Shruti Kapila's krap advise to Kangress

In December, 2023, Shruti Kapila wrote in Print.in 

INDIA coalition is a poisoned chalice. Congress is in open competition with regional parties

The Congress vote is being cannibalized by other Opposition parties. It could either do a pre-poll seat sharing pact such that it contested about 300 seats in the hope of crossing the 100 mark. BJP would still be the biggest party but the Opposition might be able to form a coalition government. The question was whether Congress could be united enough to reassure other Opposition parties that it would deliver on what it promised. Suppose Rahul had invited other Opposition leaders to address his 'Nyay Yatra', and suppose further that State level Congress leaders had worked amicably with their Opposition counterparts, then this strategy may have succeeded.  

As the only national alternative, the Congress could choose autonomy over generosity in a coalition and go for broke. It would lay down the foundations of a bipolar India.

Congress has done this in the past and its vote has been cannibalized. Suppose Congress had an attractive Prime Ministerial candidate. Further suppose that it had the money to put up an effective fight in about 420 seats. Then, if you assume Modi makes some big blunder in the next few months, there could have been a chance of Congress forming a Government on its own.  

Few predicted the decisive nature of the 2023 assembly election results. While this speaks poorly of election expertise and even political commentary, the electorate has once again proven its autonomy. Equally, social media and digital campaigns, though pervasive, ever loud, and more evenly played out between the contending parties, are unreliable indicators of emerging political trends. The fact that #Pannauti trended for nearly 48 hours on X after India’s loss in the Cricket World Cup only signifies that omens are but superstitions that can only misdirect hopes into delusions. For all that and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s magical hold over the Indian electorate, I am going to stick out like a sore thumb and stake out a different set of trends from the ones that have captured immediate analysis.

Kapila's genius is to always hit on the stupidest possible argument or recommendation.  

As I’ve asked before: Is India moving toward a party-state polity or going bipolar?

Traditionally, there was one big National party facing regional parties in the States. The BJP managed to displace Congress from this role but to a large extent this was because Congress was stuck with a gun-shy Rahul.  

My short answer is that India’s best chance to avoid becoming a party-state is to go bipolar.

In which case Congress should enter a 'Janata Parivar' Morcha to take on the 'Sangh Parivar'.  This seemed feasible, back when we thought Gehlot would take over from Sonia and work with Nitish, Mamta, Stalin etc. to cement a 'maha-ghatbandhan'. 

To this extent, the trends and news are bad for India’s many small and regional parties.

In a general election, maybe. But it is the State elections which voters really care about.  

Above all, despite, or rather because of its handsome victory in Telangana, the Congress has now come under the greatest burden of political identity.

How so? Karnataka Congress is going one way. Telengana Congress is going another way. It looks as though Bengal Congress will have its own identity, which is anti Mamta but friendly to the Left, whereas Kerala Congress's main enemy will be the CPM. 

It would be convenient but incorrect to see the assembly elections verdict as reflecting a North-South divide.

This divide is real enough. Seat redistribution may occur after 2026 and this is concentrating minds in the South.  

For all the neat colour coding of the spatial map of India that confines the BJP to the Hindi heartland, the picture is contested, mixed, and has, in effect, opened new battlelines.

Not really. Parties have to tailor their policies to reflect the culture and values of the State in which they are fighting for Assembly seats. The General Election however is more greatly influenced by perceptions re. the Prime Ministerial candidates.  

Though the Congress lost in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Rajasthan, the vote share remains more evenly poised than what the more consequential seat numbers tell us.

Because the actual difference between the candidates may be nominal. 

With less than 10 per cent of vote share difference between the two parties in each state, the Hindi heartland is less saffronised and more divided than what that colour-coded picture conveys.

But people who don't get BJP seats cross over to any party which will accommodate them.  

Moreover, despite losing decidedly in the Karnataka assembly election in May 2023, the BJP remains a strong contender for the Lok Sabha election there. The party faces a challenge in southern India but is far from being blocked or fully thwarted.

The BJP has put in some hard-work in the South but it may not seen any results in the short-term.  

It’s cheap and wrong-headed of seasoned and liberal analysts to display a virulent but reverse prejudice in dismissing North India as uneducated and given to parochial and communal passions.

We did so when the Dynasty ruled thanks to its support in the cow-belt.  

Significantly, the contested nature of the vote share is the strongest indication that an ideological fight is indeed afoot.

Not if you look at who got party tickets. In regional elections, personalities matter more than ideologies.  

The only fighting strategy for the grand old party is to double down on inclusive politics. The small two percentage point difference in vote share between the two national parties in Rajasthan indicates as much. The Hindutva-lite campaign by the Congress in Madhya Pradesh has yielded the greatest gap in vote share — eight per cent. Fighting with ideological clarity makes a difference.

Congress has no ideology. Saying 'Savarkar was actually a British officer named Smythe' is not a political platform. It is sheer stupidity.  

Regardless of whether MP is a Hindutva bastion, the pivot of change in both these states has been the realignment of Dalit votes in favour of the BJP. That this has come at the cost of India’s main Dalit party — the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) — indicates an electoral shift of aggressive incorporation for the emergent party-state of the BJP.

What matters is that women are 'labhartis' and their votes are decisive. The BJP has sent thousands of vans into the countries to sign up women to various welfare schemes. Will this strategy work? In some States, perhaps. 

