Why Congress May Never Recover

Political obituaries are a crap shoot.  And one that calls for the end of India’s GOP is fraught with risking one’s face getting plastered with a basket full of fresh eggs. 

Political pundits are convinced that Rahul Gandhi lies at the heart of most ills that plague India’s Grand old party (GOP).  No doubt there’s merit in this line of thinking.  But Rahul is more a symptom than a cause for Congress’ many ills.

Much as Businesses have a ‘Business Model’, Political parties have a ‘Political Model’.  Failure to adapt to changing market dynamics can deposit even the most powerful business or political entities on the chopping block of History.

‘Politics of Patronage’

Congress’s Political Model could best be described by drawing parallels with the structure of a Mafia organization.

A Don and his family rule the organization backed up by Capos, Captains and Soldiers.  There are only two means by which a soldier can dream of moving up the ranks is by a) Earning for the family and b) pledging absolute loyalty to the family.

For a political party (unlike the mafia) there’s a third path to rise to the top - albeit one with a delicate balancing act.  A political soldier can bring a caste/class/regional group to the fold which can bolster the family’s electoral fortunes.  But if said soldier gathers a significant popular space of his own he becomes a threat to the family and is cut down by means fair or foul.

Family is all powerful and infallible.  Family’s popularity wins elections and any loss is pinned on local leadership.  The high command is supported by a string of clever, Machiavellian tier 2 and tier 3 leaders who couldn’t win a Panchayat election if their life depended on it.

Though Congress is perhaps the best practitioner of this political model, almost every party in India barring the BJP and the left have come around to accepting and adopting it.   Akalis, Shiv Sena, DMK, SP, BSP….they are all run on similar lines.  Even that Johnny-come-lately AAP has quickly morphed into a version of this model with the necessary veneer and rhetoric of cleanliness.

It is the overwhelming presence of the RSS and BJP’s dependence on their cadre which has prevented the party from becoming the family fiefdom of a senior leader. 

‘Politics of Performance’

PM Narendra Modi is perhaps the only Indian leader who recognized very early in his tenure as CM of Gujarat that the nature of emerging India would be unrecognizable from those British-worshipping generations who voted successive Congress governments into power.  Prior to his brazen power grab circa 2013, even his contemporaries in the BJP were ambling along, satisfied with being a poor replica of the Congress Party.

In his 3 short years, PM Modi has set a new benchmark.  

No scandals, no handouts, no special treatment, no coterie, no lackeys, food inflation under control, 24x7 power supply, surgical strike on Pakistan, war on corruption……PM Modi has birthed the ‘Politics of Performance’. 

And it’s delivery in a record 30 months has allowed Indians to juxtapose it against Congress’ ‘Politics of Patronage’ model. 

By exposing Indians to the possibilities, PM Modi has demonstrated the efficacy of his model.  There’s no going back.  

Either Congress and her clones (Congress+) start delivering at or above the levels established by BJP governments or risk being pushed into political oblivion.

It remains a steep mountain to climber and with PM Modi and his carefully selected team at state and central levels delivering at even greater levels this climb is getting steeper.

What are the odds stacked up against Congress+ ?

1.       Deliver a corruption free government and party operations

2.       Deliver on bijli sadak pani (infrastructure)

3.       Deliver on women’s security

4.       Deliver on jobs, control inflation

When a 85% (by Rajiv Gandhi’s own admission) of funds earmarked for people’s welfare are siphoned off by Congress’ patronage network, delivering welfare threatens the very structure that sustains Congress+ in power.

Delivery welfare and sustaining Congress’ political model are mutually exclusive.

It is now too late for Congress to alter course.  The last time this could have happened was under the late PM Rajiv Gandhi.  The roots of Congress’ political run deep.  Instead of one or two RK Dhawans or ML Fotedars, Congress is now beset with 100s if not thousands or such pimps and fixers – up and down its power structures.

These are the same enablers who helped Robert Vadra become a billionaire faster than Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates.

The family is just the biggest pimp from the pack.  There’s really no distinction between a Sonia Gandhi and a RK Dhawan.  There’s just no differentiation.

Both Demonetization and the destruction of Congress’ presence in government are strategies with a common aim – force Sonia to reach into her war chest.  One she has earned and guarded with great fortitude, even at the cost of her reputation and that of her family.

The family is now evaluating its balance sheet.  Do they keep investing in a party which is clearly incapable of surmounting a challenge given such impossible odds or cut their losses, keep the loot and have their future generations enjoy it in the cool climes of Europe.

The odds are such that even Priyanka Vadra will find it impossible to battle the juggernaut that is PM Modi.  BJP has kept its anti-Priyanka powder (aka Robert V) dry and will not hesitate to unleash it through calculated leaks and court cases as and when she insinuates a desire to take the plunge.

The decline and likely demise of the Congress should be a lesson to all parties who are regional versions of the Gandhi parivar.  The business model has changed, the customer has changed, the marketing channels have changed.  Which only means one thing – You must come up with a new, improved product. 

The same old Secularism/Caste/Language/Emotion/Reservations/Handouts simply wont work.  For one, people have tried it and it has failed them.  Secondly even an illiterate villager knows that the pie must grow so as to feed 1.2 billion Indians. The old model has collapsed.  India is in a hurry, for capital goods, for sound institutions, for a better quality of life.

PM Modi recognized this very early in his tenure in Gujarat.  The ‘pundits’ ridiculed him and his use of social media, his slogans and his schemes.  But they worked.  And now that the efficacy of his model has been established people want even more of it.

“If Modi can electrify the remotest of villages in less than 3 years, why did India have to wait 70 years in darkness?”  Congress and its ilk have no answers for these questions. 

Leaders don’t create revolutions, revolutions find their leaders.  PM Modi is tailor made for an impatient, unforgiving India.  Not only do the Gandhis not have an answer for this revolution, it is very likely no other party (including a BJP sans Modi) does.

Politics abhors a vacuum and a political party will emerge to fill the massive hole left behind by the Congress.  And it must.  For a single party rule is dangerous and self-defeating, as 70 years of India’s GOP has shown us.