Design, democracy and lessons for the Congress

The recent round of elections has unleashed a flurry of analysis and critical opinion pieces on the state and fate of the Congress Party - mostly obituary writing, in its most ruthless tone and tenor.

The Congress perhaps deserves it, given the drubbing it has received repeatedly, more morally than electorally. This is despite the fact that there are now all kinds of arithmetic formulations available that project Congress' performance in the recent Assembly elections in an overall better position than the BJP.

The silence of the Congress is rather intriguing given that we are living in an age and political culture that exhorts people to blow its own trumpets. More than the fatigue and the obvious inertia of the comfort zone and thus reluctance to come to terms with the new scenario loaded with all kinds of odds, the silence of the Congress shows abject cluelessness.

That Congress needs a structural overhaul (surgery sounds too horrific) is stating the ordinary and the obvious. However, before anything else, the party needs to work on its visuals, its images and the spectacle that it creates in the minds of the people it once ruled. This is clearly an area, besides many others, that requires immediate attention.

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In comparison to the BJP, for instance, which shows dynamism, exudes confidence and celebrates even one-seat win in Kerala, despite losing embarrassingly in the neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu, the Congress responded to its Puducherry win on 15 seats as if it was a damp squib and made it look inconsequential.

One cannot change the factual, but the visuals that follow after every electoral defeat have the potential to either crash or create. The Congress lately seems to have mastered in the art of self-crash.

Just close your eyes for a moment and think of the BJP and the Congress alternately. In case of the former, your mindscape will be flooded with sloganeering and celebrations, aspirations and anticipation, and a colourful, dynamic leadership oozing both glamour and grit.

The hoi-polloi, fed up with the starchy hypocrisy of Khadi brand moralism of the yore, just jumped on to the new bandwagon, to experience a new sense of momentary release and respite from the mundane. In other words, in some sense, it marked the arrival of a Bollywood moment in Indian politics.

In the latter, in case of the Congress, one finds, more often than not, a young man walking, reluctantly but obediently, behind her mother, and closely followed by a hunched, barely able to walk, old guard. The man looks affable, has a dimple smile; he behaves like a good son and waves frenetically every now and then, at rows of awestruck people lined up in both sides.

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This is the dominant image of the Congress, a party that its opponents constantly slammed for its dynastic worldviews. Ironically, this visual has all the trappings of a dynastic culture. And this is where are buried, the two most important correction spots of the congress party.

Rahul Gandhi, first of all, has to realise that the "mere paas maa hai" era has long gone, and perhaps dead in its symbolic meaning. Psychoanalysts have found Indian men to be mother fixated and, metaphorically, with a longish period of umbilical cord connection. But this perhaps was true for the yester generation.

Today, this is a sure sign of someone not sufficiently adult and which most certainly creates more negative than positive impact on a society with more than 60 per cent of its population as young, and in a hurry to claim adulthood bypassing childhood.

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It will do a world of good to Rahul's image if he is seen less with his mother and more with his age-group leaders. In any case, the quintessential image of a mother fixated son must go, in order for Rahul Gandhi to be recognised as a leader on his own terms.

Secondly, one always hopelessly wondered at the sight of Fotedars and Tytlers in the inner circle of the Congress, despite repeated criticism of coterie-culture and sycophancy. If the party wanted to send a message that it valued and protected its members till their graves, the eventual message and impact has, sadly, been quite the opposite and deleterious.

The younger lot in the party felt sidelined for eternity and the old wisdom of the old guards did not quite cut much ice in an entirely changed political and electoral scenario.

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The visual of an old, hunched and almost collapsing Motilal Vohra, pace around the mother-son duo reflects the ultimate image hara-kiri in today's politics. It celebrates the past at the cost of the present. Future in such a context is bound to be a casualty.

Rahul Gandhi, to be fair, may not be a natural but has the right kind of profile to begin a fresh inning. He comes across as a polite, courteous and clean (so far no charges of corruption) young man. Moreover he is single too, a quality which has lately been quite hyped, like Sonowal, Mamta and of course PM Modi.

The difference however is, unlike the others, though Rahul may be single but he is reluctant to mingle. Bulk of the problem emanates from here. Rahul has to move beyond the familial, his immediate consanguineous kinship networks, if he wishes to be recognised as a true leader.

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The Congress, and especially Rahul Gandhi, has to understand that democracy in India has undergone qualitative transformations, in tune with the society, and there is a huge design component in India's democracy that plays a decisive role in its electoral success or failure.

More than the spirit, it is the design in democracy, especially its visual manifestations, which the Congress will have to be very careful about and meticulously work on. The vibrant democracy of India has to be a multiparty democracy, representing both regional and national aspirations, and the role of the Congress Party here cannot be underestimated.

The question is whether or not Rahul Gandhi is willing to break the circle of kinship and ascription, and dare to enter the political fray as individual warrior, purely in terms of his own skill and capabilities. It is in the answer of this, that the ultimate will document of the Congress Party is concealed.