As trick questions go, this one stumped my friend. “Who is the biggest fascist in India?”
The questioner himself solved the riddle.
“P.P. Suneer,” he told my friend. “Why else would the Congress be keen on fielding Rahul Gandhi against Suneer and defeating him again?” Not many anti-fascists outside Kerala are likely to have crossed swords with Suneer before. He was the CPI candidate from Wayanad in 2019 when Rahul won the seat in a landslide.
It is too early for the CPI to name its candidate in Wayanad this time but the joke featuring Suneer is doing the rounds now as India limbers up for another general election. Those who catch the joke know that the unstated question is: ‘Should Rahul contest against an ally or should he do so against a BJP candidate?’ The CPI has been among the Opposition parties that have exercised the maximum restraint while commenting on the Congress. But the local Congress unit is pitching for Rahul from Wayanad as it feels that the rub-off effect will see most of its candidates through.
Another question that has been hounding the Congress is why it succumbed — with disastrous consequences — to the seductive charms of Hindutva in some of the states that went to polls recently. How have the accusations of the Congress’s ‘soft Hindutva’ affected the Muslim community?
The following are excerpts from conversations with a Muslim cleric, an academic and orator, and an editor:
Aliyar Qasimi, general-secretary, Jamiyyathul Ulama E Hind, Kerala, and the chief imam at Aluva Town Juma Masjid
It is the political advisers of the Congress who are destroying the party. The Congress is actually the conscience-keeper of secular India. I still believe that a majority of Indians have faith in secularism. In 2019, as many as 63% of those who voted felt that the BJP should not govern India. The 37% can be defeated if the 63% unite. I am afraid the Congress has not yet shown signs that it has understood the urgent need to unite the 63% votes. The advisers to the Congress feel that if the party speaks up for Muslims, Hindutva will benefit. But Hindutva has been able to convince only 37% of those who voted. The Congress has been miserably misled by a section of the media and the party’s advisers that standing up for Muslims would backfire.
I am compelled to say there is a communal faction within the Congress. This section is just biding its time to ensure another BJP victory and then cross over. Rahul has been walking alone in his fight against the BJP. No Congress leader other than Rahul and Priyanka speaks against Modi and Adani. The tragedy of the Congress is that it is still in the grip of a cabal that believes in soft Hindutva.
Soft Hindutva will not work. When we go to a shop that has original and duplicate goods, what will we choose? Those who want Hindutva will opt for the original. Why should they buy the duplicate Hindutva that a section of the Congress is peddling? If the Congress has original secularism, the remaining 63% will accept the party. The unfortunate situation is that the Congress does not have original secularism, and the BJP has original Hindutva. Those who want Hindutva will go to the BJP but those who swear by real secularism will not go to the Congress because what the party is offering is adulterated.
After the Karnataka elections (which the Congress won), I had said that the answer to ‘extreme Hindutva’ is not soft Hindutva but ‘extreme secularism’. In Karnataka, the Congress took a very clear secular stand. When the Congress offered unadulterated secularism in Karnataka, didn’t many Hindus also vote for the party? So the response to hardcore Hindutva must be uncompromising secularism.
The Congress has to get rid of its regressive old guard. Wherever there is a secular mind, the Congress or its allies are in power: Karnataka, Telangana, Tamil Nadu... The Congress is weak in the states that have tilted against secularism because the party has not made any conscious effort to build or reawaken a secular conscience in such states. As long as the Congress does not understand the value of secularism, the country has no hope. There is no point quarrelling with the INDIA partners on who will be the leader. If the secular forces end up splitting the secular vote, it will be unpardonable.
I think Rahul’s ideology will be embraced by the new generation. I have great expectations from our beloved Hindu brothers and sisters who account for 80% of the population. India’s collective mind is secular.
M.N. Karassery, academic and orator
In life and death, Jawaharlal Nehru is the leader of the Congress — the Congress must never forget that. What the Congress should do is to rediscover and reclaim the path Nehru had paved.
