Articles
Re-inventing the Indian National Congress
Dt:21/3/22
Re-inventing the Indian National Congress
Dr T H Chowdary*
After the dismal performance and defeat of the 136- year old Congress its President, Smt Sonia Maino Gandhi (who dislodged the incumbent simple Sitaram Kesari in 1998) has now dismissed the President of the Congress (in Five States where the party has been defeated in the 2022 elections to the state legislatures). The Sonia family’s take -over and proprietorisation of the Congress has been is as follows:
Sonia Maino Gandhi ( b 8/12/46) deposed Sitaram Kesari in March 1998 since when she had been the unelected President of the Congress .
Rahul Gandhi ( b 19/6/1970) became the General Secretary of the Congress presided by his mother from Sept 2007 to Jan 2013. He was promoted as Vice President and held that office from Jan 2013 to Dec 2017. He became President in Dec 2017 till Aug 2019.
Priyanka (Maino Rajiv) Gandhi Wadra (b. 12/1/1972) was appointed by her brother Rahul Gandhi as General Secretary for Eastern UP in Feb 2019 . She was promoted by the Mother in Sept 2020 as the General Secretary of the AICC.
From the above details can there be any doubt that the Congress party has been proprietorised by the Sonia family?
Much earlier, after the death of Sardar Patel in Dec 1950 , the Congress party has become a vassal of Jawaharlal Nehru and afterwards, Indira Gandhi .
2. What we have to understand from Smt Sonia Maino Gandhi dismissing Presidents of five State Congress parties is that every victory of Congress is claimed as due to the Sonia family and every defeat is because of the local Congress Party leader’s incompetence . All successes are because of the great leadership of the family. All failures are due to the incompetence of the local Presidents (who were also appointees by the family not elected by anybody).
3. That the Congress has been having a fascist trait in it has been noticed and proclaimed by no less a person than Mahayogi Aurobindo Ghosh in the 1930s itself. This is what he said : “ The Congress…..what is it . But a fascist organization? Gandhi is the dictator like Stalin….what Gandhi says they accept and even the Working Committee follows him; then it goes to the All India Congress Committee which adopts it , and then the Congress. There is no scope for any difference of opinion”. (Source: India’s Rebirth, page: 213).
4. Dr B R Ambedkar who is now acclaimed as the icon of wisdom and statesmanship had this to write on the day of assassination of Mahatma Gandhi on 30 Jan 1948:
Dr B.R. Ambedkar wrote to Sharada alias Laxmi Kabir who later became his wife, following Gandhiji’s assassination. In that letter, dated 8 February 1948, Dr B R Ambedkar said that Gandhiji should have not met his death at the hand of a Maharashtrian. Then he went on:
And the Bible says that something good comes out of evil, so also I think that good will come out of the death of Mr. Gandhi. He will release people from bondage to superman, It will make them think for themselves and it will compel them to stand on their own merits.
And to that, he added: “My real enemy has gone, thank goodness, the eclipse is over”
Source: A Reporter At Large ( page 238/239) by M V Kamat
The Congress has submitted itself to bondage of Nehru- Indira-Rajiv-Sonia & her children in success.
5. The deterioration and degeneration of Congress has been noted by a scion of the Nehru family namely Rajiv Gandhi. On the occasion of the centenary of the Congress in Dec 1985, he said , “on the backs of the Congress workers ride the brokers of power and influence who dispense patronage to convert a mass movement into a feudal oligarchy … They are reducing the Congress organization to a shell from which the spirit of service and sacrifice has been emptied…”
Little did he foresee or imagine that his wife Sonia would aspire and claim Prime Ministership of India, as he did after his Mother’s death and that Rahul, his son would want to and become an MP and that Priyanka, the daughter would not give up father’s legacy . The noted civil servant and gifted writer Sri S S Gill observed , “ it is a pity the system prevailed in the end. Rajiv could not reform the Congress party”.
6. The G-23 group of senior Congress -men like Kapil Sibal, Ghulam Nabi Azad , Shashi Tharoor, Anand Sharma …..have been, without any success calling for reforms and inner party democracy, all with a view to free Congress from the proprietorship of a family and transform it into a really democratic party where important office holders will be elected as during the freedom movement and a few years later, until the party was reduced to a family concern during Indira Gandhi’s hegemony.
7. It appears that this Sonia family won’t give up its feudal and fascist ownership of Congress. If it is to be revived, rejuvenated and become a truly nationalist party the family’s grip must be removed. There should be a convention of Congress -men from all the States called by the G-23 group. Invitations may go even to its splinters, namely, NCP of Sharad Pawar, TMC of Mamata Banerjee , YSRC of Jagan Mohan Reddy , and Capt. Amarinder Singh Singh of Punjab. They must indulge in extensive re-examination of what they have been touting as secularism, socialism and social justice and garibi hatao, Muslim First program etc. India needs a truly nationalist, truly secular (as distinct from appeasement of minorities), the cover name for Muslims, and now-a- days Christians. It maybe noted that voices among Christians are being raised that if Muslims could be given Pakistan, why should not Christians be given an Isaisthan. As the Congress became weaker and weaker and lost its national character, regional parties , dynastic in the image of Nehru-Rajiv-Indira – Sonia, are raising voices for “federalism”, a word which does not find even one mention in the 395 article and 12 schedules of the Constitution.
