Congress’ potted history hails Rajiv

The handbook which passes for the history of the Indian National Congress, released on the occasion of the 125th anniversary of the grand old party of India in New Delhi on Tuesday, will not be treated with much respect either by the scholars in the field or by the general reader.

The publication just lacks the gravitas that one associates with the word ‘history’. Perhaps it does have a limited utility of a primer meant for the party workers. The potted history, however, reveals enough clues about where the party leadership stands with regard to some of the controversial and contentious issues, its sins of omission and commission, as well as the apportionment of credit for things that have gone right.

The 1975 Emergency has been a sore point with the party. It has now adopted a new approach to the question by pinpointing the blame for the ‘authoritarian’ excesses of the Emergency on Sanjay Gandhi.

There is no doubt that the younger son of Indira Gandhi was the face and voice of Emergency, but everyone else in the party at the time, including his mother, acquiesced in it. It suits the present party dispensation to blame Sanjay because the dynastic tale within the party history has taken a detour, and brought Rajiv Gandhi and his family into the picture. The party has to bear collective responsibility for the sins of Emergency.

Rajiv Gandhi gets the credit for his desire to reform the party and to eliminate the ‘power brokers’ but it is the senior leaders who are blamed for his failure to implement it. Similarly, the economic reforms are traced back to the 1991 election manifesto of the party drafted under the leadership of Rajiv – he died in the middle of the election – and therefore the credit goes to him. There is the surprising acknowledgement of PV Narasimha Rao as a non-Gandhi-Nehru prime minister to have run a five-year Congress government from 1991 to 1996. This is but a grudging admission of fact after much dithering.

Most of these assertions are generally true but they do not tell the whole story. But who expects critical objectivity in a party history composed by party hacks and meant for the party faithful? It does, however, give enough clue as to what the party thinks of itself and how it wants to project itself. It is clear that the Congress still remains the Nehru-Gandhi family story. It could be argued that this is inevitable, but it is a sorry tale for the party that it is reduced to a domestic chronicle.