Column

You can fit as many Congressmen as you want in a car,” a senior member of the party once told me. They have no spine and can be folded neatly into convenient sizes,” he concluded the joke and guffawed. Members of the Grand Old Party of Indian politics are a humorous lot, I have found, and are more than ready to laugh at themselves.

The crack about the spine rings true — it takes a lot of flexibility and willingness to bend and stretch to be a politician, but it requires a special kind of talent to be a
Congresswallah. The party has no hard and fast ideology — it is more a broad church, an umbrella organisation, under which lefties and right-wingers are accommodated.
Over its long history, it has had communists and Hindutvavadis within its folds all of whom got submerged under the Congress rubric. Yet its lack of rigidity is its biggest strength.

But the party has a unique ethos that cannot be fully understood within normal parameters of ideological discourse. And it has certain well-defined ground rules too.
Difference of opinion is tolerated, but only up to a point. Vocal dissidence, unless specially sanctioned, is unacceptable and too much public airing of views against someone invites opprobrium. The party is very patient and will probably give the dissident a long rope to hang himself by, but when that patience runs out, the results can be devastating. Unlike in other parties, nothing is done impetuously; the high command takes its own time to think about the issue and tries every method to bring the rebel to heel, sometimes even offering incentives to do so, but the high command has a long memory and there are enough people to remind it of those lapses. The biggest commandment of course is — thou shall always respect and live in fear of the Family.

There are essentially three kinds of partymen — the first is those who have remained within the party, through thick and thin and never deserted it even during the worst times. Such dedicated party soldiers often get thrown by the way side during their careers and get pushed out by their more aggressive colleagues, but eventually, they get rewarded. A good example of that is Pratibha Patil, who lost out becoming the chief minister of Maharashtra because the men ganged up against her. She remained within the party during Indira Gandhi’s worst hour unlike many stalwarts. Her loyalty paid off and she was catapulted eventually to the highest post in the land.

The second kind is those who used to be in the party, left it and then came back. The Union cabinet is full of senior ministers who had a stint outside the Congress but eventually saw the error of their ways and returned: Chidambaram, Pranab Mukherjee and Arjun Singh are three such. Sharad Pawar left, rejoined and left again and if word is to be believed, is contemplating merging his party with the Congress eventually. Mamata Banerjee is out but it is moot if she will remain out forever. The Congress always welcomes back the prodigal — again, flexibility is the key here.

The last variety is a rarer one — the new entrant, usually from another party. Mohan Kumaramangalam had joined the Congress from the Communist Party and a few others remained on the periphery, but it was not till recently that the Congress took in someone from the BJP or the Shiv Sena. Shankar Singh Vaghela and many others, in Gujarat and elsewhere left the BJP and did get electoral tickets too, but they can rise only up to a point in the power structures. No outsider can ever supersede the old-timer Congressman or woman.

This is the lesson Narayan Rane forgot. It was shocking enough that a senior Shiv Sena leader was accepted into the Congress; he couldn’t possibly also be given more importance than his peers. The Congress, pragmatic as ever, wanted Rane because he had considerable influence in the critical Konkan belt. He was even given a powerful ministry, much to the chagrin of the seniors (though no one complained openly.) But Rane did not understand that this would be the highest he would go, at least for the foreseeable future. He got impatient and began criticising the chief minister — he showed that he was a member of the Congress but was not a Congressman.

In the Shiv Sena, access to the chief is relatively easy, especially for senior party men. In the Congress, the boss meets you only when she wants to; if you want to meet her, it better be good. Rane managed one meeting because his Konkan base makes him important and powerful, but has cried wolf too often.

What next for Rane and Vilasrao Deshmukh? Rane may get another hearing oreven be given a party post, but his career in the party is pretty much dead. As for Deshmukh, he has won brownie points for his backroom work during the trust vote but he is being watched by the party bosses —Rane’s allegations have had some impact. One slip and out he goes. The difference is, Rane may quit the party in a huff and join someone else; Deshmukh will resign himself to his fate and bide his time till the next time someone remembers him. That is a skill only a Congresswallah has.

Email: sidharth01@gmail.com