Party manifestos everywhere are discarded once polls over

From Nehru’s Samajwad to Indira’s Garibi Hatao, galore

There is much noise over the unkept promise of jobs. Why not? After all, led by Narendra Modi, then prime ministerial candidate, everyone in the BJP did commit himself on the stump to create a million jobs a month, should the party be voted to power. Indeed, the promise was duly enshrined in the BJP manifesto. By all accounts, jobs have been hard to come by, especially in recent months due to the economic slowdown. That much ought to be readily conceded, for it is an undeniable fact.

But the question that needs must be asked is whether it is the BJP alone which ought to be held accountable for its election promises. The Congress’ Prince, who is going around asking his listless audiences in Gujarat to seek jawab ka sabal on jobs, ought to look himself up in the mirror. A cursory acquaintance with what his maternal great- grandfather, grandmother and father had promised to the voters beginning with the first Lok Sabha elections back in 1952 will prove instructive.

Indeed, if Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi had kept their electiontime promises, there would have been no need for Modi to promise jobs. For, India would have been a land of milk and honey already, where everyone was rich and prosperous and there were plenty of exotic foods to go around. Unfortunately, hunger and poverty stalked India for as long as Nehru ruled India—and he did rule for a very, very long time. His samajwad saw nearly three quarters of Indians living below the poverty line.

Daughter Indira was installed by the old Congress fogies in the hope that she would remain a goongi gudiya, doing their bidding as Prime Minister. Once she found Machiavellian advisers like P.N. Haksar and P.N. Dhar, whose bag of dirty tricks overwhelmed the rather straitlaced Syndicate leaders, Indira Gandhi became a leader in her own right. Her greatest electoral triumph came in 1971 on the back of the catchy promise of “Garibi Hatao”. Her grandson should wonder why garibi was not hataoed. Again, had she wiped off poverty from the land, there would have been no need for a Narendra Modi to promise a million-jobs-amonth, to very nearly match the numbers that join the job market every month.

Now come to Rajiv Gandhi. He marketed New Hope in the election bazaar and went on to win a historic victory in 1984, helped no doubt by the round-the-clock telecast on the state-controlled Doordarshan of the last rites of the slain Indira Gandhi being performed by a sacred thread-wearing son in white dhoti and half-kurta and interspersed with visuals of people shouting khoon ka badla khoon. There was percentage in tugging at the collective emotional chord of the majority community. Nai Roshni dimmed soon into complete darkness, instigated by the Gandhi family’s own home-grown Bofors scandal.

Interestingly, in the 2004 elections, which surprisingly saw A.B. Vajpayee’s NDA lose power, the Congress party manifesto promised to tackle “the root cause of corruption and generation of black money”—yes, root out the cause of corruption and generation of black money. And recall what actually the party did when, to its utter surprise, it actually got the chance to make good on that promise. The number of scams, the amount of black money generated in the first UPA was probably the highest for any government before or since. And that includes the UPA-II as well.

The Congress improved enormously on its own record, though it should be noted, the DNA was all along contaminated. The 1937 ministries were riddled with high corruption. Old-timers will recall how a disgusted Mahatma Gandhi had threatened to quit the Congress following reports of corruption by Congress ministers. He was persuaded not to quit the party for fear that his resignation would undermine the freedom struggle.

The point is that political manifestos are not worth the paper they are written on. Even in western democracies these are honoured more in breach than implementation. It is in the very nature of democratic systems to restrain and constrain a fast delivery of promises. For, the system in all democracies, and to an extent even in one-party autocracies, to wit, Russia and China, grinds ever so slowly. The enormity of the tasks makes it well-nigh impossible to short-circuit processes for quick delivery, especially in democratic countries.

If Nehru’s promise of samajwad was a jumla, so was Indira Gandhi’s promise to remove poverty and Modi’s to create a million jobs a month. In the election market, the one with a better and a catchier jumla scores, though a lot depends on who is selling it. And if they have our jawab ka sabal kiddo, there can be no hope of his selling anything to the voters who have tried and tested him—and rejected him with complete disdain. The Congress should go and get a better salesman to market its insipid wares. Period.

And if you think only democratic parties make tall promises, think again. The Communists ruled West Bengal for over 30 years, without making much difference to the plight of the jobless and the poor. That is why the Indian voter, like the voter in every other democratic country, has become cynical, taking election-time promises with a tonne of salt—and not taking them on their face value. Otherwise, they will demand from the Congress’ Prince, and soon to be king, why Nehru’s samajwad and Indira Gandhi’s Garibi Hatao had actually left the poor poorer.

In one word, election manifestos are meant to be discarded once the elections are over. Even the politicians who release them with great fanfare on election-eve, hardly seem to have read them. When the next election comes along, the old manifestos are recycled with an addition or two of newer promises and an added emphasis on a new and catchy tagline. Have you noticed that on social media Rahul Gandhi sounds much cleverer than he actually does in real life or on the campaign trail? The reason is not far to seek. For, he tweets not as Rahul Gandhi, but as “The Office of Rahul Gandhi”. The royals do not do these things, you see. They have minions to do these dreary jobs. However, if like Donald Trump, we had Gandhi himself doing his tweets, our mornings would be far more fun. For it is in real life that the Congress vice-president, despite tremendous tutoring, muffs his lines. As in jawab ka sabal. You would recall how sometime ago, he copied a condolence message for the victims of the Nepal earthquake from his cell phone.

