Congress Against Congress

Congress is in shambles as the four states elections have shown not because opposition did great job but due to its self destructive approach. How a great party has come to such a pass? It fought for freedom of the country under the leadership of Gandhiji who had created such a charisma that shook an empire without firing one bullet. Gandhi symbolized some values and even wanted to wind up the party after it achieved freedom that was the basic objective of its struggle and sacrifice. It continued and today it stands as stigma on Gandhi’s name since it has let down all that was cherished by the great man. On five counts it failed: First it failed on ideological front. Gandhi advocated power to the people and wanted decentralization but Congress over the period of time centralized everything. Not only was the constitution more unitary in nature but also Fabian socialism imbued in Jawaharlal’s mind created planning commission and large public sector. Subsequently Indira Gandhi went a step further by nationalizing banks and even coal industry amongst others. Party started losing its saint leader’s message of decentralization, Panchayati raj (Which did not find a place in constitution and was later added), and village being the nucleus of little republics. His thinking was indigenous and culture relevant. But in the name of modernization we centralized everything. This created a distance between the masses and rulers. Congress started getting distanced from the people and red lights on cars, power position, display of authority and manipulations became rampant. The threat of security further enhanced the isolation of leaders and masses. The party neglected Gandhi’s basic philosophy of United India  enshrined inhis prayer of Ram with Alla and instead sought votes in the name of minority appeasement. Modi is trying to capture this asset of the party. Secondly Congress lost its values enshrined in its leaders conduct as simplicity humility and truth. In the money-power game truth became the greatest causality. Gandhi wrote even his autobiography with the title of ‘My experiments with Truth’. But Congress men became mired in untruth and lies. Even the form filled for membership required oath that one will wear khadi and not drink. Everyone signs it and cares a fig for concealing the facts. One can recall statements of Salman Khurshid, Sushil Kumar Shinde, Beni Prasad, Zero loss theory author Kapil Sibal and many others. It virtually duped Anna Hazare and treated shabbily Ram Dev. No one was noticing the constant decline in ethical conduct of leaders.

Third failure pertains to shielding the corrupt and practicing amoral politics. Lalu Prasad was convicted for corruption and Congress has red carpet for him. Earlier it brought an ordinance for protecting the interest of Convicts in legislature that was the lowest point in its political thinking but fortunately Rahul Gandhi stalled it. Congress assiduously followed Unethical jor tor ki rajneeti. Virtually it stood in the market and paid the price for who so ever wanted to join it to run minority government.  BSP,SP,RJD or any one was welcome and each extracted its price in comprising CBI cases or something else. It shirked accountability on the pretext of coalition. Narsimaha Rao introduced buying and selling of legislators to get support and Jharkhand MPs played his game to save his government. This style was perfected by others and when Manmohan Singh was short of number he got it although the sting carried out with the objective of exposing cash transfer was scuttled by media. It did not add to the prestige of the party. Were we so desperate to cling to power and greed of loaves and fishes? It harmed the Congress itself.

Fourth failure was its compromise with corruption and soft attitude to Commonwealth, 2G scam, Coal scam and so one. The series of scams had hit the government and there was no tough response from the party. It is shameful to mention Aadarsh Scam wherein Its CMs and even Union Home Minister was indicted by a judicial commission after two years enquiry and look what the party was doing –It rejected the report and the Governor refused to grant permission of prosecution of its former CM. Again when it was protested Rahul woke up and took objection to such blatant actions. Rahul initiated all right moves but too late and he too now, in my view, need not copy AAP. My advice is restoring values of Congress as shown by Mahatma Gandhi.

Fifth reason is  rot  in existing culture and values of the party. Party does not value competence and intellectual inputs even where Intellectual departments exist these are thrown to obscurity by powerful CMs, who think they alone can think. No fresh ideas are being drawn. There is ascendant culture of rewarding only the favorites and treating other party members, who might dissent, like enemies worse than treatment of opposition.   The culture of sycophancy rules the roost. The constitution of Indian clearly spells out in the oath of office of Ministers that “I will do right to all manner of people in accordance with constitution  and law without fear or favor affection or ill will”(Schedule III). Every one has taken oath and yet most of them are violating it. This transgression as is clearly shown in Adarsh and other scams renders the Ministers and Chief Ministers disqualified to hold office. Has the party taken serious view of this and disqualified any one of them? The result is that there is general feeling that so long you please the higher leaders you can transgress any law and nothing will happen. The party that stood for values of simplicity as shown by Gandhi ji and now leaders indulged in lavish style of living and with privileges in cars and bungalows distanced the masses. Money and power had the last word. Can we resurrect the party and even now is it possible to recover the lost ground?   ---(continued)

Bus stand

First passenger: Why Kejraiwal and Modi are becoming popular?

Second Passenger: Both have robbed Congress as one has taken the topi of Gandhi and other is now stealing the unity of India from it.

---Prof N.K.Singh former Chairman International Airports Authority of India