While it has managed to woo Dalits with greater success, the under-analysed trend is the shift in the votes of the Scheduled Tribes (STs) also to the BJP. Anointing Droupadi Murmu as the President has proven to be more than mere symbolics. This has cost the Congress party both in MP and Chhattisgarh. New political alignments are thus discernible. In short, social mobility is gathering toward national rather than regional poles and is the unmissable if not unsettling upshot of the latest results.

The BJP has been doing outreach work for some decades now and this is now paying off. However, the number of seats involved are quite small.  

The ’90s are truly over

There is no going back to the formulae of the last century. Even in 2004, there was a similar set of assembly election results in favour of the BJP on the eve of the Lok Sabha poll but the Congress came to power.

Because Vajpayee looked decrepit whereas people were hopeful about the two young Gandhis.  

Hoping for such a pattern to repeat in May would be foolish, as the political contest now is entirely different and altogether challenging.

The contest is now about who is best at cannibalizing the Congress vote.  It was to avoid this outcome that Congress proposed an opposition alliance. 

Thirty years of economic liberalisation and the BJP’s aggressive political campaigns have transformed the Indian polity and society. Census or no census, any coalition of castes will be insufficient to match the BJP behemoth. Caste remains most significant, but its political articulation and tethering are in great transition.

Women, it seems, vote on the basis of their economic, not caste, interest. That is the big gamechanger. But all Parties competing in promising them more and more.  

The BJP has shown agility in incorporating otherwise inimical social groups, whether it’s tribals or Dalits. The BJP’s cadre base and its key arm, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), has been pursuing the largest swing voter base of the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) for even longer — since the ’80s, under M D Deoras.

Even in the Sixties, the Jan Sangh was reaching out to dominant agricultural castes but was unable to produce charismatic leaders of its own.  

Slow off that mark, the BJP took two decades to follow the RSS in appealing to the OBCs. The Congress and the opposition, in general, will need to reimagine a new and bold politics of caste.

No. Everybody wants to get in on the 'labharti' game. It is said that the BJP is ahead organizationally in many parts of the country but there are energetic leaders in other parties who are seeking to bridge the gap.  

The BJP is clearly pursuing the idea of a party-state that incorporates India’s social order.

No. That didn't work for either Congress or the Communist parties.  If your party is identified with the  State then its image turns to shit when the State turns to shit. 

To contest this, there is a need of the appropriate scale of contest that posits a new political imagination and programme on caste on the national level. A local arithmetic of caste is not only cynical but unfit for the challenge too. In short, what is needed is the grandeur and candour of a B R Ambedkar vision to remake and realise a new national politics of caste.

Ambedkar failed politically. Kanshi Ram only got his big break after Mullah Mulayam killed karsevaks.  

By the same token, a Lohiaite vision, which inspired OBC-based regional parties in North India, looks small, dated, and broadly reactive.

I suppose she means that Nitish is no longer highly thought of.  

If anything, the Mandal politics of the last century now appears to be saturated.

'Mandir' has won.  

More than that, the regional assortment of OBC parties came at the cost of the Congress party — and the greatest national beneficiary has indeed been the BJP. To undo this, the Congress needs to recoup lost territory rather than cede more.

How? It fought over 400 seats in the last general election and only got 48 seats. Since then, its position has deteriorated. It needs to focus its resources on fewer seats while getting help from caste based parties to defeat BJP there. This could get it above a hundred seats, if everything goes well.  

With a handsome win in Telangana, the Congress has reasons to rejoice. Yet, this victory poses the most crucial question for its political identity. Winning over a popular regional party, the Bharat Rashtra Samiti (BRS), attests

to KCR having lost the plot. You can't rely on the other side getting complacent and picking bad candidates 

not only to a growing bipolarity but, above all, revises the idea of alliance building. Simply put, the Congress is in open competition with regional parties.

AAM aspires to be national. Can it take seats from Congress in Punjab? Probably.  

This makes the INDIA alliance a poisoned chalice, which is not only awkward but also potentially suicidal for the grand old party.

How? If Congress is competing with both the BJP and a regional party, then surely it benefits by doing a deal with the regional party so that both have a chance of taking seats from the BJP rather than seeking to cannibalize each other or act as 'spoilers'.  

This is more so as regional parties, especially from the Hindi heartland, appear static, saturated, and tangled in a generational crisis of leadership and cadres.

Not really. Akhilesh and Tejashwi look pretty confident.  

If India’s Muslim voters are returning to the Congress after several decades of favouring local opposition to the BJP — as in Telangana and Karnataka now — then the burden to imagine and realise a new rainbow coalition lies with the Congress party.

But Muslims are too small a minority to help Congress regain national stature. Indeed, Congress hasn't got enough seats in the lower house to be recognized as the official opposition party.  

It can be argued that with only one victory this season, the Congress will now need to show humility to other parties in the INDIA alliance for the ‘do-or-die’ election in 2024. This is the dominant view of election experts today. Some anxious others say that the solidarity of opposition parties is necessitated due to the growing powers of government agencies.

The big question was whether Congress was united enough to do a deal and keep to it. The answer, it is now clear, is no.  

Yet, precisely because it has retained its vote share, managed a spirited campaign with an entente if not peace between its generations and factions, the Congress looks stronger than all of its coalition partners put together.

Congress could lose 10 out of the 19 seats it has in Kerala and 5 of the 7 seats it has in Punjab.  It should make some gains elsewhere. One nightmare scenario is that TMC ends up with more MPs than Congress. At that point Stalin- their most faithful ally- may ditch them. 

Most importantly, the Congress has found its utterance, though hesitatingly. And this is after at least 40 years. Yes, the Congress won in 2004 and 2009, but it was primarily driven by technocratic ideas and policies back then.

