FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
For almost four decades, dynasty has been the bane and boon of the Congress Party. Since Indira Gandhi, it has been the glue that has kept the party together, in which people of all political hues cohabit because the Gandhi name is their passport to power. The flip side of this is that it does not allow leaders of merit to rise and the party remains steeped in a culture of squirming sycophancy. The leaders from the family have been of varying quality. The patriarch Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first premier who ruled for 17 years, was widely respected for his intellect, integrity and vision of a modern democratic India. After his death in 1964, his daughter Indira Gandhi became prime minister in two years and ruled for over 11 years. She was a towering political figure feared equally within the party and outside. She knew how to win elections. When she declared the Emergency in 1975, she inducted her younger son Sanjay Gandhi who was clear-headed but brutal and had no patience for democratic niceties.
They paid the price with a humiliating defeat in March 1977 only to return to power in January 1980 because of the squabbling amongst the other parties. Sanjay was just getting into his stride as Mrs Gandhi took more of a backseat when he suddenly died in an aircrash in June 1980. Mrs Gandhi soon brought a reluctant Rajiv Gandhi into the political arena. He hardly had an internship of 30 months when the tragic assassination of Mrs Gandhi took place on October 31, 1983. Rajiv stormed into power in 1984 with the largest number of seats Congress ever had. A shellshocked nation had great hopes pinned on Rajiv as a young fresh modern face of Indian politics. He started well but soon got mired in the Bofors scandal.
After the assassination of Rajiv on the eve of the 1991 General Elections, Sonia was the only surviving elder of the Gandhi clan. For the first six years, she watched from the sidelines as Congress fortunes sagged, splitting the party into several factions, before being persuaded to join as a primary member in 1997 and then stepping forward as its unifying leader in 1998. She went on to deliver a government for the party against all odds in 2004, and again in 2009.
In the past few years the familiar pattern of the Congress party began to emerge. There were fawning cries for the son of Sonia Gandhi, Rahul, to take a larger role in the party. But his repeated losses over the last few years—the Uttar Pradesh elections of 2012 where he was clearly in the forefront, and the four Assembly elections in late 2013—seem to suggest that the dynasty that delivered was losing its allure. This has shaken the party’s confidence. For the first time in decades, there is confusion about what mother and son want. Rahul’s tearing of the proposed ordinance to protect convicted MPs just a few days after a committee that included Sonia had cleared it, and just a few hours after Finance Minister P. Chidambaram had endorsed it publicly, was the first indication of the communication breakdown.
Like the seniors, the next generation seems equally clueless. While some younger leaders declined to become heads of their respective state party units, even some staunch senior loyalists have opted for the safety of a Rajya Sabha nomination instead of fighting the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls.
Our cover story, written by Deputy Editor Jatin Gandhi, highlights the confusion and crisis within the Congress as it inches closer to a possible debacle in the General Elections. Rahul Gandhi’s contention that ‘systems’ and ‘processes’ need to replace the cult of personality may be on the mark but he’s the face being projected in the campaign. As he carries the baggage of the misrule of UPA Rahul has to convince his party that the family card can still be a winning hand. It won’t be easy.