8. If their intentions of the proprietors of regional parties are successful, then India will revert to the post - Aurangzeb state of Sultanates, Princes, Nawabs and kings who one by one had been subverted and conquered and India lost its freedom.
9. It would be appropriate to end this narration with what Dr . B.R.Ambedkar, Chairman of the Constitution Drafting Committee and Dr Rajendra Prasad, the President of the Constituent Assembly and the first Rashtrapati of Bharat said in their speeches at the concluding session of the Consembly in Nov 1949.
10. While speaking in the Constituent Assembly at the time of the final adoption (Nov 1949) of the Constitution of India, the great statesman, Dr. B.R.Ambedkar made the following observations: “Here I could have ended. But my mind is so full of the future of our country that I feel I ought to take this occasion to give expression to some of my reflections thereon. On 26th January 1950, India will be an Independent country. (Cheers) What would happen to her Independence? Will she maintain her Independence or will she lose it again? This is the first thought that comes to my mind. It is not that India was never an Independent country. The point is that she once lost the Independence she had. Will she lose it a second time? It is this thought which makes me most anxious for the future. What perturbs me greatly is the fact that not only India has once before lost her Independence, but she lost it by the infidelity and treachery of some of her own people. In the invasion of Sind by Mahommed-Bin-Kasim, the military commanders of King Dahar accepted bribes from the agents of Mohammed-Bin-Kasim and refused to fight on the side of their King. It was Jaichand who invited Mahommed Ghori to invade India and fight against Prithvi Raj and promised him the help of himself and the Solanki Kings. When Shivaji was fighting for the liberation of Hindus, the other Maratha noblemen and the Rajput Kings were fighting the battle on the side of Mogul Emperors. When the British were trying to destroy the Sikh Rulers, Gulab Singh, their principal commander, sat silent and did not help to save the Sikh Kingdom. In 1857, when a large part of India had declared a war of Independence against the British, the Sikhs stood and watched the event as silent spectators.
Will history repeat itself? It is this thought which fills me with anxiety. This anxiety is deepened by the realization of the fact that in addition to our old enemies in the form of castes and creeds we are going to have many political parties with diverse and opposing political creeds. Will Indians place creed above country? I do not know. But this much is certain that if the parties place creed above country, our Independence will be put in jeopardy a second time and probably be lost forever…….”
(Source: The Makers of Indian Constitution – Myth and Reality by Sri Seshrao Chavan )
“Dr Rajendra Prasad said :
“ Whatever the Constitution may or may not provide, the welfare of the country will depend upon the way in which the country is administered. That will depend upon the men who administer it. It is a trite saying that a country can have only the Government it deserves. Our Constitution has provisions in it, which appear to some to be objectionable from one point or another. We must admit that the defects are inherent in the situation in the country and the people at large. If the people who are elected are capable and men of character and integrity, they would be able to make the best even of a defective Constitution. If they are lacking in these, the Constitution cannot help the country. After all, a Constitution like a machine is a lifeless thing. It acquires life because of the men who control it and operate it, and India needs today nothing more than a set of honest men who will have the interest of the country before them. There is a fissiparous tendency arising out of various elements in our life. We have communal differences, caste differences, language differences, provincial differences and so forth. It requires men of strong character, men of vision, men who will not sacrifice the interests of the country at large for the sake of smaller groups and areas and who will rise over the prejudices which are born of these differences. We can only hope that the country will throw up such men in abundance. In India today I feel that the work that confronts us is even more difficult than the work, which we had when we were engaged in the struggle. We did not have then any conflicting claims to reconcile, no loaves and fishes to distribute no powers to share. We have all these now, and the temptations are really great. We would pray to God that we should have the wisdom and the strength to rise above them, and to serve the country, which we have succeeded in liberating”.
11. The proprietors of the regional parties are likes , of those whom Dr Ambedkar described as facilitators of India’s subjugation to alien invader - ruler -settlers. Various fraudsters, criminals, profiteering traders, tax-evaders and banks -defrauding business- men, even ex-bandits, smugglers, infiltrating foreigners are becoming legislators (MLAs, MPs…) the types whom Dr Rajendra Prasad descried as “lacking in capability, character and integrity”.
12. Congress men of character, nationalism and love and devotion to the nation’s good, must deproprietorise the party; free it from the grip of rootless persons who append the name of Gandhi (presumably, Feroz Ghandi but misleadingly Mahatma Gandhi) whose Jayanthi they don’t observe. As long as the family proprietorises the Congress, so will regional leaders do to their parties. Democracy changeth yielding place to neo-feudalism. The G-23 Congress men must resolutely re-invent and re-invigorate the Congress. (2,070 words)
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