longer a party of the Brahmins, and must purge itself of any notion of winning them back.  

Instead it must go for the bottom half of the pyramid - the Dalits, Adivasis, Muslims, and OBCs.  This is the only viable constituency that can be socially and ideological knit together as a cohesive alliance, with a commonality around economic interests, job creation, access to education, and economic growth.  

BJP’s hard core Hindutva appeal to this constituency is very limited.  But there can be no foisting bogus leaders on any of these constituencies as before.  Which is why Congress must purge the self-seeking Brahmins and give genuine leadership positions to Dalits, Muslims, OBSc such that these communities are lead by their own leaders.  

The Congress top leadership than can then serve to weld this social and economic coalition into an effective force to take the entire polity forward, based on economic growth and social justice.

Rebuilding the party will take time.

So for starters, Congress must carefully invest its legacy vote in coalitions with Dalit, Muslims, and OBCs, and seek to build a coalition that allows for an element of permanence in due course of time.  

It should seek its due share of power, because without that, it is difficult to attract and retain talent.  But power per se should not be the immediate goal.  

Congress has nothing but its legacy, it needs to demonstrate good faith, and the best way to do it is to give leadership to the natural leaders of the these constituencies, that already exist in other parties, while seeking to build cadres of it own.

To a certain extent the loud brouhaha over Hindutva is the echo effect of shrill narrative of a vast propaganda machinery, the bandwagon effect, and the sheer need to avoid being left out.  

In a feudal society, totally dependent on patronage networks, to not submit to the ruling party, is to invite social and economic isolation.  

So people feel compelled to wear the dress, show the badge, shout the required slogans, and wear their piety on their foreheads. But the reality of hypocrisy in Indian society is not lost on anyone. Very few are fooled for long.  

Economic reality is like nature.  You must eat 3 times, send kids to school, earn a living, that these things don’t change with seasons, fashions, or times.  They have a wonderful way of bringing people down to earth, and these things prevail in the long run.

So Congress must shed its diffidence, recognize its has been deserted by its old base, and forge a new one. And work for the long haul.  

It has no assets today except its legacy; but a powerful legacy comprising a brand name, recognition, old memories of prowess; and it can invest these assets carefully in new coalitions; that allow it to give genuine leadership to natural community leaders, while building its own cadres anew.  

Define the base of Dalits, Muslims, OBCs.  Learn what matters to them. Work out strategies and coalitions, and work to defeat the political adversary number one - the socially regressive core of Hindutva, that wants to take us back to medievalism.  

Unless you do that, and do it openly and visibly, I don’t see opinion makers who create political waves, and cause ambitious leaders to switch sides as they sense new opportunities, returning to the Congress or the coalition it supports.

Anymore dithering and even the legacy capital will start to erode and evaporate.  

On the other hand, had the Congress not shunned the OBCs as direct challenge to its Brahmin hegemony, it would not be in such dire straits.  

So the change I advocate is just what should have happened naturally, in a growing polity but didn’t, since vested interest squelched the natural impulse in pure self-interest.  

Time to correct for past errors.