It has no ideas or policies now. That's why Kapila thinks it is unbeatable.  

Those strategies and policies were no match for the political transformation wrought and captured by the party-state ambitions of Modi and the BJP.

Congress was very much a 'party-state' in the Fifties.  The Left Front in Bengal too functioned in that manner. 

As the only national alternative, the Congress could choose autonomy over generosity in a coalition and go for broke.

If it had a PM candidate- maybe. But it doesn't. Rahul is working round the clock to make Congress unelectable.  

It would lay down the foundations of a bipolar India that can militate against the growing party-state domination of the BJP. A new and bold inclusive India is unlikely to appear from a coalition of cynical desperation. It is even less likely to emerge from what appears to be an emergency back-stop of opposition parties to stave off the overweening power of government agencies. Going alone, the national alternative won’t win overnight, but nor will it confuse the opponent with a fake ally or the friend with a frenemy or worse, an enemy. A bipartisan polity is the only insurance against an ideological and emergent party-state. Even in loss, going solo is the best chance for the Congress to enhance its political identity to represent the alternative to Hindu-first India.

India is a big country like the US where both the Dems and the Republican parties are big tent affairs. One could say 'UPA vs NDA' was the Indian equivalent. But it collapsed because UPA didn't have a Prime Ministerial candidate. The same is true of 'INDIA' which appears to have fallen apart already with Mamta, Nitish and Mann withdrawing from it. Perhaps, in Bihar, allying with Nitish will backfire on the BJP. Sadly, the Congress won't benefit from this.  

Staying aloof, and building from the ground up, inch by inch and victory by victory, is, after all, what the BJP did in its long decades of electoral wilderness.

It had a Prime Ministerial candidate it could point to with pride. Congress lacks any such thing. Till it gets one, it must either join a coalition or risk having its support base cannibalized.  

Shruti Kapila on Jignesh Mevani's great victory

The recent Gujarat elections were important because they enabled AAP to gain 'national party' status.  It also represented a historic victory for the BJP which has won seats it had never held previously.

Shruti Kapila takes a different view.

The biggest winner of the latest election cycle is Gujarat Congress MLA Jignesh Mevani.

No. His victory margin is down by about 12000 votes. I suppose Shruti mentions him because he is now with Congress and the AAP candidate did not do well. The BJP candidate had formerly been with Congress. Still, his local support was stronger than the BJP's previous candidate. Indeed, Congress had vacated the seat for Mevani in 2017 though he was an Independent.  The question now is how loyal is he to Congress? Will he- like Alpesh or Hardik- turn on the party? He has already complained that Congress didn't give him enough money and he had to resort to crowd-funding. Also they weren't using him in their campaign. This suggests that local Congress leaders think the fellow is a bird of passage- forced on them by Rahul whose Bharat Jodo Yatra is now burning up money that should have gone on electioneering. 

Mevani is ambitious. He doesn't want to end up just as an Opposition MLA from some shithole constituency where Muslims are the biggest voting block. He can't rejoin AAP because Kejriwal is a banyan in whose shade nothing can grow. But if Congress can't provide him money and a platform why stick with it? Why not go back to being a 'crowd-funded' Independent with a radical agenda? 

Mevani did win his election but doesn't feel like a winner. Why? He foolishly gave up Independence to join a Party which just went down to its biggest defeat in Gujarat. Mevani thought Congress would help him in UP where he wanted to campaign against Yogi. Instead, Yogi became a star campaigner in Gujarat. If Mevani gets a 'Muslim supported' tag among Dalits, then he can never dream of being the next Mayawati. Yet that is how he is being depicted in Gujarat. Much depends on Gehlot's attitude to him. If he ropes in Mevani for the 2023 campaign, then Mevani's profile rises. The problem there is that Kharge may take a dim view of Rahul's protege. 

All in all, Mevani's prospects are now dimmer than they were when he was still an Independent. Shruti, obviously, will take the opposite view- 

Now, if this triggers a dismissive response from you, try and hold on for a second. I invoke Mevani in the hope of outlining emerging changes in Indian politics, and this is because the biggest loser remains Indian political analysis.

Shruti is the biggest loser among Indian political analysts. Still she is right to concentrate on 'emerging changes' as opposed to changes which are refusing to emerge from the toilet till that nasty Modi converts to Islam and goes on Hajj. 

As the world’s most high-octane democracy, every election is frustratingly treated with the same cookie-cutter analysis.

Shruti's analysis is kooky.  

Excited data crunchers hold sway as they bombard you with colour-coded charts and graphs with mainly two points of discussion: Vote share of parties and the nature of the swing vote, with some noises about caste or ‘incumbency’ usually ending with ‘lessons’ for parties and prophetic statements on the next election.

That's the sort of stuff people will pay for. It may be boring, but it is useful.  

The only constant in the current analysis is the power of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Even if you are a die-hard supporter of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Modi, this is less than satisfactory.

but only if you are a kook.  

The twin results of BJP’s big win in its prestige bastion of Gujarat and the solid, if hard-won, Congress victory in Himachal Pradesh indicate that both personality and populism have hit a saturation point.

Modi and Amit are popular in Gujarat. This helped BJP candidates. In Himachal, the party made a lot of mistakes.  

To put it in street-speak, both bhakti (devotion) and revdi (freebies) look not quite spent but overdone.

In other words, their importance has been exaggerated. But, in Gujarat, bhakts have in fact prevailed. Himachal had anti-incumbency for very good reasons. It appears that the decision not to announce a CM pick worked out well for Congress though there may be tears before bedtime because of this.  

