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.  

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/No-historical-proof-of-Ram-Centre-tells-SC/articleshow/2363595.cms

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.

President of India Ram Nath Kovind steps down from the dias to greet and seek blessings from a 102 year old

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

President Pranab Mukherjee being greeted as he enters - the body language, stance of Sonia speaks a thousand words

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

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. 

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. 

https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/indiascope/story/19820228-rajiv-gandhi-gives-andhra-cm-t.m.-anjiah-a-piece-of-his-mind-for-flouting-airport-rules-771544-2013-10-19

https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/cover-story/story/19870215-rajiv-gandhis-most-insensitive-blunder-a.p.-venkateswaran-removal-as-foreign-secretary-798506-1987-02-15

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.