The process of dissolution was initiated only after Rajiv Gandhi was given the massive mandate in 1984. The Protem speaker Jagjivan Ram was at pains to see none of 319 Congress members he shook hands with after their oath in the khadi apparels. His mother had initiated the process in November 1969 with great division of the party. The process was consolidated with the second split in January 1978 to replace strong leaders with their influence over large sections of voters in their region with persons that could not even stand without holding her hands.

Rajiv Gandhi was new to politics but his lack of comprehension of politics, economy and social issues as well as the organizational structures was in full view for five years. He condemned men in the party he was presiding as collection of power brokers in his presidential address at the Centenary session in 1985 December at Mumbai. He did not follow up his perception with removal of any power broker in his term. A year later, he directed the UP chief Minister Veer Bhadra Singh to open gates of the Babri Masjid that his grandfather had got locked up in 1949 after the riots over smuggling in few idols.

Later he compromised over the Supreme Court ruling for compensation as living allowances for divorced Muslim women through the verdict in the Shahbano case. He was eager to please the orthodoxy in a section of the Muslim population and that too after the brilliant defence by his minister Arif Khan in the Lok Sabha. The then Deputy chairman of the Rajya Sabha Dr. Najma Heptulla had after a weeklong exercise succeeded in bringing the Muslim clergy to agree to consolidation of both marriage and divorce process to end the insecurity in married life of Muslim women.

The concession in form of legislative changes that threw divorced Muslim women to life of poverty and destitution was the action to propel the dispirited and dejected Bharatiya Janata Party that had not gained political base in six years since its formation bereft of the religious orthodoxy. In three years it surrendered back to the Sangh striving for 64 years after its dream of converting India into a theological state.

Alienation of the Congress with the Muslim mind was formalized in December 1992, not because of demolition of the Babri Masjid. The total inaction of the Prime Minister Narsimha Rao for 12 hours estranged them. In a cultural function of the Muslim youth in 1994, a group of young men told him, “Sir we were not unhappy that the structure was demolished. In any case it was not a Masjid anymore as no Namaz was performed under the structure since 1949. Our regret is that it took you 12 hours to spur in action.”

In a decade between 1984 and 1994, the Congress discarded its symbol in khadi, lacked leadership as leader condemned the structure under him, and another leader waited without response for half a day, did not understand the political need for social reach with economic performance or despite economic performance. Despite excellent economic results of the Narsimha Rao regime, he ended up with 142 seats. The subsequent leadership could not keep pace with the social transformation as it could not emerge out of orthodox politics of Indira Gandhi.

The Indian mass reeled under demeaning existence in abyss of social and economic deprivation and educational disability in 1970s. Opening of the economic structure for full play to private creativity and imagination in 1991, even though under pressure and to avert total collapse as a nation, had given new mental ethos to the Indian society. It switched its priority from roti to dignity through proper education. But the mother and the son remained stuck to old concepts that were valid four decades ago.

They could not comprehend the social transformation of rural society with a large majority accepting norm of a small family to enable them to impart modern education to their two kids. Mulayam Singh would not allow use of any language except Hindi in the state assembly in 2002 but he was opening English medium schools in his state in 2012. A Dalit woman was saving her fourth of daily income from ironing clothes from a lane in Lucknow with ambition to send her grandson to a English medium school.

The Congress leadership remained ignorant of such earth shaking changes in masses of India because they or preceding two generations in the family did not realize why Gandhi insisted on dissolution of the party. The party workers had lost their role in the post Independence era. They had no role as they could not fight their own regime as they did earlier under the alien rule. Abandonment of the symbol in 1984 and new methodology for selection of candidates for the party confirmed it. The self respecting persons had no place in it. The leadership and decision making bodies were filled with urban professionals. The aroused individuals from the deprived classes and the Dalits turned away in total dejection after doors were not opened to them and formed their own units to deprive the Congress in state after state. The leadership did not awaken to accommodate new aspirations. The recruitment was assigned to a former bureaucrat who demanded criterion suitable for the administrative services and not for political work.

There is essential difference. Those who opt for administrative services come from same one class but politicians come from all classes and have to have ability to understand mass politics and also ability to inspire mass to lead them in a chosen direction. How the leadership that lacks the basic comprehension of the political and social needs can deliver miracle in electoral contests?