Aam Admi Party’s less-than-impressive results compared to its big talk and big media love-in has confirmed its character as a spoiler rather than a contender.

It has become a National Party. It took votes from Congress. The question is whether Congress will remain a contender in Gujarat. Mevani might jump ship. Maybe he has plans to turn his RDAM into a BSP of his own.  But, to achieve that, he needs- like Mayawati- to get Forward Caste votes. Otherwise he will be dismissed as a proxy Muslim MLA from a reserved seat (i.e. one Muslims can't contest). Dalits may prefer a BJP candidate who can become a Minister or even CM. 

The new, if unnoticed, story is the likely emergence of a different social map of political leadership even as hard identity talk reigns. Look no further than Mevani

previously an Independent but now with Congress. His problem is that the BJP will build up Manilal Vaghela who was the MLA from 2012 to 2017. Congress made him vacate the Vadgam seat to bring in Mevani. But Mevani may pump and dump them. The trouble is there isn't much left to pump.  

and, indeed, Congress’ Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu in Himachal Pradesh.

Sukhu is a solid organization man aged 58. Mevani is 42. 

You don’t necessarily need to be in a cadre-based party to breach the zealously guarded citadels of power.

Sukhu rose within the Congress cadre. Mevani was a journalist turned activist and then an independent candidate in 2017.

To be sure, Modi continues to wield all the powers associated with his personality and as a distinct form of leadership of our times. His carefully curated

orchestrated maybe. A road show can't be curated. 

road shows in Gujarat ensured more than just the big mandate for his party. Whether it is a Lok Sabha election or his home state, Modi manages to overwhelm any concern with governance and accountability.

Only if they are irrelevant or imaginary. The fact is, Himachal showed that poor governance is punished. Agnihotri and Sukhu went on the offensive by charging CM Thakur with massive corruption- selling jobs was the most telling criticism. Both have been rewarded.  

Despite the recent preventable deaths due to the Morbi bridge collapse, or even the long-drawn-out and brutal fallout of the global Covid-19 pandemic, Modi remains popular. Policy-work and the running of a good government now appear too dull and all too ordinary for his persona. To my mind, Modi is not Indira Gandhi. He is the new Amitabh Bachchan.

Sadly, Shruti's mind is full of shit. Rahul may want to be the 'angry young man'. Modi concentrates on looking professional. 

Modi has transformed himself into a superhero figure today.

but only in the mind of a cretin 

He switches between a statesman-like persona with street appeal to project himself as greater than the electoral process, party, and even government.

No. He campaigns hard for his party. But, Himachal showed that this won't make any difference if governance is poor. The fact is BJP had rebels in 21 seats. Anurag Thakur, son of the 2017 BJP candidate, appeared to be conspiring against the CM. God alone knows who Nadda was supporting. Maybe he doesn't know himself. The one thing everybody agreed on was that Jairam Thakur was useless. 

Little wonder then that he dresses for the occasion.

Shruti wears bikini when giving lectures. However, she showers wearing a satin ball-gown.  

Modi, after all, is showered with rose petals wherever his carriage goes.

Also the carriage horses shoot out rainbows from their butts.  

It is pure spectacle. In strictly political terms, this should worry his party as, despite holograms, Modi can’t be everywhere.

Amit Shah may kindly invent teleportation and body duplication. 

And this much is already clear from the Himachal Pradesh election results.

So clear, it takes a Shruti level cretin to comment on it.  

Many analysts and academics have eloquently and justifiably decried that Indian democracy is now reduced to mere electioneering.

as opposed to what? Which democracy doesn't have electioneering and nothing but electioneering during elections?  

There is plenty that is wrong and even alarming about Indian democracy today. I won’t enlist

she means 'I won't list all the things that wrong'. Enlist doesn't mean listing things. It means joining the Army or asking for and getting help and support. 

that now, but unlike many analysts, I take elections as a major touchstone and not just a mere process of democracy.

If there are free and fair elections which determine who gets to rule then you have Democracy. That's the 'touchstone'- i.e. the standard or criteria that must be met.  

And if elections are the main and only game in town,

the only game by which political power is acquired 

the gamers might just be adapting, if not changing.

Adapting means changing.  What on earth is this cretin getting at?

Modi’s script of change from a humble chaiwallah to a powerhouse is no longer unique.

She means 'Modi's narrative of rising from humble chaiwallah to the most powerful man in India...' A script of change is a prescription by which that change can be affected. But we have no such thing. It remains true that Modi is unique in rising from poverty- his folks couldn't afford to send him to College- to being a two term PM.  

Others are charting the same script

charting the same course. Why is Shruti's English so bad? The answer, I suppose, is that Oxford only hired her so they could snigger at her behind her back.  

even if the scale and success seem small by comparison. Mevani’s spirited and crowd-funded campaign in Vadgam was easily the toughest fight in Gujarat, which bodes well for India’s competitive democracy.

Does she mean in 2017, when Mevani ran as an independent? But Congress forced their guy to step aside for Mevani. That's why he later joined the BJP.  

His backstory of consistent fightback from below bestows dignity on democracy.

Mevani's parents were Government employees. He is middle class. He was interested in Theater and Cinema and did an MA in Mass Communications. After working as a journalist in Bombay, he became an activist. Eventually, he trained as a lawyer and joined AAP in 2014. Congress, prodded by Rahul, vacated the seat for him in 2017 because of the publicity he'd received for his campaigning on the Una flogging issue. 

