For a person to be at the helm of a party for so long is an indication of one of two things: either an overwhelming feudal tradition or a paucity of capable leaders. However, either of the two explanations cannot be a matter of satisfaction for a 127-year-old party, which has presided over the country’s destiny for many years and is still doing so despite its declining status.

If feudalism is the overriding factor, as it is in this case, then it means that the Congress has said goodbye to the concept of internal democracy. Nor is it apologetic about it for there haven’t been any murmurs of dissatisfaction in the party about the virtual ‘reservation’ of the top post for members of the Nehru-Gandhi family.

The adherence to this ‘quota system’ is all the more strange considering that the designated successor to Sonia Gandhi, the heir-apparent, Rahul Gandhi, has been presented by Congressmen as someone who is keen on introducing democratic norms. But, as Rahul himself has admitted, he is a ‘parachute’ who can be said to have rappelled down from the top to become the party’s vice-president.

The reason for the subservience of Congressmen to the party’s first family is due not only to the towering personality of Jawaharlal Nehru and, to some extent, of Indira Gandhi, but to the accident of history which reduced the interregnum between Nehru’s and Indira’s premierships to only a year and a half.

If Lal Bahadur Shastri had lived for a few more years, then Congressmen would have become used to having someone other than a member of the family to be prime minister. Although there hasn’t been a Nehru-Gandhi at the head of the government for the last 24 years, the Congressmen apparently still regard the present occupant of the post as a regent who is keeping the seat warm for the real ruler.

Strangely enough, this feudal instinct has survived the decline in the calibre of the family members since Nehru’s time. The deterioration was exemplified, first, by Indira’s faux socialism and her draconian rule with the help of a wayward son, which ensured a massive defeat for the party, and then by Rajiv’s embroilment in the Bofors howitzer scam, which brought about another defeat. Although Sonia has been credited with reviving the Congress with the 2004 victory, the real reason was the popular disgust and disillusionment with the BJP because of the 2002 Gujarat riots, as Atal Behari Vajpayee suspected.

The Congress’s success enabled Sonia to bring to the corridors of power the socialistic baggage of her mother-in-law, which meant the preference for a controlled economy under a paternalistic government which doled out largesse on the basis of quotas. Even before the Congress’s assumption of power, her penchant for the bad old days of the licence-permit-control raj was evident from a resolution adopted at the party’s Shimla conclave in 2003, which called for bringing the private sector under the quota system for employment.

The same regressive outlook led to her insistence on reintroducing the enumeration of castes in the census system, which was done away with in 1931. And, during the UP elections, the eagerness with which Salman Khurshid advocated the idea of extending reservations to Muslims showed that he was voicing Sonia’s views.

It is also worth remembering that she almost scuttled the nuclear deal on the grounds that the communists had a point in their opposition to it. She relented only when the Samajwadi Party’s promise to stand by the government after the Left’s withdrawal of support ensured the defeat of the no-confidence motion. But, her objective clearly was to keep the government in power at any cost to smoothen the path for Rahul’s ascent. Sonia wasn’t bothered that the two countries which would have been delighted if the nuclear deal fell through were China and Pakistan.

It is her obsession with her son that has fostered sycophancy and stifled the party’s growth. If Rahul has reiterated his father’s regret about the Congress having become a ‘feudal oligarchy’, the reason is Sonia’s disinterest in organizational rejuvenation and in encouraging leaders at various levels to grow during her 15 years at the helm.

In this respect, she is emulating, perhaps unwittingly, her mother-in-law’s policy of ignoring and marginalising regional leaders lest they posed a challenge to Sanjay, who was Indira’s first choice as her successor. Unless this ‘tradition’ of boosting the offspring at the expense of the organisation is discarded, the party’s decline will continue. (IPA Service)