New Delhi: What is about the Congress’s icons that fascinates Prime Minister Narendra Modi?
After using Teacher’s Day on S Radhakrishnan’s birth anniversary to address school children, Modi invoked Mahatma Gandhi to launch his Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, recalled Lal Bahadur Shastri’s slogan of 'Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan' and has now staked claim on Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi whose birth anniversaries are coming up on 14 November and 19 November respectively. He wants to dedicate the week in between the two anniversaries to give an added impetus to his Clean India campaign, with the focus this time on primary schools and anganwadis.
The Congress' Manmohan Singh, Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi.
The inclusion of leaders like Jaiprakash Narayan - whose anniversary on 11 October is being used to launch the 'Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana' or the 'MP model village' programme - in the BJP-NDA’s upgraded list of pantheons is understandable because he is among the former Congressman who turned a virulent critic of Indira Gandhi. But it is the attempt to usurp the Congress leaders that raises curiosity.
The big question is why is Modi trying to appropriate them? There are several reasons for it, including his bid to remove them from the shackles of one party and restore them as the icons of the country.
But the one major factor behind this zeal is linked to his bid to establish a 'Congress mukt Bharat'. And India cannot be Congress 'mukt' until the 129-year old party is left rudderless and is denuded of icons who provide sustenance to it and help it reconnect with the masses, particularly when the chips are down.
Three strands of Congress Mukt Bharat
Indeed, there are three major strands, besides several others, in Modi’s move to "free India of the Congress": electoral, socio-political and motivational/inspirational. The party has already been de-capacitated by the first two. And if the third is also wrested from it, the organisation would have nothing to lean on for support.
Take the electoral decimation first.
Voting out the Congress
Though the process of erasing the Congress' footprints began in 2013 when Sonia Gandhi's party was virtually wiped out in Delhi, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, the call for a Congress Mukt Bharat was given when Modi went campaigning as a prime ministerial candidate in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
He achieved this objective partially when the BJP won a majority of its own within the NDA grouping and the Congress got only 44 of the 543 elective seats, failed to open its account in as many as 19 states and Union Territories and fell short by 11 seats to claim the status of leader of opposition in the Lower House.
As Prime Minister now, Modi is once again renewing this call while campaign for the 15 October assembly elections in Maharashtra and Haryana. If the electorate responds to it and the BJP forms a government in these two states, Modi would be getting closer to his goal of a Congress-free India.
But defeating the Congress electorally and reducing it to a marginal player is only a part of Modi's multipronged approach at stamping the Congress out of existence and installing the BJP as the dominant pole of Indian politics much like its predecessor was for a long time.
Shaking the Congress’s socio-political base
Even before Modi trampled on it, the Grand Old Party has been hobbling for almost a quarter of a century - and in some states even more than that -following the rise of identity politics in India. This was particularly evident in big states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, which together once accounted for 138 seats and after bifurcation for 120 of the 543 elective seats in the Lok Sabha. The Congress’s traditional Brahmin-Muslim-Scheduled Caste supporters switched their loyalty to the BJP and caste-based outfits like the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party in UP and the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Lok Janshakti Party in Bihar.
The Congress ruled Tamil Nadu on its own almost 50 years back when it was routed by the DMK in 1967. Since then, it has piggybacked either on the AIADMK or the DMK. In Gujarat the Congress' KHAM construct - of Kshatriyas, Harijans, Ahirs and Muslims — was smashed by the Patel factor and the BJP, with the party last in power some 20 years back.
In West Bengal, the Congress’s fortunes lasted till 1977. After that, the Left Front dominated the landscape for over three decades. Though the Congress was part of the Trinamool-led dispensation after Mamata Banerjee ousted the communists in 2011, it was a short-lived affair. And now, like in many other states, it is in the doldrums.
If the Congress managed to camouflage its growing decimation, it was because states like Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and the North East pumped some life into it.
The Congress gained some traction in 2004 when it went for alliances in its quest for power and wooed the poor, the lower middle and the middle class by promising Congress ka haath, aam aadmi ke saath. This paid dividends in 2009 also when the Sonia-Manmohan Singh-Rahul Gandhi triad brought in the support of the disadvantaged poor, aspirational middle class and the forward looking youths. But the move to construct a new vote bank began crumbling as the UPA-2 got mired in allegations of corruption and failed to check prices.
The vacuum created by the failure of the Congress leadership was filled by the emergence of Modi who was projected as and seen as the man who could deliver the country and its people from the political and economic woes. And as the ground continued to slip from under the Congress’s feet, it had only its legacy and icons to turn to for consolation. But Modi was in no mood to allow it even that.
Appropriating Icons
One has heard of people collecting coins, stamps, paintings, artworks, statues, books and so on. But Modi has given a new twist to it. He has emerged as perhaps the greatest icon collector in town, particularly those which the Congress thought belonged to it exclusively.
Ask a BJP man on why Modi is raiding on icons, and the stock response is that it is part of his effort to provide a truly 'inclusive' government so that tall leaders, no matter which party they belong to, are accorded due respect and used to inspire people across the country.
A Congressman tends to see it differently. "It is because the BJP lacks icons. The BJP-RSS does not have any tall leader who participated in the freedom struggle. To derive inspiration they turn towards ours. We have no objection if they adopt our icons since it shows that they do not have any of their own…" alleged spokesman Shakeel Ahmed.
But the truth would appear to lie elsewhere.
Modi, for one, knows that even if the Congress has been electorally mauled and does not have a solid support base to call its own, it could revive by taking inspiration from its icons and use it to infuse some energy into its demoralized cadres. The party has done it often when the going was rough. He, like many others, might remember how Indira had worsted her opponents who saw in her a 'gungi gudiya' by emulating Nehru and building a personality cult around herself.
Similarly, Sonia had reversed the Congress sliding fortunes by modeling herself on Indira in her sartorial attire and boldness in action. She jettisoned the Congress’s age-old 'go it alone' policy, tweaked her mother-in-law's emotive slogan of garibi hatao to come up trumps with her own Congress ka haath, aam aadmi ke saath and set up the party’s first coalition government at the Centre.
Much like Modi has done, the Congress too could have post-debacle used the anniversaries of its leaders to galvanise its workers for a long drawn struggle.
If Modi has appropriated the Mahatma, invoked Shastri, called for a countrywide programme on the anniversaries of Nehru or Indira - all icons who hold a special place in people’s mind - what is then left for the Congress to hitch its programmes and future on?
As Prime Minister, Modi has the advantage of an entire administrative machinery to give the necessary push to the government’s programmes pegged to such anniversaries. As a limp opposition, anything the Congress does can either be limited to party functions or to states where it is in power. After Maharashtra was placed under President’s Rule, the Congress is in power in 10 small states, including Haryana.
So when Modi goes about saluting the Congress’s icons he is consciously seeking to delink these icons from the Congress and erase from the public mind the synonymity of these icons with the Congress: he is trying to prevent a Congress revival and establish a Congress Mukt Bharat.
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