Congress and India - An Identity Crisis
Symbolism in life is very
important. Even if you don’t believe or think differently about something, you
live in a society where opinions about you are formed from perceptions. As a political leader holding high office or
aspiring for it, perceptions are everything, symbolism becomes the cornerstone of
reputation.
Let’s take a festival – say Holi or
Diwali or Ramzan, you may have views that clash with aspects of it – chemicals, water used, health , pollution, animal cruelty, and these views may be logical but the fact is
that a significant number of the population celebrate, enjoy and believe in it wholeheartedly.
As a citizen, you can scream from
the rooftops about such things and at best people will say – party pooper. As a
political leader you will have to temper down your views, grit your teeth, shut
up, smile and actively participate and pretend to enjoy so the voter thinks you
are like him. Any attempt to impose your
views against these practices will only result in people feeling hurt, upset,
insulted and that will show up in myriad ways against yourself and your politics.
The flip side to this symbolism is that – you cannot fake it 100% –
you can disagree or be ignorant but you
still need to believe in it, understand it and above all internalise the
feelings related to it so that you instinctively
react to it with belonging. You can’t for example file an affidavit in court
and yet expect that voters believe when you say that you believe in Lord Ram.
A simple act like bending down
and touching the feet of an elder to seek blessings irrespective of caste,
religion, community is common in India. The decision to do so or not is your
own but if you don’t know the meaning of this gesture, the message , emotions and feelings behind it, then you will
most likely make a hash of the situation and convey a very negative image of
yourself by way of BODY LANGUAGE. As a political leader, this can be disastrous
without your even realising it.
This whole symbolism, small as
they seem to be are what I call CULTURE AND UPBRINGING. Has one understood this
culture and ethos of India, been exposed to its myriad diversity, been
explained and ingrained about these into your lifeblood? Nobody argues that one
needs to know and understand every such aspect across a diverse country like India – but if you
understand the aspect in just one or two
situations and believe, practise and internalise them, then, anywhere you go in India,
even if the same aspect is handled differently, you will RECOGNISE it, UNDERSTAND it and alter your behaviour
instinctively to manage it.
This is what is called BHARATIYATA/
INDIANNESS and remember, this cuts across all religions and communities. Anyone
trying to identify this with a particular religion or community is making the biggest
mistake of their life. One can be Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Sikh etc. as your
innerwear self, still have disagreements and riots occasionally but without
losing the Bharatiyata/Indianness on the outside.
One can give many examples like – the Namaste to greet people, responding to
people when they greet you, your body language in front of elders, guests, getting up from your seat when someone walks
in, reverence to different rivers like Ganga, the mother figure, the list is
endless.
The following images are NOT
about appreciating or criticising a person, since a picture is but a single
moment, but when you watch TV, see many events, the body language of the people
gives you very strong sublime images that register internally and create the
impression you form about the person. After that everything else is a narrative
to fit the impression thus formed.
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| President of India Ram Nath Kovind steps down from the dias to greet and seek blessings from a 102 year old |
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| President Kovind while giving Padma award to a lady bends down accepting her blessings. That she is emboldened to do this again gives a big message |
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| President Pranab Mukherjee being greeted as he enters - the body language, stance of Sonia speaks a thousand words |
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| Once again President Pranab Mukherjee is greeted or ignored as you may chose to call it. Even if Sonia had already greeted him, you still keep looking at the guest like EVERYBODY else, not away from the guest |
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| Yet again the way you greet the Prime Minister of India or dont, or even look at him speaks volumes. Remember Sonia in this picture is still entering and facing the host who is the PM, elder to her in age. This kind of dismissive behavior by Sonia has been caught on video many times. |
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| President of India Pranab Mukherjee gets up from his chair to greet the Prime Minister |
Post the death of Rajiv Gandhi,
Congress “lost” this Bharatiyata, Indianness referred above. They lost this
because the leaders, the Gandhi family, didn’t have it. The last leader within
Congress who had this Bharatiyata was Indira Gandhi. Rajiv was a yuppie, modern
jet age man and unlike Indira, he had grown up so sheltered and protected
that he had lost touch with India as can be seen below.
With the assassination of Indira,
his marriage to an Italian, the genes and symbolic instincts diluted and the
shelter and protection became oppressive. One can even say his children didn’t
know the difference between day and night given the way they were cocooned.
The death of Rajiv meant that even
that tenuous thread that held Bharatiyata/Indianness to the family snapped.
Before anyone misunderstands – this is not to question the loyalty or citizenship
or the family being Indian. No human living in a foreign country can ever
imbibe that local air, water and become a genuine local. Most first-generation
people globally either become local in an over-the-top manner or don’t become
one at all.
Post-Rajiv, the Sonia era in
Congress became an entity that was rootless, cultureless, confused because nobody
knew what connected with the family and what they should be. Life for each Congressman
became a split personality. Privately they led a certain life, publicly and in
front of the Gandhi audience, they tried to be what they thought they should be.