This was not a 'fight back from below'. It was a journalist turned lawyer-activist jumping on the AAP bandwagon before resigning from that party to concentrate on his 'non-political' Una agitation which, it turned out, was about as non-political as Arvind Kejriwal's Lokpal agitation.  

Student leader, activist, journalist and now in office for the second term, Mevani fought off money, muscle, and cynicism for principles to count in politics.

He received plenty of money and credulous support. What was important, however, was that Vadgam was one third Muslim. The complete marginalization of Muslims in Gujarat is what keeps Mevani safe. But it also means Dalits won't take him seriously. He is just a proxy Muslim. 

It speaks quietly, if assuredly, to the power of politics as transformation.

There has been no transformation in Vadgam. There has been corruption. 

Mevani may be an outlier because he has bucked a dominant trend in Indian politics.

No. Mevani was part of the same trend which lifted up Kejriwal. But Kejriwal is now a National level politician ruling two States. Congress rules 3 states. But it may lose Rajasthan without gaining Karnataka next year.  

As recent academic writing attests, political leadership in India is becoming exclusive even as more socially diverse groups engage in the electoral process.

No. Leadership is becoming more inclusive. Chief Minister Sukhu's father drove a bus. Punjab's CM dropped out of College. His father was the headmaster of a three room village School. 

In short, personality power combined with a lack of diversity is making Indian democracy less representative, even as voter participation remains robust. With his modest background as the son of a bus driver, Sukhu has also prevailed over the political aristocracy in Himachal Pradesh. Even if they are outliers, they have become exemplars as both have emerged in an overly expensive electoral system that is all too competitive and entirely prohibitive in every respect.

No. AAP has shown that money doesn't matter. But then the BJP too had shown that.  

Mevani’s win also indicates that a perceptible shakedown is afoot on the social basis of India’s party politics.

In 2017, maybe. Not now.  

His win comes at a crucial point as Dalit power has all but lost its main party of representation, which is the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP).

Even in 2017, the BSP made a poor showing. We are waiting to see who will be the next Mayawati. Mevani will have to develop an all-India presence if he is to be in the running.  

With Mevani, India’s Dalit politics finally has a charismatic young leader who can take on the big fight and win.

Ravan is charismatic but he lost to Yogi. Mevani is more bookish.  

At the same time, BJP has gained unprecedented support in Gujarat’s tribal constituencies. Congress has won handsomely in a northern state

which they held till 2017. But then they also had Punjab which is Northern.  

and can no longer be blithely dismissed by the media.

In Delhi, it can as the municipal elections showed.  

Despite its new official status as a ‘national party,’ AAP remains hidebound to its Delhi-based instincts.

Its instinct is to grow at the expense of Congress. That's a strategy which works because Rahul is a moon-calf. Apparently, Priyanka isn't totally useless. But we may be wrong about that. The Himachal ministry may implode. We'd feel more secure if we knew that Kharge had made the CM pick. That dude is hella smart. 

The changing social and regional basis of party politics deserves its own column. And I have not even raised ideology! But if personality is king, then it may no longer be the sole sovereign.

Personality isn't king. Governance is what matters.  Does Bhupendrabhai Patel have a personality? I don't know. But Gujaratis seem to think he is good at governance. I believe the guy is a builder by profession. Good for him. 

Modi may or may not have fashioned himself on Indira Gandhi.

Especially his hairstyle and taste in sarees. 

The reaction to her outsized persona was the emergence of multi-party democracy in India,

Nonsense! Congress was on the ropes from the mid-Sixties onwards. It split and kept splitting. There was an Indira cult but it didn't last. The only thing one could say about her was that she didn't have a penis. Indian politicians with penises were shit because the Mahatma had told them that using your dick for sex would cause impotence. By contrast, Nehru had arranged for a handsome 'Brahmacharee' to improve Indu's health with his dick. That's the sort of 'alternative medicine' which actually works. 

and the response to Amitabh Bachchan’s superstardom was the inauguration of the multi-star blockbuster.

Nonsense! Waqt was the first multi-starrer. That was in 1965. Its producer, Yash Chopra made Bacchan a star. But he was junior to Dharmendra in Sholay. Rajesh Khanna is considered the first true super-star. Bacchan's role in 'Anand' helped his rise.  

If elections are the new mass entertainment, then the latest elections clearly show that picture abh baki hai.

Yes. This is only the intermission. Modi will continue into a third term. Mevani will have to find some new ally- Owaisi?- to keep the Muslim vote in his Assembly seat. Congress is no longer of use to Muslims. Rahul will lose Wayanad because as Owaisi hinted, there's no point sacrificing a Muslim seat just to help a retard keep going to Temples. 

What about Kejriwal? What is his next move? Karnataka? Is that even possible? Kharge will put up stiff resistance. Still, if Kejriwal can establish a presence in the South, he will be in a strong position in 2029. 

 

Shruti Kapila on Rahul's masterstroke

 The always ludicrous Shruti Kapila writes in Print.in

 It took Savarkar for India’s media to finally take note of the Bharat Jodo Yatra.

No. Rahul's attack on Savarkar was only newsworthy so long as doubt remained as to Uddav Thackeray's reaction. Would he break with the MVA coalition? The answer was no. Pappu was just being Pappu is all. Move along folks. Nothing to see here. 

Arguably, this is apt. It has been over two months since Rahul Gandhi has been walking long, hard and fast. The aim of the yatra is political salvation.

Congress is investing in Rahul rather than spending its money on the elections. The game plan is clear. Promote Rahul as Modi's only rival while Kharge shoulders the blame for the party being wiped out at the polls.  

