The Congress cannot wish for democratisation of the party while continuing to rely on the Gandhis

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor is an eloquent and articulate member of the Lok Sabha. He is one of the few independent-minded parliamentarians of the Congress. He might have been the obvious choice for the position of the leader of the party in the Lok Sabha but was denied the position because the “conscience keepers” (his term) of the Congress were afraid that he would outshine them and exhibit their mediocrity.

Change in election process

His recent interview published in The Hindu demonstrated his independent streak. In it, he argued that the Congress could not afford to drift aimlessly without a functioning president, adding, “There is a difference between a nominal leadership…and an active leadership. An active leadership would be far more engaged, far more outspoken and far more visible than Rahul Gandhi has chosen himself to be.”

More important, Mr. Tharoor contended that the process of electing the president of the Congress should not be left to the Congress Working Committee (CWC), itself a coterie of appointed members most of whom are unelected and unelectable. Instead, he said, it should be an open process with party workers and functionaries from across the country voting for a new leader to replace Mr. Gandhi as well as the CWC.

This, Mr. Tharoor argued, will provide the president and the party greater legitimacy and, therefore, greater credibility with the voters both in the forthcoming Assembly elections and in the 2024 general election. Mr. Tharoor’s stance has found great resonance among party members across the board but has rattled the senior leaders and members of the CWC who continue to hang on to their positions despite the party’s abysmal performance in the Lok Sabha election.

It was a surprise, therefore, that in the same interview Mr. Tharoor referred to the Gandhi family as the “conscience keepers” of the Congress and went on to say, “Whoever takes the position, he or she has to have the cooperation of the Gandhi parivar because the DNA of the party is inextricably tied up to them.” He believes that if a Congress president was ever to take a position that was inimical to the party’s ethos, the conscience keepers will speak out.

This position stands in stark contrast to the rest of the views that Mr. Tharoor expressed about reforming the party and holding open, democratic elections for the president and the CWC. He appeared to underscore this contrast when he said that the current scenario resembled the “old days, before Independence,” when, if the Congress president did something and Mahatma Gandhi conveyed disapproval, that would have been enough for the president to understand and presumably apply corrective action.

A contradiction

There are two major concerns regarding this formulation. First, comparing the Gandhi parivar, which thrives on sycophancy and trades on its increasingly remote ideological and even biological relationship with Jawaharlal Nehru, to the Mahatma is a brazen insult to the tallest leader of the freedom movement. Second, the notion that during the struggle for independence the Congress needed a “conscience keeper,” even one of the stature of Mahatma Gandhi, is questionable. Conscience keepers detract immeasurably from the democratic spirit of movements and parties. The Mahatma’s machinations as the super boss of the party that led to the forced resignation of the democratically elected president of the Congress, Subhas Chandra Bose, in 1939, are a testimony to this fact. Bose’s alienation had major implications for the freedom movement that have not been adequately analysed so far.

I would contend that Mr. Tharoor should seriously think through the contradiction in his reasoning on the issue of “conscience keepers”. It is quite inconsistent with the rest of his sensible argument regarding the need to democratise the Congress in order to rejuvenate it.

Mohammed Ayoob is Non-Resident Senior Fellow, Center for Global Policy, Washington, DC, and University Distinguished Professor Emeritus of International Relations, Michigan State University