Since nobody knew what they should be, they stumbled from one gaffe to another.
So be it a Digvijay Singh with
temples in his home and daily rituals even as he publicly promoted the image of
Hindu
terrorism, others had their own cultural
beliefs, traditional practices and almost
every single person in the Congress ecosystem followed their Bharatiyata privately
but in public put on an act of what they thought the Gandhi family would like. So,
for the Gandhi family ecosystem India bashing, Hindu culture shaming, bringing over
the top ideas like the communal violence bill became their private ideas which THEY
believed made the family happy. With encouragement the Gandhi family appropriated
these as their own.
To be fair the Gandhi family,
especially the children, having gone through whatever they have, were neither
Italian, nor Indian, nor Hindu, nor Christian and based on each situation they symbolised
what they thought the audience would like. They were confused, complicated and
the seclusion didn’t help because they did not even see or hear anything to
learn. They are likely not smart enough to ask questions, so they simply
blundered from one situation to another as each one in their ecosystem pushed
them into it.
Different people appropriated for
them an identity as they thought it fit. If a bunch of people decided to wear
Christianity on their sleeves to please them, others paraded them with caps to
make them Muslim. They did nothing to control these or even realise what was
happening to their identity and to their party. Their symbolism as related to Hinduism became
a sham since they needed to show it but didn’t do anything to show that they
identified with it. Their temple runs
and symbolic behaviour became jokes or insults. Wearing a skull cap was enough
to convey the Muslim identity and the Christian identity fitted
them easily without arguments. With a 70 percent Hindu majority India, the
family had zero symbolism to show their connect with this 70%, and when they
did, they goofed so badly that it hurt them. Their ecosystem encouraged this. The
family went along – by design or default, we will never know.
The BJP said they represented
Hinduism and so Congress stayed further away from that arena and within a decade
became identified as a non-Hindu, anti-Hindu party. It was the perfect storm
waiting to happen.
As long as things were going well
like in 2004-2009 period every wart, pimple, torn kurta became a fashion
statement. When things started going downhill from 2011/2012 these warts,
pimples and torn kurtas became ugly, a liability.
This confused morass that
Congress was, reflected on the administration and government because everybody
tried to be what they thought the leaders liked. Soon the voters saw the disconnect and
suddenly the question they asked was – Who are we? What do we believe in? They
suddenly realised that they had no identity and the identity they believed in
seemed to be under assault by somebody or other.
This huge vacuum, this perfect
storm is what Modi tapped into like a tornado. All others such as economy,
terrorism, security, and corruption were convenient reasons and arguments to
convey a point, but above all, he brought back to the centre-table the issue of
identity, the Bharatiyata or Indianness. Suddenly, after more than 15 years the flag
again had a meaning, Independence Day or Republic Day had a meaning, festivals
had a meaning, and everybody suddenly started rummaging through their cupboards
for their roots, their innerwear.
This innerwear was being Hindu,
Muslim, Christian, Sikh but when it came to the outerwear the
Bharatiyata/Indianness had to be stitched back. With that having been lost,
everybody is now fighting for what they believe was and is
Bharatiyata/Indianness. There will be a period of disquiet and disagreement,
even violence, but like before Bharatiyata/Indianness will again emerge, albeit
in a slightly different form. Till then there will be claims of what this means
but like for centuries, it has never meant anything different and even now will
not mean anything different. The roots were cut off for a while and the tree
had shed its leaves, they are now growing back again.
This churn is affecting the Congress
Party internally as much as it is affecting the nation. The win of 2019 means
that the Modi government is continuing its efforts to bring back the
Bharatiyata/Indianness and they are now taking shape again. For long each in the
Congress ecosystem had started their own
public version which was different from the private version of the political
leaders, making them lead a split personality life and now there is a fatigue
factor and a yearning to go back to being one again.
Jyotiraditya Scindia joining BJP
is outwardly about power, position and no doubt they are true and important,
but it is also about the search for an identity, the merging of the split
personality as it were. Reading the comments of others like Abhishek Singhvi,
Jairam Ramesh, Sachin Pilot and many others you can see the inner turmoil seeking
this ONE identity. Position, Power, Ambition will be the catalyst, that will
determine the actions of many, but we would be making a HUGE mistake if we judged
each of these actions as only greed for power, position. Their inner struggle
for ONE identity is finally coming out and in the months to come we will see
more of this.
In the interim, the opposition to
the CAA which is again about identity will happen because those who had defined
identity for so long, suddenly realise they will lose that veto power. There will be
short term churn in society. This is an unfortunate outcome of this loss of
identity but Bharatiyata/Indianness will come back soon. Whether Congress with or without the
Gandhi family can join this is the million-dollar question that
only time can answer.
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