We have a small suggestion. He should give up trying to become an orator like Vajpayee or Modi. And like his mother, who even says namastey after consulting the script, ought to come with a prepared text and read it out in his halting, faltering Hindi without rolling the sleeves of his kurta— though, we must acknowledge, of late he is not rolling them as much as before. The media in the capital is abuzz with the social media post of a well-known television anchor, who, of late, finds herself without a worthwhile platform to showcase her talents, which, without doubt, are considerable. She has exposed the hypocrisy and double-facedness of her former employers who pretend to be secular-liberal, but are actually ready and willing to do business with the “communal forces” for opportunistic reasons. And the anchors who still strut their act as if they were the paragons of secularist-liberal values, including the one who has made a career by abusing Modi and Co., day in and day out, are complicit in the perfidious conduct of their owners. Rahul Gandhi’s multiple visits to temples ahead of the Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh Assembly polls are being described by his detractors as a conscious effort on his part to take a soft Hindutva approach. However, the fact is that the Congress vice president is seeking to correct the perception of his party’s pronounced tilt towards the minorities, which was one of the factors that led in 2014 to its worst defeat in a Parliamentary election.

In political terms, Rahul, who is shortly expected to take over as the organisation’s chief, is sending a signal to several of his mother’s advisers responsible for making the party deviate from its neutral religious stance by showcasing it as an outfit which favoured the Muslims and Christians, over and above, the Hindus. As is known, the Congress has been recognised for its secular credentials, which evidently got acutely affected during the last five years of the UPA rule.

Although A.K. Antony, one of the senior most leaders, who was asked to look into the causes of the 2014 defeat, did flag the pro-minority tilt factor, yet the Congress has not given up its overall obsession with pushing the Muslim-Dalit agenda. This despite knowing full-well that during elections, Muslims preferred regional players capable of beating the BJP, and it goes without saying that Mayawati continues to be the first option for the Dalits. This perhaps, is the principal reason why Kamal Nath, nine-time MP from Chhindwara in Madhya Pradesh, who should have been the automatic choice for the position of the leader of the Congress party in the Lok Sabha, was apparently overlooked; instead, Mallikarjun Kharge, whose experience of national politics is limited, was given that post.

It is obvious that Rahul Gandhi realises that he has to correct several anomalies that had crept in during his mother’s long tenure and so in order to make the party combat ready, changes in approach have to be put into action. However, there is nothing unusual about the Gandhis commencing their campaign from a temple. Indira Gandhi would always do so and in 2002, Sonia Gandhi, while spearheading the campaign in Gujarat, paid a much publicised visit to a famous temple in the state. Apparently, Rahul perhaps is trying to replicate his grandmother’s style by identifying himself with the majority community, which has found it difficult to associate itself with the present lot of Gandhis, who are perceived to be casteless in the complex social fabric of our politics.

The Congress vice president is forwarding a strong message to the Hindu community that the perception of 2014 was inaccurate, and thus he should be viewed from the same prism as his father and grandmother, so as to make a fair assessment of him. This move gains significance since it comes close on the heels of his visit to the United States, where he sought to correct certain perception issues about himself.

Interestingly, ever since Rahul’s temple visits, the BJP, has once again unleashed its covert attempts at propping itself up on the strength of its Hindutva agenda. The high profile Deepavali celebrations at Ayodhya and the sneering statements spouted by Sangeet Som, a party MLA, desecrating the Taj Mahal and its creator, were measures aimed at contrasting the saffron brigade’s shrill Hindutva pitch vis-a-vis Rahul’s comparatively soft initiative, so as to garner Hindu votes.

The entire political posturing has taken place in the backdrop of the two Assembly polls, where the Hindu card is going to be played by both the major players. Gujarat, for long, has been the laboratory for Hindutva brand of politics, though the disillusionment of the Patels with the BJP has been a cause of immense concern to the ruling dispensation. On the other hand, Himachal Pradesh, by and large, is a Hindu majority state, with people having strong and deep-rooted belief in Gods and Goddesses. Both states are crucial for the Congress and the BJP, as they would have an impact on the way politics would unfold thereafter.

Rahul is also trying to take a leaf from his father, Rajiv Gandhi’s book so far as the understanding of political reality goes. Rajiv, during his five-year tenure, enjoyed an excellent rapport with Bhaurau Deoras, the younger brother of the then RSS chief, Balasaheb Deoras, who also happened to be the interlocutor between the RSS and the BJP. The opening of the locks at the disputed structure in Ayodhya was at the instance of Rajiv Gandhi, who, prior to that, had consulted Bhaurau. It also was not a coincidence that following the shilanayas, the Congress campaign in the 1989 elections was launched by Rajiv Gandhi from Ayodhya.

While many in the Congress rank and file have welcomed the changed approach of the high command towards the majority community, Rahul Gandhi must not get into competitive Hindutva politics. He would reap greater political dividends if he makes the economic agenda of the BJP his main thrust area. The next polls in the country are likely to be fought on the state of the economy, and in his over enthusiasm to correct perception issues, Rahul should not lose sight of what is ailing the nation. Between us.