Politics For a Purpose

In a democracy the primary purpose of a political party is to come to power to serve the people of the country. Moving closer to the real world, raw power associated with top constitutional positions intoxicates like few other human experiences. Often we see that achievement of a constitutional position is viewed as a goal, when in reality, it’s just a means to achieve the noble goal of serving one’s country selflessly.

Somewhere along the journey of securing freedom from the British, to running independant India for nearly 60 years, India’s oldest party Indian National Congress seems to have lost purpose. As is inevitable with human nature, politicians across parties and across democracies, seek powerful positions. But how well do all of them utilise those positions of power for which we have elected them? The negative aspects of human nature – like greed and ego – prevail more often than we voters would like!

But the Congress seems to be a step worse than every other party. Over the last 50 years, it has been ruled almost entirely by members of one family, completely disregarding their mettle. The surname has been sold to an extent that is unprecedented in any democracy.

The 2014 Lok Sabha election saw the Congress crash to their smallest strength ever. With the party headed by two members of a family who have a stranglehold over the party, one could not have expected either of them to step down and make way for more credible party leaders. Subsequently, there have been other elections in which they’ve been thrashed, the latest ones being in Feb-March 2017. Uttar Pradesh is India’s largest state and its election makes a national statement. Congress’s performance in U.P. is beyond embarrassing. In the four smaller states that went for elections, Congress has been successful in forming the government only in Punjab. For that too, the credit for their impressive performance should go to their regional clone and opponent, Akali Dal – a political party run by a family, with the top two positions in government occupied by a father-son duo till earlier this week.

In spite of Congress being trapped in a whirlpool of its own making, not a voice is raised against the mother or son over where they have taken the party. One former minister after another has been aggressively shielding their accidental Vice President from ANY blame for the party’s performance over successive elections.

As stated earlier, the purpose of being in politics should be to serve the masses that vote one to power. But this is proving impossible for the Congress to wrap its head around. Its “ordinary” members would like to secure themselves and their families, as successive mega scams originating between 2004 and 2014 suggested. However they seem to have decided that to secure themselves, they need to align tightly with members of their ‘first family’, generation after generation. After all theirs is a surname that’s been sold to us for six decades, by our school books and our historians. Without the glue of the surname, the party would be in pieces within a year. This is a sad and worrying situation since it has served as a precedent for several smaller parties across India, and we now have several regional clones of the Congress, some being its political opponents.

While Congress can take credit for setting up quality institutions and some infrastructure, it cannot dodge the blame for much of what is wrong in India today. Education is among the most basic building blocks for a nation. But India’s literacy level has crept upwards far too slowly over 67 years. Education empowers us to evolve, and a staggering number of Indians have been deprived of it for generations! This has a cascading effect in the poorest not being able to break free from poverty or provide education to their families. Lack of education also makes social attributes like caste, religion or state/region seem more significant than they should be in politics.

Some of India’s other crippling problems are shortage of power, clean water and good roads – once again, among the basic building blocks for a healthy economy. Congress has had the unprecedented jackpot of ruling India for six decades, many times without substantial opposition in Parliament or State Assemblies. Yet, education, water, power or housing elude so many of us.

Congress’s responsibilities do not end because it’s not in power. After far too long we have a Union government that’s showing rare sincerity in serving Indians and is visibly overhauling a lot of what is wrong in our country. These multidirectional and multilevel reforms were long overdue but the Congress has fought each reform tooth and nail in Parliament and has created non-existent problems, simply for the sake of making this government fail so that their VP can have a slightly improved chance to become Prime Minister in 2019.

Even when in Opposition, Congress is to serve US by meaningfully opposing the government. Creating chaos in the temple of democracy, launching personal attacks, opposing deep reform won’t help provide primary education to rural Indian masses, nor will they give us power, water to clean air.

One hopes that for India’s sake, over the coming years, Congress matures enough to discard its deadwood and evolve into a normal political party where integrity and merit are rewarded.