With its simple message of religious harmony, and prosperity for all, the epic walk has been focussed on ordinary human connection and interaction.

It has focused on a 52 year old man-child who is growing out his beard because....well, Modi grew out his beard during COVID so, obviously, Rahul needs to show that he too can do abundant facial hair. But Modi became CM of Gujarat at 51 without ever having held any public office before. Indeed, he's never stood for election. Yet he became its longest serving Chief Minister. The question is whether he will be a three term PM. If Rahul is his only rival, the answer is- yes, obviously.  

Accompanied by a clamour for hugs and selfies by ardent supporters, the yatra appears nothing less than a public therapy for a stressed nation.

No. It is an ego-massage for a man-child.  

Rahul Gandhi’s walk is but a deliberate emulation of MK Gandhi, who made walking the arch act of political protest.

But the Mahatma was venerated- and not only in India. Pappu hasn't even managed to get married and father a child let alone hold any high public office. 

The Indian media has taken little note of it. Until now.

Not now. Uddhav can't quit the MVA. He has nowhere to go.  

On entering Maharashtra, Rahul Gandhi reminded the press about VD Savarkar’s mercy petition to the British empire. Savarkar had indeed sought his release from the dreaded Andaman Island prison, and his petition was written in the most abject terms of political servitude.

It was written in the same manner all such petitions were written. Savarkar had studied law. Revolutionaries try to get out of jail by any and all means possible. Courting arrest was a Gandhian tactic which did help win votes but which was otherwise ineffective.  

This was enough to ignite the media.

It gave Kiren Rijiju a chance to shine and rise in the eyes of the Sangh Parivar.  

Modi has declared that the yatra had now gone ‘political.’

Rahul had maligned a freedom fighter. He had reminded everyone that his grandmother had jailed and tortured people like Chief Minister Stalin. His own claim to have been fighting 'hatred' fell flat because his frequent absences from Parliament were not the result of stints in jail. They were caused by foreign holidays.  

Commentators too have piped in to point out that in doing so, Rahul Gandhi has in fact been politically inexpedient as this reminder from the history archives risks ire from the Congress party’s ally, the Thackrey faction of the Shiv Sena that draws inspiration from Savarkar.

Rahul showed that Uddhav had become irrelevant. The Dynasty will tolerate no other dynasties.  

The polarity is triggering as it is both apt and alive. It signals the fundamental political and psychic division at the heart of independent India’s identity, that of MK Gandhi and VD Savarkar, the founder of Hindutva.

Independent India's identity is univocal. The British tried to hand power to a united country. The 1946 election, in which Muslims voted overwhelmingly for the Muslim League, which was committed to the creation of Pakistan, while Hindus voted overwhelmingly for Congress. The Mahatma may have wanted the Brits to stay on or the for the county to remain united. But it was Savarkar who was the better prophet.

The fundamental division in Congress- which pre-existed Gandhi or Savarkar- was between the 'Naram Dal'- the moderates- and the 'Garam Dal' of Bal, Pal and Lal. After the Great War, it was obvious that the real issue was not whether the Brits would leave but whether delaying independence would cause Hindus and Muslims to come together. The answer was no. Muslim majority areas would ethnically cleanse non-Muslims once they Brits left and it was safe to do so.  

In our times of an ascendant Hindutva, Savarkar is everywhere. From airport bookstores to political commentators

isn't very far. But most Indians have never been to an airport nor do they listen to 'political commentators'.  

once a shadow character from Indian annals, is now openly redrawing political lines and emotional allegiances, which had until recently been hidden in plain sight.

So, not hidden at all.  

A protégé of Lokmanya Tilak, the Maratha firebrand

he organized a mass burning of foreign cloth in 1905 in the presence of Tilak. The Mahatma didn't invent that type of stupidity.  

and India’s first mass nationalist leader, Savarkar spent his early youth in secret revolutionary societies. Savarkar also learnt to make bombs, shoot with guns and trained young men in similar activities both in India and London where he had decamped to. Savarkar spent considerable time in the archives and took to writing history. He wrote a radical account of the Indian Mutiny of 1857 in 1908 that he iconically dubbed as the ‘first war of Independence’.

Hindus and Muslims were constantly kissing and cuddling till British Nanny made them stop. Boo! 

Deadly activities, secret associations and incendiary prose led to his arrest and extradition to the Andamans.

The fact that Savarkar had been arrested in England and that he had briefly escaped custody and claimed asylum in France was a factor in keeping him from the hangman's noose.  

While Savarkar was in prison, MK Gandhi returned to India from South Africa and consequentially changed the political vocabulary of India and anti-imperialism.

No. After Gokhale's death, Tilak gained prominence. But it was Annie Beasant who led the Home Rule league. The collapse of Tzarist rule in Russia and the entry of America into the War changed Whitehall's political vocabulary. It was accepted that the Raj would have to transition to responsible government which was representative in character, at least in directly ruled territories. The question was whether the Muslims and the Princes would make common cause with Congress. For a brief while, Muslims and Hindus did come together on the basis of Gandhi & Co pretending Hindu were in favor of Khilafat and Muslims pretending Khilafat didn't mean what it did to the Moplahs.  

This was not a mere stroke of luck. Gandhi and Savarkar had already had an unsuccessful encounter that revealed their differences in London and it is widely speculated that Gandhi’s Hind Swaraj (1909) was directed at Savarkar and his politics.

