India needs a vibrant opposition, but the Congress today is a pale shadow of its heyday. Last month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi crossed a notable milestone, becoming India’s longest continuously elected prime minister. Jawaharlal Nehru served longer overall, but his first term was not an elected one; and Indira Gandhi’s tenure was not uninterrupted. Together with his 12 consecutive years as chief minister of Gujarat, Modi now holds the unique distinction of being the longest continuously elected head of government in India’s history.
At almost exactly the same moment, the Congress’s long-running train wreck of a story continued unabated, with a fresh crisis erupting in one of its state units. I write this not in hubris, but in anguish, as a concerned citizen. For the nation genuinely does need a vibrant opposition—a crucial part of any democracy, let alone the largest in human history.
Yet, the Congress has all but abdicated its role as a principled opposition that holds the government to account in Parliament, preferring instead to make anarchic disruption its default setting.
It is almost as if the party has given up any hope of winning the confidence of a majority of voters, and has stopped bothering to even try. In place of seeking to restore its relevance, it has settled instead for attention—like an errant child perpetually in tantrum mode. This is no longer a partisan observation—it is now widely recognised, even among formerly sympathetic opinion-makers. For instance, a famous editor, in a recent op-ed, expressed bewilderment at what he saw as the party’s abandonment of nationalism.
Ironically, even in this hapless state, there are reports that a couple of regional parties—Congress offshoots—are exploring a merger with it. Perhaps, that reflects the even deeper crises confronting some political parties. As the old saying goes, in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
India deserves a better opposition than an amalgam of the one-eyed and the blind. A democracy as vast and diverse as ours will always have room for an opposition—more likely a genuinely national one than an agglomeration of disparate, undemocratic, regional family firms with next to nothing in common.
Such a revived opposition, however, will have to be clear-eyed, which today’s Congress plainly is not. It will need to emulate the BJP’s success in identifying, grooming and promoting talent, rather than squelching it for fear that a rising star might outshine a deified ruling family. It will need to introspect, acknowledging its missteps and ending irrational attempts to blame the Election Commission and others for its own glaring errors. It will need the capacity to course-correct—whether by shedding failed strategies or replacing clueless leaders.
And most of all, it will need to be overtly pro-India, instead of constantly demeaning the nation, its institutions and prospects, in the guise of opposing the BJP. So, while the country clearly needs and deserves a better opposition, the hard question remains whether the Congress can yet morph into one. Those contemplating a merger into it would do well to grasp a simple truth: unless these changes are hard-wired into the DNA of the merged entity from the very outset, the exercise will amount to little.
The leaders of the parties reportedly considering a merger, inheritors of family legacies, should remember why their fathers and aunts quit the Congress in the first place, and put in place guardrails to prevent history from repeating itself.
Baijayant ‘Jay’ Panda is National Vice President of the BJP and is an MP in the Lok Sabha.
