On its Foundation Day: What the Congress needs to do to revive itself

The Indian National Congress celebrated Foundation Day on Sunday. 130 years ago, the first session of the party was held in Mumbai. In these 130 years, the Congress has fought many battles – lost some, won some others. 

But never in its history has it been so bereft of focus and leadership as it is in its current situation. Today, it is less a matter of 44 seats, and more the fact that the party seems adrift, waiting for someone to come by and save them. That is not going to happen. The transformation has to happen from within, and it is not going to be simple. So here are 5 things that the INC needs to do to revive itself (if it so wishes).

Democratise: There was a time that the party attracted the brightest and the best. The most idealistic. It was at its most glorious and its most effective when people from all walks of life associated themselves with the party and worked with it to achieve a certain common objective. The party was home to Jaiprakash Narayan an ardent socialist, and Rajaji- who was not; to Gandhi who believed in the village economy, and Nehru who believed in industrialisation; to Gokhale and Tilak whose ideological clash was legendary; to Patel who believed in a strong Centre and an Ambedkar who believed in a Federal State. It was people from different ideological standpoints who were secure enough in their beliefs and ideals to work with others with differencing ideologies for a larger goal. The party could bring together different strands and weave them to a greater goal. The modern Congress, since the early 1970’s has been failing in achieving this. Pluralism is not just a word. It is a practice.

Get rid of hereditary rule: Republicanism is a higher form of evolution. Hereditary rule is two versions earlier. As a party the Congress has moved from Republican mode to a monarchy. And, it is showing. In video technology there is a simple technical rule – you cannot move from a higher form of anything to a lower form of that something without perceptible loss in quality – ironically it is called ‘gen loss’ or generational loss. With each subsequent transfer, the gen loss is higher – sounds familiar? Look at point one again. The party needs to throw its doors open, and let meritocracy be the governing mantra. While this still does not mean that the best will get to the top, the most adept at survival may. The problem with the principle of dynastic succession is that your leaders have no survival instinct – they never had to fight to get to the top or fight to stay there. It is all too easy for them.

Get rid of High Command culture: If you follow one and two, then this is natural progression. The state units cannot be subservient to the central party. Not if you want the state units to thrive. And if you don’t have healthy state units, it will be very difficult for them to command respect amongst the people, and without respect you cannot win. It is actually quite simple. With the passage of years, the top down mode of leadership no longer works, especially in a dynamic environment. If you need to build strong units – you need to decentralise, and empower your cadre and local level leadership. If you don’t empower your own party workers, how do you propose to empower the people?

Buy a calendar, take a crash course in colloquial language: It is almost 2015. Stop talking like you belong in the 1980’s. People have moved on. Their aspirations have scaled up. They are no longer looking at being saved by you (or any other party). People are looking for service delivery. We are looking for professionalism. Ask yourself one question – if you weren’t the Congress Party, and all other things being equal, would you vote for yourself? Then ask yourself what do you need to do to change that?

Apologise to your supporters: People like my parents have voted for the party all their lives. The party has let them down. Terribly so. Many of their lifelong supporters did not vote last time – they were too angry with the party to vote for you, them, but loved it enough not to vote for others. So they abstained. The party needs to talk to its base to find out how it has erred in its direction. 

This is not an easy route, nor is it a guarantee for success. However, if as a party they want to survive they need to try. To build back credibility is not going to be easy, nor is it going to be a cakewalk in rebuilding an organisation ground up. But, if the party needs to celebrate its next decadal anniversary, it definitely needs to heed the wake up call that it has got from the people of India.