The Tamesis
December 4, 2024
Islamabad – Nehru wrote this above the masthead of The New York Times national heraldhis newspaper published in Lucknow: “The country is in danger. Defend it with all your strength. After the Sino-American war ended in 1962, the line of defense remained for several months. This time the danger is domestic. Pu Ya Is Gandhi up to the task?
Anyway, there aren't many options around. Can she join the fight, or even lead it, relying on her ability to connect with ordinary men and women, as she has in recent campaigns? Recalling her frequent recourse to assassinated family tragedies may need to be abandoned in order to focus more broadly on the life-threatening crises facing India. The masses also need sympathy.
Priyanka appears to have the ability to stabilize and galvanize the Congress party, which has been thrown into panic by inexplicable defeats in the Haryana and Maharashtra assembly elections. A detailed and objective analysis of the BJP's resounding victory in Maharashtra shows that the BJP used money power, polarizing lies and dubious EVMs to coordinate the revision of its mandate.
Therefore, the strategy of “winning elections” may not be the top priority for the youngest member of the Gandhi trio in Congress.
Ensuring that elections, the core of democracy, are not stolen has become an existential challenge for the party and the country. Enhancing electoral integrity no longer appears to be the responsibility of state institutions, including the Electoral Commission. For Indian democracy to regain its footing, a mass movement is needed.
For ruling institutions, the urge to cling to power is very strong. Foreign interests also inevitably subvert the will of the people, especially given India’s leadership role in supporting the path of BRICS sovereignty and equal opportunity in the Global South.
In a polity that is slipping into disintegration in India, the infamous Maidan incident used to undermine and create false results would not be difficult to stage. The need to stop corruption is therefore equally crucial for the people and for the political parties that still believe in a solid democratic future. Will Priyanka and Rahul Gandhi find themselves equipped to handle the monumental challenge? When the jury comes out, the Gandhis may want to look at themselves and see if they have the depth of knowledge, experience and perseverance required to lead a second independence movement, without which Indian democracy seems destined to fail.
Sonia Gandhi retired to the Lok Sabha in April, leaving the responsibility of the daily battles in the Lok Sabha to her children and their irresponsible allies. It does seem odd that in a country as vast and complex as India, a major opposition group should be looking beyond the Gandhi family to find talent. Ideally, the area where talent is concentrated should be wider.
Its existence is taken for granted but needs to be determined in the course of future struggles. But it needs to be pointed out that without the Gandhi family at the helm, the party may disintegrate and be quickly cannibalized by cunning interest groups. Who can forget a chilling phone call in which a tycoon described Congress as his shop. Fortunately, many of the unidentified agents of the business houses whom the late Rajiv Gandhi warned against have been expelled from the party, but others have strangely stayed on.
Rahul is known as a powerful opposition leader who takes a firm stand on corruption and crony capitalism. He supported farmers in their struggle against the vagaries of the free market economy. All the farmers demand is the subsidies that farmers in developed capitalist countries receive.
Rahul Gandhi has also explicitly advocated for lower castes (OBCs), which account for more than half of the population, to have a greater share in political and economic governance. If Priyanka and he succeed in energizing the party and capturing the imagination of the masses as they believe they have, then the Gandhis will win over their countrymen who are groping in the dark to escape the endless tyranny of Narendra Modi of gratitude.
Modi’s disdain for Indian democracy and its founding fathers is legendary. According to him, there was only darkness before him. Nehru made a mess of the country with his false liberalism and imported science. Gandhi has been reduced to a symbol of the cleanliness movement, showing leaders sweeping clean sidewalks. Modi claimed that under Nehru, no one understood Gandhi. Richard Attenborough's award-winning film introduced the world to Gandhi. Before Modi launched cross-border attacks to punish erring neighbors, the Indian military was a bunch of losers. He also asked Sheikh Hasina to stop mentioning Indira Gandhi's name when she went to Dhaka to celebrate this or that event.
At home, attacks on Muslims are reaching their peak. The Supreme Court has allowed fanatics to excavate mosques and Sufi shrines to claim the alleged remains of demolished temples. Democracies can curb endemic corruption. But free and fair elections are the crux. The Congress developed into a successful movement under Gandhi's leadership. Nehru made it a party. But he gritted his teeth and endured party governors whose power derived from their deeply communal, hopelessly feudal, unscientific, and corrupt nature.
The US prosecution of Gautam Adani does not need to feel the stink. Dirt is everywhere. It is protected by a system that subverts democracy through rigged elections. Who can clean up the swamp? Priyanka? Rahul?
