Is a ‘Congress mukth Bharat’ good for the Country?

(GV Somasekhar)
The BJP has given a clarion call to the Indian electorate to rid the Nation of all traces of the Congress Party. The call directly emanating from the pulpit of the two tallest leaders of the ruling BJP – Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah may have a resonating effect in the forthcoming elections in 2024. However, the moot point is how desirable is the dream for the larger good of the country.
True, Sonia Gandhi with the help of acolytes such as Chidambaram and a coterie of pliable civil servants, NGOs, and Left-leaning academics made life miserable for Modi and Amit Shah hounding them relentlessly during the decade-long UPA rule. But their angst should not color their wisdom and the decimation of the Congress party should not lead to a Punjab-like situation, where the centrist space vacated by the Congress is harvested by anarchists such as Kejriwal, using means less than fair.
An alternative to the Congress Party is frightening and the Nation cannot afford to see the Congress Party diminish further in size and vacate its pole position in Indian politics. If it cedes opposition space to the Aam Aadmi Party, it may not, be entirely good for the welfare of the Country. The Aam Aadmi Party is headed by a megalomanic, whom Suhel Seth, columnist, and TV pundit call an anarchist with a propensity to set things on fire in utter disregard for the consequences that may befall the Nation.
He is very much in the mold of former Prime Minister V.P.Singh, who set the Nation on fire and tore its social fabric asunder in the early 1990s. Of course, V.P Singh was himself consigned to the dustbins of history but the tragedy of self-immolations – misguided acts of despair and defiance, of promising young lives vanishing in the conflagration that engulfed the Nation during those horrendous days -are too traumatic to relive. If not for anything, at least to arrest the march of the Aam Aadmi Party to rapidly fill the vacuum caused by the retreat of the Congress Party, a phoenix-like resurrection of the Party is desired. The Congress Party is an institution that was built over more than 135 years by the efforts of countless men and women. It belongs to the Nation and definitely cannot be the personal fiefdom of any one family or dynasty. The Nehru-Gandhi clan contributed its share of labor towards building the Congress edifice. The dynasty, which has to date produced 3 of 14 Prime ministers has played a noteworthy role in shaping the developmental agenda of the Country and must be remembered for their good deeds as much as their bad ones. To its credit, the Congress Party, thought to be a British creation envisaged to perform the function of a ‘safety valve’ played a major role in shaping political discourse in the early part of the last century. It was truly a platform for all enlightened young Indians to debate, dissect, distill, and decant the essence of political thought about India of those times. The Moderates versus the Militants represented by the famous triumvirate ‘Lal Bal Pal’ was the theme that occupied the central stage for control of the mind and space of the Congress party during those heady times(1885-1905).
Till the arrival of Mahatma Gandhi on the firmament of India’s Independence movement, the Congress Party was a democratic institution with space for dissent and debate. Past Presidents of the Party included those inspired by the words and deeds of Marx and Lenin as well as those who believed in the Indic Renaissance such as Annie Besant, Madan Mohan Malviya, Lala Lajpat Rai, and others. Netaji Subash Bose was also a Congress president who successfully challenged Mahatma Gandhi but was forced to relinquish due to the manipulative might of Mahatma Gandhi.
The Congress Party has done the heavy lifting for the country and the Indian people should not forget its contribution to the nation-building task. Non-dynast Congress Prime ministers such as Lal Bahadur Shastri, P.V.Narsimha Rao, and Dr. Manmohan Singh have arguably delivered for India, more far-reaching results and in a shorter duration of time, than the Nehru-Gandhi clan.
It is established that the Congress party played a pivotal role in the journey of the Indian Nation and can be safely considered a National asset to be preserved and propagated for the future benefit of the country. It is not in the best interests of India to see the destruction of a National asset built over such a long duration of time and with a proven track record of solving a substantial number of seemingly intractable problems. The revival of the Congress Party is predicated on the return to the fold of all the workhorses of the Grand old party who left it for want of space to grow under the autocratic rule of dynast Rahul Gandhi. This homecoming will result in the tilting of scales in favor of the non-dynasts. Shashi Tharoor, who lost to the aging Kharge, can be a galvanizing pivot to mount a coup against the family. Before he fades into the evening of life, Modi should throw his weight behind the non-dynasts in the Congress Party and help in the dismantling of the dynasty. In the final analysis, the war cry of the Modi-Shah duo should be ‘A dynasty mukth Bharat’ and not ’A Congress mukth Bharat’