Rahul Gandhi's vision for reviving Congress is exactly right

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Rahul Gandhi is not a popular man. Each week brings fresh news of an anti-Rahul rebellion, and the narrative remains pretty much the same: Helpless Sonia fails to hold together leaders angry at clueless Rahul; Congress party implosion imminent. 

In the midst of this constant doomsday-mongering then, it is refreshing to stumble upon someone who has a completely different view of the same set of rather dire circumstances, as does Rajesh Ramachandran in the Economic Times. His column's title, "Will Rahul Gandhi get his mojo back?"  is a bit misleading as it is unclear whether Rahul ever found his mojo at any point of his long but rocky career -- except perhaps the very early honeymoon period when he first became an MP.

But titles aside, the column does offer two important departures from the now staple Rahul narrative. One, there is a genuine ideological difference between Rahul and the Congress leadership. This isn't just a matter of naive Rahul being led by the nose by his 'NGO-type' advisers. There was good reason why he recently held his own organizational review without inviting the usual suspects on board, argues Ramachandran:

"There was no point in bringing them on board anyway because his "poor-only" agenda would have never gone down well with the traditional leadership. These leaders have thrived on the leadership opportunities offered by the umbrella party. And they firmly believe that Congress' success lies in being everything for everyone, instead of turning it into a 'Dalit-minority-poor' party. So, the leaders have all shuttered their shops and have gone into some sort of a hibernation."

The column takes a far more cynical view of Rahul's internal critics, framing them as career politicians whose 'rebellion' is  really an unseemly power grab for the chief minister post, be it in Assam or Maharashtra. None of them are quite as concerned about the Lok Sabha results as they pretend to be, writes Ramachandran: "Congressmen without power are like retired faujis. If they don't join some other job, they just sleep off their hangover waiting for their next round of burrapegs and pension."

The other interesting difference is that the column takes seriously Rahul's plan of action for Congress revival, arguing, "A dramatic course correction by Rahul to be the "Dalit-minority-poor" party of north India is a big gambit. If the Congress replaces the BSP as the No. 1 Dalit party of north India, it could revive itself in Uttar Pradesh and gain substantially in other states. The combination can work miracles in West Bengal and many southern states as well."

Of course, this will indeed entail "a long and arduous journey," made more so by the fact that the BJP is aggressively and successfully courting the Dalit vote -- and at the expense of the Congress Party.  According to a National Election Study article in The Hindu, one in every four Dalits voted for the BJP in the recent Lok Sabha elections, while one in every three voted for the NDA, which included parties such as the Republican Party of India (Athvale) and Lok Janshakti Party.

"State-level parties such as the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal, the Biju Janata Dal in Odisha, and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in Tamil Nadu performed well and garnered a major portion of the Dalit vote. The Left Front in West Bengal received a major drubbing and huge chunk of its Dalit vote base shifted toward the Trinamool Congress. The BJD in Odisha gained a share of Dalit votes from the Congress. Similarly, the Congress lost a substantial share of Dalit votes to the Telangana Rashtra Samithi in Telangana, and to the NDA coalition and YSR Congress in Seemandhra."

Whereas, in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, a post-poll analysis by Economic Times

 shows that Dalits as well as the minority communities and non-dominant tribal groups still opted for the Congress. But this should be cold comfort for Rahul given that his entire campaign strategy focused largely on the backward caste and low income communities, highlighting his government's schemes such as the MNREGA, Food Security Act and Land Acquisition Act which were aimed at the marginalised sections of society. Over and again, Rahul failed to communicate with the very constituencies he was targeting, often using language and terms such 'escape velocity' that failed to persuade.

More tellingly, The Hindu report notes, "BJP’s Dalit vote base in this election is largely the upwardly mobile sections (urban, educated, middle classes, with high media exposure)." Rahul greatest failure has been his inability to take a nuanced and complex view of caste and minority identities, treating them instead as monolithic, homogenous voting blocs. Hence, the monotonous one-note populism that marked his campaign rhetoric. This has allowed the BJP to woo away the aspirational segments within these constituencies. This is especially ironic for a leader whose Congress revival strategy is focused on building and empowering Dalit leadership.

As Ramachandran rightly notes, there is everything right with Rahul repositioning the Congress party as a genuinely populist liberal party. It would be political suicide for Congress to reshape itself as a pale imitation of the BJP, for instance, or try and out-Modi Narendra Modi in a desperate bid to imitate the winner. It is also disingenuous for Gandhi critics to give such credence to mutinous leaders that they once dismissed as sycophantic power seekers. Their disenchantment with Rahul is no more altruistic than their once slavish devotion to the dynasty.  For better or worse, with or without Rahul, the Congress party must rebuild itself as a credible left-leaning alternative to the BJP, and our democracy will be better for it.

But to set goals is easier than to achieve them. If Rahul wants to make Dalits, tribes, minorities and the poor his party's core constituency, he will first have to figure out how to woo them at the polling booth. Rahul and his vision will have few takers until he's mastered the first art of politics, i.e. how to win an election.  If he fails, someone else in the Congress party will do it instead, spelling the end of dynasty. And that won't be such a bad thing either for a genuinely populist national party.

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