End of Congress culture and rise of nationalistic ideology

A leadership crisis is not the cause of the decline of Congress, but it is the decline of its ideology and even the best leaders may not be able to save its ideologically incoherent ship

In a democratic socio-political process, public participation is ensured indirectly through political parties. These political parties seek public support on the basis of ideas, ethos and programmes, loosely known as 'political ideology'. Ideology gives a purpose for which a party functions and aims for legitimate political power to fulfil the very ideology. This political ideology galvanises their support base in terms of voters, and based on this, the various political parties compete for power with an avowed purpose of implementing their ideology. In democratic societies worldwide, the political ideologies are broadly classified into centrist, leftist and rightist ideologies.

India has seen a wide range of political spectrum from centrist to nationalist political parties. The acclaimed political ideology of the Congress, the grand old party of India, which led the multi-ideology, the multi-regional, multi-people anti-imperialist struggle, was based on the ideas emanating from the political ethos of the freedom struggle. The Congress was not a single ideology but ideologies of various conflicting ideas and streams of the political spectrum in which different ideologies merged to fight for nationalism. The avowed political ideology of the Congress was 'secularism', Fabian Socialism and 'nationalism based on a plural and multi-cultural society'.

The Congress was so dominating in the political arena of the Indian political stage that it was known as the 'Congress system'. However, over the last two decades, the political space of India has witnessed a slow and incremental collapse of this ideological culture of the Congress party.

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Scholars are divided on the causes of this decline of the once one-party dominant system, which overshadowed India's political space for more than 50 years. Some view the decline of the Congress and attribute it to a lack of leadership. Others view the decline of the Congress as a decline of the 'Congress culture'.

Ironically, the ideology of the Congress, which should be the basis of any political outfit, has been replaced with an ideology which is diametrically opposite to the very philosophy for which it was formed. For the Congress, secularism meant 'sarva dharma sama bhava'. The ambiguous and amorphous secularism was used blatantly to appease a particular section of minorities, thereby grooming that particular section as a vote bank. It was publicly proclaimed that the minority has the first right to the resources of the nation, thus burying the ideas of equality and equitable distribution. Secularism was used as a tool to gain and maintain political power and was tweaked and twisted as per political exigency.

The state-led growth of the idealist Fabian socialism bred bureaucratic rule, which led to corruption, making corruption culture a part of the society to a large extent. The public had no option but to accept corruption as an informal societal and governmental norm. It has embedded so much in societal psychology that the public had to start a movement against corruption. It was against this background that India Against Corruption Movement led by Anna Hazare gained so much strength and power. The lasting legacy of the Congress was a 'corruptionised-society' permeating all the spheres of society: social, political and economic.

The avowed nationalism and national integration ethos, as championed by the Congress, got a jolt with the slogan of 'Bharat tere tukde honge Inshallah Inshallah', which arrested the attention of the nation during the 2016 JNU sedition row. It got hyped and earned notoriety as a war cry against the very national integration of Indian-nation by a left-leaning anarchist group of so-called students. The meaning of this slogan is - India, you will be divided into pieces as per the will of Allah. This provocative and highly anti-national slogan was raised at the JNU to protest against the hanging of Afzal Guru, who was convicted by the Supreme Court for abetting and aiding terrorists in India and waging war against the Indian nation. The Congress entrapped itself on the wrong side of nationalism when this slogan was ideologically supported by 'left-liberal-intellectuals' and the main so-called centrist ideologically aligned Congress. To lend support, the Congress leader even visited the JNU campus in February 2016 to express solidarity with the students.

This decline in ideology forced the Congress to seek support from personalities instead of basing itself on ideology. That is why the family leadership of the Gandhi family became so pivotal. In its quest to regain its lost base, the ageing Congress has compromised its ideological stands. It has included in its lap people from ideological extremes like those who are against the very ideological ethos of the grand but dying old party of India. Either the 'revolution' of Kanhaiya Kumar has been compromised or the 'ideology' of the Congress.

A leadership crisis is not the cause of the decline of the Congress. It is the decline of the Congress ideology which was very well highlighted by the rival BJP. Assuming even if the Congress has the best of the best leaders to lead, those leaders may not be able to save the ideologically incoherent ship of the Congress.

Against this, the right of the centre party, there emerged a new political force which is much clearer, unambiguous and decisive in its ideology. Interestingly, the decline of the Congress culture is inversely proportional to the rise in the nationalist ideology of the BJP. This is the ideology of the BJP. The BJP has a very unambiguous ideology on secularism, nationalism and economic growth. On national integration, it has been clear and has demonstrated the political willpower to abolish Article 370, which was the promise emanating from its ideology. It has shown a clear policy against Pakistan and China without any fear. Against internal security threats, there is zero tolerance for terrorism.

Further, the nationalism of the BJP is based on a revival of Indian culture. Indian nationalism for the BJP is cultural nationalism which has spiritualism at its core. According to them, India was a 'Rastra' and was 'Bharat', which signifies its older nationhood and civilisation. Indian nationalism predates its Mughal and British-imperial past though it may not be a nation-state as is understood by the western nation-states. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has used this national cultural revival of national resurrection and galvanised the feeling of nationalism.

This nationalism is reviving and is centred on and around the cultural symbols of India, which were whitewashed by the so-called left-liberals with the active support of the Congress culture. Interestingly, the potent rival of the BJP, which is projected to be the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) by many, is competing with the nationalist BJP on nationalism by following the symbols of nationalism as championed by the BJP, be it the feeling of nationalism through the national flag, Independence day and other symbols of Indian culture like Ram Mandir, etc. For the first time in India, we are seeing nationalism as the national narrative.

The era of nationalism and national revival has begun.

(Rajiv Tuli was formerly Delhi prant prachar pramukh of the RSS and is an author and commentator)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.