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Any one in India who heard the live
telecast of Barack Obama's speech at the national convention of
the Democrats in the US on Friday would have noted how his primary
attributes - poise, eloquence, ideological clarity - were lacking
in Indian politicians, particularly of the Congress.
It may not be an overstatement, therefore, to link the Congress'
present political discomfiture to the inability of its topmost
leaders - the prime minister and the party president - to
communicate more effectively with ordinary people. To be fair,
there haven't been too many powerful orators in Indian politics in
the post-Independence period. Jawaharlal Nehru and Atal Bihari
Vajpayee were the two notable exceptions.
Besides, the Congress is not the only party which lacks skilful
speakers. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is slightly better
placed at present in the sense that Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj,
among the younger generation, are known for their articulateness.
But they are usually more effective in confined spaces, as in
parliament - when the BJP allows it to function - than at mass
rallies.
Where the Congress is concerned, neither Manmohan Singh nor Sonia
Gandhi is an effective public speaker, while it is too early to
pass any judgment on the heir-apparent, Rahul Gandhi. As the prime
minister's lacklustre Independence Day address this year showed,
he is not very different from Sonia Gandhi who has sometimes been
described - perhaps uncharitably - as a "reader" since neither
Hindi nor English is her mother tongue.
But command over the language, or even the absence of a resonant
voice, may not matter too much if the speaker is able to convey a
sense of conviction about the party's objectives. Unfortunately,
the Congress appears to have misplaced its ideological compass.
Yet, it was certainly about where he wanted to take the country
which made Nehru's speeches a riveting spectacle.
The occasions when his oratory appeared to scale ever greater
heights were when he addressed the nation, via the radio, on
Independence Day, routinely ending his speech with a stirring call
to the audience to say Jai Hind with him three times. Since the
Congress doesn't have national conventions of the kind which are
held by the Democrats and the Republicans in America, the speech
on Aug 15 from the ramparts of the Red Fort provides an
opportunity for the prime minister to provide the listeners with
an outline of his plans.
Never was such an effort needed more than at present when the
Congress is reeling under manifold problems - a stagnating
economy, allegations of corruption, outbreaks of violence, threats
of internal insurgency and externally-sponsored (and also
home-grown) terrorism. But neither Manmohan Singh nor Sonia Gandhi
has been able to provide any indication of what the government and
the party intend to do. It has always been the usual platitudes
with little concrete action.
What is more, the reason for the inaction has been ascribed to a
difference between them about the economic direction, with the
prime minister favouring pro-market policies and the Congress
president a welfare-oriented approach. But there are areas outside
the economy where the two leaders could have been more forthright,
such as about the confrontation between the Bodos, who are the
sons-of-the-soil in Assam, and the Bangladeshi infiltrators, or
between the Marathi sons-of-the-soil backed by the Shiv Sena and
the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), and the Biharis, who have
been called "infiltrators" by MNS leader Raj Thackeray.
Manmohan Singh's and Sonia Gandhi's silence on the neglect of
historical factors and on sub-nationalism, as also on the bans on
books and cartoons, is evidently due to a disinclination to be
unambiguous lest such a stance should alienate a prospective vote
bank. It is the same expediency which is behind the playing of the
caste card, as in the case of reviving the caste census after
eight decades, and opting for a constitution amendment to
introduce quotas for Dalits in the matter of promotions.
When such cynical calculations guide a party, it is understandable
why neither Manmohan Singh nor Sonia Gandhi nor Rahul Gandhi is
willing to spell out his or her stand on any subject which is
remotely controversial. As a result, the Congress has virtually
abandoned its role as a major national party which provides
guidelines as Nehru did as a champion of secularism or on the
economy as when he described the dams and industries as the
temples of modern India.
Although the BJP is currently hedging its bets on its ideology by
keeping silent on the Ram temple issue, at least there is no doubt
about its pro-Hindu outlook because of its thesis of Hindutva or
cultural nationalism, with its slogan of one nation, one people,
one culture. Similarly, regional outfits like the Bahujan Samaj
Party (BSP), the Samajwadi Party, the Janata Dal-United (JD-U) and
others in the Hindi belt are uninhibited about their casteism. As
a result, there is no ambiguity about their views.
The Congress, on its part, probably has a guilty conscience about
playing the caste card or the communal card, as when it opened the
Babri Masjid gates, because of its non-sectarian tradition. Hence,
it apparently regards silence as the better part of ideological
valour.
Amulya Ganguli is a political analyst. He can be
reached at amulyaganguli@gmail.com
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