No. Hind Swaraj was the result of the Mahacrackpot reading a stupid article by Chesterton. Gandhi, as an Empire loyalist- like 'Bow & Agree' Bhownagree- initially attacked Savarkar but, later, said- 'The evil in its hideous form, of the present system of Government, he saw much earlier than I did, He is in the Andamans for his having loved India too well. Under a just Government he would be occupying a high position.'

To be sure, from their earliest failed encounter in 1908 in London to Gandhi’s assassination in 1948 by an acolyte of Savarkar in Delhi, the two men created two oppositional views and methods of political visions and ends.

Gandhi was a loyalist who tried to recruit soldiers for the Brits during the Great War. Savarkar and Jugantar and the Ghaddarites wanted an alliance with Germany to throw out the Brits. They were anti-Imperialists who believed 'assassination tempers autocracy'. But, after 1917, Imperialism was on the wane. First the Tzar, then the Hapsburbs, then the Kaiser, then the Caliph, all lost their Crowns. Multi-ethnic Empires were doomed. Wilsonian Nationalism would prevail.  But, the Treaty of Lausanne, not to mention the partition of Ireland, showed that Religion would trump ethnicity unless the successor state was as ruthless as its Imperial predecessor and killed or incarcerated those who might indulge in ethnic cleansing.

Gandhi’s politics was visible, anti-secrecy and chose dying over killing.

No Gandhian died. Sulking in jail from time to time while the Brits imposed their own solution was all that Congress was capable of.  

Above all, Gandhi as an ardent believer of God and Hinduism in particular, embraced religion to animate a new brotherhood of equals.

Nonsense! He was top dog by reason of being a Mahatma.  

Truth alone could counter violence;

Which is why telling the guy who is stabbing you that he is a murderous bastard will definitely cause him to stop.  

hence his innovative word satyagraha was both a political idea and powerful practice.

It was useless. Gandhi had to call off the Non Cooperation Movement because Congress members in Chauri Chaura ran amok killing policemen.  

For Gandhi, any competition over religion only betrayed the believer’s weakness

whereas forming an orderly queue to get hit on the head and to go meekly to jail meant you were actually Superman. You were just pretending to be a puny weakling.  

and he was assiduously opposed to both conversion and indeed reconversion (or shudhhi).

But he got his son shuddified by the Arya Samaj after that drunkard converted to Islam.  

It was by far the most effective anti-colonial politics in world history.

It failed completely. Ireland, Egypt and Afghanistan got independence in 1922. India got nothing even though Labor took office in 1924. Gandhi's tactic was to demand the moon and then settle for less than was originally offered.  

Savarkar’s steadfast interest remained in violence and war as a source of dynamism in history.

No. He tried to turn the Mahasabha into a rival to Congress but failed miserably. He just wasn't very good at politics. 

A known atheist,

nobody knew or cared about his theological beliefs. The question was whether the Muslims would forego the chance to do ethnic cleansing where they were in the majority. In this matter, Savarkar was right. Gandhi & Co. were wrong. I suppose Savarkar's reputation revived as Islamic terrorism gained salience and Muslim appeasement was seen as having failed miserably.  

he coined the term and creed of Hindutva.

No. That was Chandranath Basu.  

Hindutva was explained as a theory of violence.

No. It was explained as ecumenical Hinduism concerned with uniting Hindus of all sects and castes.  

Denoting political Hindu-ness, Savarkar was clear that as a religion, Hinduism posed a significant obstacle to creating Hindutva itself.

No. He thought the caste system was the obstacle. He was right.  

Fixated on the idea of enmity and its conquest by violence, Savarkar chose both Buddhism and Islam’s Indian journeys as principal political opponents.

No. He was only concerned with Islamic and European imperialism. Buddhism was fine because Buddhists only paid lip service to Ahimsa. The problem was that India was vulnerable to Japanese aggression while the Buddhist Burmese wanted the Indians to fuck off.  

Secrecy as revolutionary creed was embedded in his writings. Two years after the publication of his manifesto Hindutva and in 1925, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh was established to realise its ideals.

No. The RSS was set up by Dr. Hegdewar on the pattern of the Congress Seva Dal set up by his pal Dr. Hardikar. The idea was that if Congress had to go underground, the RSS would remain over-ground. But the RSS took on a life of its own and increasingly diverged from the path of the Mahasabha. This meant that when Syama Prasad Mukherjee exited the Mahasabha to found the Jan Sangh, the RSS found a political vehicle of its own. Still, few would have predicted that Vajpayee- a founding member- would end up as Prime Minister. The future seemed to lie with the Socialists.  

The rest, as they say, is history.

Which Shruti is wholly ignorant of.  

Indian political storylines have returned to the past with a vengeance.

No. Ten years ago there was no AAP party. Nobody had heard of Prashant Kishor. The Left still had a presence in West Bengal. Rahul wasn't laughed at when he spoke of reviving Congress's fortunes in Uttar Pradesh. Indeed, most assumed he would become Prime Minister before fighting the 2014 elections which many thought he'd win. It wasn't till December 2012 that Modi revealed his ambition to be the BJP candidate in 2014. 

In part, this is to create a new political language fit for our times.

No. Today's political language has to do with 'deliverables' and issues like returning to the old pension system. Only Rahul talks about 'vichardhara'- ideology. Vijayan in Kerala says he want to be the Deng Xiaoping of India.  

