NEW DELHI, 21 March 2004 — And so, in the honorable state of Uttar Pradesh, my enemy’s enemy is not necessarily my friend. That is the sharp message that emerges from the interminable alliance-building exercise on the eve of the war for the 14th Lok Sabha. The price of hubris is paid in every tragedy. And yet it is pitiful to see the Grand Old Party, Congress, knock on any door like an aging impotent in search of anyone who will say “yes”. For a hundred years since its birth in 1885, UP has been the scene of the party’s finest triumphs. Never was it more glorious than in 1984. Rajiv Gandhi lost the state in 1989, but destiny did not give him time to recover what he had lost.
His successors have been indifferent or worse. P.V. Narasimha Rao, of course, dared not step into the state after Dec. 6, 1992. But he thought he could win by artifice what he had lost by cynicism. He entered into an alliance that buried the Congress. He made a deal with the Bahujan Samaj Party of Kanshi Ram and Mayawati. The boomerang still knocks down the Congress three general elections later. The Congress gave legitimacy to a party aspiring to be the sole spokesman of a key Congress vote, the Dalits, a vote delivered to the party by Mahatma Gandhi. Kanshi Ram and Mayawati are not careless leaders. They have refused to return this vote to the Congress.
Sonia Gandhi was not as cynical as Narasimha Rao, but she was either indifferent or perhaps too enveloped by a sense of self-esteem to see clearly. She has been in charge of the Congress for over six years now.
The only part of Uttar Pradesh that seems to matter to her is Amethi, or perhaps Rae Bareli as a future resource base for her daughter Priyanka. I cannot think of a single issue, or cause, that she has fought for that might bring the Congress back in Uttar Pradesh, or, for that matter, Bihar. Congress leaders tend to go into denial when confronted with the obvious, or become accusatory. But this is the simple truth.
There are two possible explanations. First, under Sonia Gandhi, Congress politics has become extremely Delhi-oriented. (Rajiv Gandhi, if anything, erred in the opposite direction; he was constantly on the move, which is why he retained the affection of people even when they did not vote for him.) One can explain this, but not condone it. Sonia Gandhi’s inability to speak fluently in Hindi, her complete imprisonment to a text, and her natural reserve make her a poor communicator.
You can appreciate therefore her reluctance to take to the road. It is arguable that if there were no elections there would not have been the current spate of “road shows” either. (For those who might be unfamiliar with the term, “road shows” are what an entrepreneur does when he sets out to raise capital for a project.) The second possible explanation is that the Congress leadership does not have a clue as to how it might recover Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. It has ceded Bihar to Laloo Prasad Yadav, and finds that it is being marginalized even from the margins. The justification is that the defeat of the BJP is more important than the recovery of the Congress.
This suits Laloo Yadav brilliantly, because he eliminates a political danger from one end of the spectrum. Laloo Yadav is conscious that not only might he be defeated by the BJP, but also that the Congress could occupy his space when the sins of power corrode his strength. Five years ago, the BJP and the NDA surprised Laloo Yadav in the general elections. The Congress did no analysis. It has done absolutely nothing, apart from cadging a bit of power, to spread itself and gain from the ebb of Laloo Yadav. This leaves the BJP-NDA as the only alternative. If therefore there is voter resentment in the coming general election, the only beneficiaries will be the BJP-NDA combination. The paradox should be evident to all but the simple-minded.
This is not an argument against alliances; it is an argument against thoughtlessness. The Congress, once described by Jawaharlal Nehru as the central fact of India, must approach alliances from a different perspective. An alliance must be an exercise in strength, not an alibi for weakness. The Congress may no longer be the central fact of India, but at the very least it must be the central fact of any alliance, in the manner that the CPI (M) leads the Left Front in Bengal or the BJP leads the NDA nationally. The facts of Uttar Pradesh are even more tortuous than those of Bihar. The Congress looks isolated and pathetic as it waits for favors from Mayawati long after she has publicly stated that she has none to offer. There is nothing personal about Mayawati’s decision. It is not in her political interest to revive a party that could retake her voter-base. When Mulayam Singh Yadav offers a sliver of support, he wraps his offer with taunts that are both personal and political. The Yadav leaders of UP and Bihar are perched on a platform of strength; the Congress is a supplicant.
What better metaphor could there be for Uttar Pradesh than a river? The size of UP should be measured not in geography but in demographics. There are three rivers meandering through the demographics of UP, and it is unsurprising if in many a “doaba” there is some mingling of waters. Mayawati commands the river of Dalits propelled by occasional tides of engineered Muslim or other-caste support when her candidate is outside her caste. Mulayam Singh Yadav feeds off a river of Backwards and Muslims, and must strain every nerve to prevent either from breaking out into tributaries of their own. The BJP flow has been widened ever since it joined some Backward castes to upper-caste Hindu support. The strength of the three fluctuates according to the tide of events. The Congress, once appropriately considered the mainstream, is now reminiscent of Saraswati. It has dried up. But the riverbed has not yet disappeared, although further mismanagement of the party could ensure this as well.
Self-inflicted wounds continue to maim the Congress. Sonia Gandhi has just hurt the Congress badly in Assam.
The Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Hind is a national and nationalist organization that fought alongside the Congress in the freedom movement, and has remained with the Congress. While its network of activists and maulvis operate all over, its principal strength is in Assam. Traditionally, the Congress has kept one seat in the Rajya Sabha for a nominee of the Jamiat. Indira Gandhi made Maulana Asad Madni, head of the organization, a Rajya Sabha MP, and Rajiv Gandhi continued the commitment. They were practical leaders who understood the value that the Jamiat brought to the party. Digvijay Singh, who is in charge of the Congress in Assam, understands the local ethos and knows the party’s history. He recommended that Maulana Madni be given the seat again. Instead, Sonia Gandhi handed the seat to a certain Sylvius Condopan. The fact that Condopan is a Christian may be incidental, but it is already fueling speculation that such an unusual decision was taken under “pressure”. The Muslims, who ensured victory for the Assam Congress in both the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls five years ago are feeling cheated. Such alienation was utterly unnecessary.
The after-effect has been immediate. The Jamiat will put up four candidates in Assam, thereby almost certainly ensuring Congress defeat in those constituencies. It has also urged Muslims to vote for the AGP elsewhere and even hinted that they could support the BJP where the “candidate” deserves the vote. The number of votes the BJP gets thereby is less important than the fact that the “untouchability” barrier has been broken.
You cannot become an Indira Gandhi by simply walking like her. You also have to behave like her. Congress alliances are trouble-free in two states: Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra. In Tamil Nadu the Congress has solved all problems by surrendering all ambition; this happened long before Sonia Gandhi.
Maharashtra is fine because the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party are simply factions of the same party. They know each other’s strength and have claimed their share with minimum acrimony. But in Andhra Pradesh, the Congress has once again allied with a Telangana regional party from a position of weakness. A few seats more cannot compensate for the loss of credibility in a state where the Congress is a natural claimant for power. Weakness may be useful in any compromise that serves the present, but it can never win the future. There is an immutable law of alliances, a law that holds for any party, whether it is Congress, BJP or the CPI (M). Two lines of Urdu poetry sum it up well: Kaise bazaar ka dustoor tumhe samjhaoon Bik gaya jo woh kharidar nahin ho sakta. It is almost impossible to translate the sentiment into English without an element of bathos, but I will try: How should I explain the law of this marketplace? He who has been sold can never be a buyer.
