The two principal aspirants to the office of Prime Minister within the Congress party, Mr Arjun Singh and Mr Sharad Pawar, have put themselves in an embarrassing position by revealing their hand prematurely at Tirupati. They may find it difficult to live down public display of overweening ambition.
In view of their long and occasionally bitter experience in politics, it defies understanding that they should have concluded that they could insist on, and manage, elections to the working committee in obvious disregard of the wishes of the party president and Prime Minister, Mr PV Narasimha Rao, without inviting riposte. But they so concluded and riposte has come, as it was bound to, in the form of resignations of five of the ten elected members.
A number of points need to be grasped in order to put current development in the Congress in perspective.
Congress culture
First, while the party’s rules provide for election of one-half of the working committee by members of the All India Congress Committee (AICC), this goes against Congress culture with its emphasis on consensus. Indeed, in the election of the party president himself, whenever this approach has been disregarded, as in the case of Subhas Chandra Bose in 1938 and of Purushottamdas Tandon in 1948, the consequences have been far from happy. Both had to resign.
The consensus concept doubtless works to the advantage of the party president, especially if he also happens to be Prime Minister. But pre-eminence of one individual is also an important constituent of Congress history and culture. It has by and large worked to its and the country’s advantage. It would be difficult to sustain the argument that Nehru’s preeminence did not serve the interests of the Congress and the country, especially the party.
While the consensus concept is not intended to pave the way for one-person dictatorship, it cannot be denied that the issue has got confused on account of Indira Gandhi’s and Rajiv Gandhi’s style of leadership. But the source of the trouble in both cases lay elsewhere. They did not allow organizational elections at any level. They went so far as to nominate district party chiefs and in fact members. This practice immobilized the party at the grassroots and promoted the culture of sycophancy.
A substantial section of the intelligentsia has been so ill-disposed towards Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi as to ignore the patent fact that several centrist organisations, otherwise patterned on the Congress, such as the Janata Party and the Janata Dal, have come to grief precisely because none of them has been able to throw up a leader who could effectively mediate all conflicts in the party and ensure its smooth functioning. Critics have therefore been rather insensitive to the danger of the abrogation of the leadership principle and the limitations of the consensus approach.
Secondly, once Mr Narasimha Rao came to occupy the office of Congress president and Prime Minister by whatever title and process, he was bound to seek to acquire pre-eminence in the organisation for the good and simple reason that there is no other way to keep it going. This point needs to be emphasized since it has become fashionable to disregard the role of the leader in a democracy, particularly in a country so vast and heterogeneous such as ours.
In view of the low profile he had maintained during his long years as a minister under Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, a number of political observers had concluded that he would be content with a first-among-equals status and that, in any case, nothing better would be within his capacity and reach. Clearly they underestimated the man and disregarded the obligations and powers of his offices. The Prime Minister even in Britain can no longer function on the basis of the primus inter pares principle. No one has for a long time.
Mr Rao drove home the point when he decided not to give up Congress presidentship on assuming the office of Prime Minister. In his quiet way, he had then made it obvious that he intended to be the leader of the Congress in the style of Nehru even if he could not acquire the charisma of the latter. And it is as well that he did so. India could not afford a potentially rival centre of power in the ruling party when it is trying to implement a radical and painful programme of economic modernisation.
Shadow
Mr Rao came to office under the shadow of the Nehru-Gandhi family. He could not at once escape that shadow. Indeed, for some time, he could not afford even to be seen to be trying to get away from it in view of the continuing hold of the family’s name on the minds and hearts of Congressmen and women all over the country, the capacity for mischief of the ’shouting brigade’ and the anxiety of ambitious men to exploit Mrs Sonia Gandhi’s name for their own ends.
He had, however, to come into his own if he had to function effectively. The obligations of his office demanded it, whatever his personal inclination. He has lived up to those obligations. By the time of the plenary session of the AICC in Tirupati last week, he had placed himself in a pretty strong position.
Thirdly, unless he was ready to acquiesce in the rise of a rival centre of authority in the party’s topmost body, Mr Rao could not have favoured an open contest for half the seats in the working committee, especially when it had become known that Mr Arjun Singh had first sought to embarrass him by pushing hard an anti-BJP line in the political resolution and some others to be adopted by the plenary session. Obviously he could not wish to or afford to, acquiesce.
Mr Rao could not oppose election to the working committee, partly because sentiment in its favour was running strong at Tirupati, perhaps in a belated reaction to long years of diktat from above during Indira Gandhi’s and Rajiv Gandhi’s reign, and partly because the party’s constitution provides for it. But he went as far as he could, in keeping with both his position and style, to indicate that he favoured the traditional consensus approach. Mr Arjun Singh and Mr Sharad Pawar disregarded these hints.
BJP-Bashing
Mr Arjun Singh had perhaps felt encouraged by the fact that his view on BJP-bashing had prevailed in the working committee. If that was indeed the case, he was not shrewd enough to realize that he had succeeded precisely because Mr Rao had endorsed his stand and in the process demonstrated that his was a functional relationship with BJP leaders.
The explanation for Mr Sharad Pawar’s disregard of Mr Rao’s wishes explicitly conveyed to him is even more difficult to find. He had been humiliated last summer when he made a bid for the office of Prime Minister and found that a sizable section of MPs from his own state of Maharashtra were not ready to support him. He should have learnt from this experience, if not from the history of the Congress, which has not been kind to aspirants to the office of Prime Minister while the incumbent is still in good shape. Apparently he did not.
Politics is, of course, about power. As such it is legitimate for Mr Sharad Pawar and Mr Arjun Singh to aim at the highest executive office in the land. But as the saying goes, while in Rome, do as the Romans do. In the Congress, you do not defy the leader.
There is scope for genuine differences of opinion on whether Congress culture is good or bad for the country. Obviously it is both. One’s preference depends on one’s priorities. Broadly the choice is between some kind of order and stability versus dispersal of authority and rights as expounded by Westerners with the little knowledge of, and respect for, different traditions and conditions. The choices are seldom spelt out in our public discourse. That is why there is so much confusion.
The Times of India, 23 April 1992