That is not easy. Because the person who strayed from Nehru’s path was Indira Gandhi. Who nurtured Bhindranwale? The root cause of the problems we now face is the Emergency. That gave the RSS legitimacy.
The Congress should understand and correct its blunder: its ideal leader is neither Indira nor Rajiv but Nehru. Of course, Gandhi was there earlier. But after the Mahatma, there was only Nehru or the Nehruvian way.
The so-called acceptance of Narendra Modi abroad is rooted in the fact that India is a big market. It is not because of any durable contribution from him. The lasting contribution of India to the world — India’s exportable ideas — are its democracy and secularism.
I will not say I have no hope. I believe in the essential goodness of humans. We still have elections. Has the BJP not been defeated in Karnataka, in Telangana? But I accept that there is a threat of fascism hanging over India.
Muhammed Suhail M, managing editor, DoolNews
If Rahul and all Congress (Congress-backed) candidates, barring one, were sent from Kerala to the Lok Sabha in 2019 to lead the fight against the BJP, such a stupendous performance in the middle of devastation elsewhere owes its origins to the solid work the Left had done since the 1990s. Through consistent campaigning, the Left was able to convince a vast majority of Malayalees that the sangh parivar spells danger to the idea of India.
The outcome of the Lok Sabha election in Kerala in 2024 will depend on who claims the right to fight the BJP better and who can project themselves as the prime enemy of the sangh parivar. The CPI(M) realises that, which is why the entire cabinet crisscrossed the state in a bus to underscore the point that the Modi-led Centre is standing in the way of governance in the state.
This messaging — that we are the principal opponent of the sangh parivar — assumes utmost importance. And this message has to be hammered home loud and clear. I believe that the campaigning dynamics have changed dramatically in the past two decades. Unlike in the early 2000s, when voters used to make up their minds months before the elections, I think now the field is open until the last few weeks and minds can be swayed even in the eleventh hour.
Outside Kerala, the Congress has done little to fight the BJP since the 1990s other than depending on the anti-sangh instincts of large sections of the people. The Congress did little to strengthen its organisation.
Another crushing burden the party is labouring under is the label of ‘family rule’ that Modi has so successfully stamped on the Congress. Right or wrong, an impression has been created among the people that the Congress believes that it is born to rule. The baggage of family rule is the biggest liability of the INDIA partnership.
The Congress also needs to prove its credentials as a reliable ally. Barring UPA-I, its record has not been very reassuring. The staunchest supporter of the Congress now is the DMK but look what Kamal Nath did. (A proposed rally of the INDIA bloc was cancelled, allegedly because of concerns over the DMK’s stand on sanatana dharma.)
I think most secular voters want the Congress to come to power at the Centre but the question is: does the Congress want to do so? Congress leaders appear to be interested only in protecting their own constituencies.
I think the Congress should declare unequivocally that its principal objective is to prevent the BJP from returning to power, not to seek prime ministership. The Congress must reassure the people by saying it will remain a strong and stabilising supporter of any non-BJP government and act as a trenchant corrective force but it will sit out for five years. We must not forget that the finest moment for the Congress in a long time was when Sonia Gandhi declined to become prime minister in 2004 at a time she could easily have assumed the post. That decision gave Sonia Gandhi a moral standing that is unrivalled even now.
Another decisive factor will be whether the Congress can restore and replicate the unadulterated secular positions it took in Karnataka. The message was crystal clear. I am not sure whether even a radical Left party could have or would have taken such an unyielding stand. That ideological coherence paid rich dividends. But that clarity was diffused later by the ‘soft Hindutva’ in Madhya Pradesh.
Finally, Rahul should not contest from Kerala but from another state where the BJP would be his principal rival.
I can think of only two options for the Congress: use the next five years to rebuild the organisation across the country and act as a steadying and corrective force in case a non-BJP government comes to power. The national liberal-secular space is still vacant for the Congress to occupy.
R. Rajagopal is editor-at-large, The Telegraph