GANDHI'S FLABBY FOLLOWERS

Dhiren Bhagat on the Congress Party's low ebb in its centenary year

Bombay THE centenary celebrations of the Con- gress Party began here the Friday before last at a quarter past nine in the morning when the party President, a young Bombay-born Congressman called Rajiv Gandhi, hoisted the party flag in a field by the Tejpal auditorium in which the original 72 delegates had met in December 1885. (It was a Sanskrit school then.) Even the field was resonant with history: it was from this spot that Mahatma Gandhi had laun- ched the Quit India Movement in August 1942.

I reached the field at 9.11 to find the big green gate they had erected shut, the policemen and party volunteers shouting. There were some 50 or 60 people trying to get in, hardly a large crowd, and from what I could see most of them were (like myself) entitled to do so, yet we were kept out in the most disorganised manner conceivable. Every minute or so we would be pushed back by the police, their batons would be brandished, our toes would get crushed.

At least one couldn't complain of discri- mination. Last week the finance minister (on television, in another context) had informed us that 'the law knows no address'. (It seems an awful waste of petrol, a wag remarked.) Well, here was ample proof of the law's fairness. Gulzaril- al Nanda, who has served as acting Prime Minister twice (after Nehru and after Shastri) was not allowed in by the guards. The chief minister of the state, who is, incidently, the chairman of the Centenary Celebrations Reception Committee, came to the spot in Rajiv's car, then got off to inspect the arrangements. When he tried getting in the field he was stopped by his own policemen, thus learning the famous lesson Wallace Stevens taught: 'One is not a duchess/A hundred yards from a car- riage.'

I missed the flag-hoisting. Afterwards, in the struggle to get in, the lady with me managed to get her arm caught in the iron grill of the gate while a policeman pro- ceeded to shut the gate. She screamed in pain; three days later, as I write this, her bruises are still black and blue. I was luckier: in the crush someone picked my pocket, thus relieving me of 400 rupees and a perfectly decent leather wallet. The next day, at the opening of the plenary session at the Brabourne Stadium, things were so well organised that the policemen began a lathi charge, beating the crowd with their batons. Once again the law knew no address, former cabinet ministers, freedom fighters and prominent newspaper editors returned hurt.

At the All India Congress Committee meeting Rajiv attempted to confirm the minutes of the last meeting. 'Attempted' is the word as the members promptly pro- tested they had not yet received copies of the minutes. No? Oh sorry. Rajiv blushed.

The last AICC meeting was held on 4 and 5 May, nearly nine months ago. In the interim Rajiv has visited the Soviet Union (twice), the United States (twice), France, Japan, Vietnam, Oman, the United King- dom, Algeria, Cuba, the Bahamas, Bang- ladesh, Switzerland, the Netherlands and done many other things besides, but the AICC could not find time to distribute the minutes of the last meeting. Nor, does it appear, did the AICC find time to proof- read the minutes. Swiftly running my eye through the President's speech in English I spotted at least six typos. The transcript of the speech began: For the first time we are assembling without Indiraji. Whateve [sic] glwoing [sic] tributes we may pay to Indiraji, it will never suffice. Her sacrifices cannot be spelt out in words. . . .

I suppose not, not at the Congress Party headquarters anyway.

One could go on, multiplying instances, but the point is made. If these things had happened anywhere else in India I would have ignored them; if they had occurred at any other party convention I would have merely mumbled beneath my breath. But this is the party that is raring to take us into the 21st century. To quote Rajiv at the last AICC meeting, 'We have launched the year looking at India in the 21st century.' What these incidents point to is the para- dox of the Congress Party in its 100th year: while the party is at its flabbiest, stupidest low it has been hijacked by the most sophisticated leadership ever.

In 1885 one delegate in four was a graduate, and that was when being a graduate meant something. Of the 72 delegates there were 37 lawyers, 14 jour- nalists, two teachers and one doctor. (By 1888 there were 59 teachers and 42 doc- tors.) Whatever view Gandhi took of doctors and lawyers (`Leeches', 'cheats', `have almost unhinged us') it is reasonably safe to say these men were not lechers and criminals. At the fourth session at Allaha- bad in 1888 the party addressed itself to the task of the eradication of prostitution, and adopted a resolution condemning the pro- curation of over 2,000 Indian women by the Indian government for the 'hideous purpose' of satisfying soldiers.

A measure of how much things have changed was available in the Free Press Journal of 25 December which carried a report that the Delhi Pradesh Patita Sabha, an organisation concerned with the welfare of the country's prostitutes, had — in view of the impending invasion by Congressmen — 'shed barrels of tears for its sisters of the night on Falkland Road'.

On Friday night, and again on Saturday, I made a round of dozens of low class brothels and naughty girl establishments on Foras Road, Lamington Road, and Falkland Road and, though there were plenty of khadi-clad Congressmen about, the girls didn't seem to be under any special pressure; if anything the rates had gone up a bit for the out-of-town trade. The low life correspondent of the Sunday Observer quotes a tout's estimate that 'at least 2,000 delegates must have had their fill', adding that that figure accounts for only the cheap end of the market.

Whatever Rajiv might say (and he did say let us beware of decadence' in his presidential address), we must be thankful that Bombay has plenty of prostitutes. In September 1984 the student wing of the party, the National Students' Union of India, held a conference in Nagpur, a much smaller town, which was attended by 35,000 'students'. I quote from Tariq Ali's The Nehrus and the Gandhis (1985):

These 'delegates' were not in the least bit interested in the speeches. They looted the shops, raided the liquor dens and fought each other in the brothels. The ordinary people of Nagpur were horrified. Young women were molested and there were a number of reported incidents of rape. The Bombay president of the NSUI, a decent young man, declared that he was extremely worried for the safety of the women dele- gates and sent them back home.

The fact of the matter is that since Independence the party has been in- terested only in winning elections. As an American academic, Myron Weiner, de- scribed Congress in polysyllables: 'It does not mobilise, it aggregates. It does not seek to innovate, it seeks to adapt.' It is hardly surprising, then, that every vice in the nation has infected the party.

Despite 1985's dismal record (three states lost: Karnataka, Punjab, Assam; the Bombay Municipal Corporation and sever- al by-elections besides) the party has usual- ly been successful at winning elections. But in the process it has become an uncivilised and illiterate mass, interested chiefly in money and occasionally rape. Under Mrs Gandhi, power was centralised; indeed the last time the 'party of democracy' had elections was 1972. But all along, it was as if Mrs Gandhi, and later Sanjay, under- stood the party men and in turn were understood by them.

I am not so certain that is the case today. The sullen atmosphere at the AICC may have been due to the recent electoral failures, but I suspect there was more to it than that. Rajiv may be popular with the nation but he is not very popular within the party.

At the 1936 Lucknow session Nehru admitted: 'We have largely lost touch with the masses.' This year in Bombay his grandson echoed his words:

We have shrunk, losing touch with the toiling millions . . . . We are a party of social transformation but in our preoccupation with governance we are drifting away from the people . . . . Millions of ordinary Congress workers throughout the country are full of enthusiasm . . . but they are handicapped, for on their backs ride the brokers of power and influence, who dispense patronage to convert a mass movement into a feudal oligarchy.

If you ignore the sentimental touch about the enthusiasm of the millions of 'ordinary workers' that is pretty much the picture today. The party, of course, wasn't pleased with the speech and attempts to raise a cheer for the leader collapsed.