How did the Congress throw it all away during its second term?

One of the most notable features of the Assembly elections verdict and its aftermath is the level of anger that any mention of the Congress now evokes.

While the messages that emerge from the results are mixed, one signal is unmistakable: the unifying factor was anti-Congress feeling.

 

As notable has been the public response to the verdict. There may be residual sympathy for some individual losers (Sheila Dixit, perhaps), but the overwhelming emotion is that the Congress got what it deserved.

 

   Nearly five years ago, when the results of the last General Election came in, the public mood was radically different. Not only did the Congress government at the Centre buck anti-incumbency to win a second term, it did so with an increased margin.

 

   At one level, the Congress has hardly changed over the last five years. Manmohan Singh is still the Prime Minister. Sonia Gandhi is still Congress President. Rahul Gandhi is still heir-apparent. Despite some reshuffling, the Cabinet is broadly the same. There have been no real ideological divergences from UPA I.

 

   So, here’s my question: how did the Congress, which gained in public esteem and parliamentary seats during its first term, throw it all away during its second? Why are the same people and the same ideology being perceived so differently now?

 

   The easy answer is to blame it all on corruption. And yes, the scams have badly dented the government’s reputation. But, on the other hand, Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi are both widely perceived as being personally honest. Nor does corruption emerge as the primary determinant of voting intentions in most opinion research. So, while public anger over the scams may have played some role in the collapse of the UPA’s image, it is hardly the full story. The reality is a little more complicated.

 

   When the Congress first came to office, it was against the backdrop of the India Shining campaign. The country had seen unprecedented prosperity in the previous decade. But there was a lingering sense that the fruits of economic liberalization had not been evenly shared. The rich and the middle classes had cornered the gains while the poor still languished in penury and debt.

 

   In this situation, the Sonia Gandhi-Manmohan Singh double act worked perfectly. Singh was the Father of Liberalisation who kept India growing. Sonia Gandhi was the Great Redistributor who took the benefits of growth and ensured that they reached the poor through such welfare schemes as NREGA and the write-off of farmers loans.

 

"It is almost too late. But any decision that the Congress now takes, any transformation it attempts to effect, is still better than the somnambulism of the last three years."

   This combination of growth and social justice ticked all the right boxes. When the UPA was re-elected for a second term, it won in over a hundred urban constituencies as well as many rural seats. Manmohan Singh was a middle-class hero while Sonia was seen as a well-meaning leader with a heart, who cared about the poor.

 

   But all this fell apart in UPA II. The Congress’ strategy was based on a two-step approach. First, you engendered the growth. And then, you redistributed its benefits. A third of the way into the UPA’s second term, however, growth rates crashed. Then, the government lost control of prices and never ever recovered the ability to rein in inflation (one reason why it could do nothing when food prices shot up before the Delhi elections). After a few cursory attempts at getting the economy back on track, Manmohan Singh threw in the towel. Instead, he first made a doomed effort to emerge as a foreign policy visionary (the foolish Sharm-al-Sheikh initiative) and then decided to simply sit out the rest of his term. For the last three years, he has been a remote, uncommunicative figure who assumes a look of martyred victimhood every time he steps out in public.

 

   For her part, Sonia Gandhi has continued to pursue her social welfare approach. But while people are willing to allow the benefits of growth to be redistributed when things are going well, they turn implacably hostile when there is no growth in their own incomes and there are no new fruits to redistribute. What was once seen as social justice is now perceived as electoral populism, as a cynical attempt to buy votes.

 

   So, what should the Congress have done? It could have abandoned the social welfare measures. But it would still have been in trouble because of the total lack of governance and the absence of decision-making.

 

   What was needed was a show of imagination and decisiveness. Even two years ago, if there had been a free vote in the Congress parliamentary party, Manmohan Singh would have come at the bottom of any leadership ballot. He has remained in office not because of popular support, parliamentary preference or any record of performance. He has been allowed to fall asleep in the Prime Minister’s chair only because Sonia Gandhi refused to replace him.

 

   Changing the Prime Minister would have been a necessary first step. But a massive leap of imagination was also called for. For ten years, Rahul Gandhi has been telling us that the system needs to be transformed. For ten years, nothing has changed. In eight months, Arvind Kejriwal has effected a swifter and more radical transformation that anything that Rahul and his party have achieved in a decade of empty talk.

 

   And while the Congress has dithered, India has moved on. New contenders have emerged, new parties have sprung up, and the search for solutions has moved so far ahead that the Congress’ approach now seems like an irrelevance. So yes, UPA II is still superficially the same as the triumphant UPA I. The same people are still in charge. But this avatar of the UPA is a hollow shell, crippled by its indecisiveness and devastated by its lack of ideas and imagination.

 

   It is almost too late. But any decision that the Congress now takes, any transformation it attempts to effect, is still better than the somnambulism of the last three years.