India’s history wars in earnest began

thirty years ago in the context of Ayodhya. The Left lost. It turned out they were shit at history.  

a decade or more ago when the political language of the UPA-era and its liberal welfarism came undone, thanks to

corruption and his own party cutting off Manmohan at the legs. This would have been fine if Rahul had rudely pushed him aside and taken over as PM. But Rahul didn't want to get assassinated like his Daddy and Granny. So Congress had no PM candidate. It still doesn't because Rahul is unelectable. He will lose his seat in Kerala in 2024.  

raging populism and a rebranded Hindutva under Narendra Modi.

This is foolish. Modi's strength is governance. Populism triumphed with 'garibi hatao' more than five decades ago. 

More significantly, a new cultural warfare too started that insisted that there was more than ‘one idea of India.’

Rahul's uselessness has led to everybody shitting on Nehru.  

In approaching and summoning political victory, Modi

as Vajpayee had done at the end of the Nineties 

and the new cultural warriors aggressively reminded us that ideas and histories that were once consigned to either obscurity or wilfully neglected were now in power.

It was the Bench which decided that the Left was telling lies which had no basis in the historical record.

In short, the last decade has installed Savarkar and Hindutva as the dominant and visible creed for the first time in India’s history.

Not really. Savarkar, poor fellow, was a deeply silly man exiled from the political center of gravity. He was only 27 when he was sent off to do hard labor in the Andamans. It was the utter collapse of the Left- save in Kerala, where it is pragmatic, not ideological- which has created a vacuum which, global Islamic militancy has permitted Hindutva to fill.  

In invoking Savarkar, Rahul Gandhi is only identifying with MK Gandhi.

No. Rahul doesn't want to get shot the way the Mahatma got shot. His strategy is to make his Party unelectable. Recall, Rajiv was only killed because he said he might send the army back into Sri Lanka and there was a strong possibility that he'd be elected because VP Singh had shat the bead.  

To be sure, history wars are not about the past. They have everything to do with the identity of India today and its future tomorrow.

India is ruled by Modi. He appears likely to get a third term. The big question is whether AAP can replace Congress in the North and whether Congress satraps will continue to ditch the Party so as to create their own dynastic, caste based, parties.  

In invoking Savarkar and going against analysts, Rahul Gandhi has shown political pragmatism

He has done Savarkar a favor. Kids will be googling the guy and discovering that the Revolutionaries suffered greatly in the prisons of the Raj. Gandhians had it easy in prison. Still, as Nehru said, once the Brits threatened to confiscate property, Congress became meek and obedient.  

and taken the lead in drawing lines as India gears up for a long season of its most consequential general election.

This will be the least consequential general election if, as most predict, Modi gets a third term. In 2019, Congress had a chance but Rahul screwed up. This time round, he won't even be in the running. He has alienated the Communists in Kerala who will pull out all the stops to ensure his defeat in Wayanad. So far the Muslim League has refused to join the Left Front but the fact remains that Congress is losing the Nair vote to the BJP. If Tharoor defects, Congress won't be able to get any Hindu elected from Kerala. The League, however, fears that the Left is cannibalizing its vote and thus remains loyal to Rahul. Thus, to get Rahul out, Vijayan will have to try to split Muslim vote (they are the majority in Wayanad).

Rahul is wise to attack Svarkar and the RSS- which, ludicrously, he claims helped the Brits to suppress nineteenth century tribal rebellions!- because his political survival depends on Muslim votes. But nothing can alter the fact that the Muslim League has been declining. Its leader has just passed away and his younger brother may not have the same prestige. Moreover, women in the organization feel sidelined. The ban on the Popular Front is another factor. Some of the youth of Kerala were asking Owaisi to take a hand in the game. But Owaisi appeared to support Rahul, though he noted that this cut down the number of Muslims in Parliament since Rahul had been accommodated with one of the League's three safe seats.  In 2019, Rahul appeared to have a chance of becoming PM. After all, Vajpayee's government had only got one term and the economy wasn't exactly booming. But Rahul showed genius in snatching utter defeat from the jaws of victory. Kharge is currently touting Rahul as the only possible Opposition candidate in 2024. However, over the course of 2023, other parties may concentrate on cannibalizing the Congress vote- which is still significant in many states- rather than going after the big dog. In this context, the calculations of Dalits and Muslims will be crucial. Do they ally with an an OBC dynast? Might they get a better deal by backing one of their own charismatic youngsters whom the BJP is bound to try to poach and will then promote? Meanwhile, the BJP might begin to lose its core support base. Forward castes- especially the youth- are sick and tired of reservations. The EWA quota compounds the underlying problem. The AAP approach- viz. buy votes with 'freebies'- might be the first step to getting rid of reservations. In any case, everyone knows a fiscal crunch is coming. If votes have to be bought with cash not promises, then reservations are in danger. Why should a community be satisfied if some small percentage of their youth get government jobs? After all, a time will come when State government salaries won't be paid and entitlements will collapse.  India will have to tolerate a productive middle class- with higher education focusing on inculcating useful skills rather than serving as a waiting room for those with UPSC aspirations- in the same way that the population has come to tolerate, indeed root for, Ambanis and Adanis. 

At one time, the Shrutis of JNU could cash in on their cretinous mis-education. That time is over. The History wars ended when Wikipedia proved to be more informative than any History Professor. 

Shruti Kapila on why Congress is doomed.

Since Shruti Kapila is the stupidest commentator on Indian politics that I know of, I always read her articles in Press.in with interest. If she says 'x is the case', you can be certain that 'not x' obtains. 

Her headline is-  

Kharge over Tharoor—Congress returns to caste politics without the cynicism of Mandal

Congress had cynical formulae like 'Brahmin-Muslim-Dalit' in UP or 'KHAM'- (Kshatriya, Harijan, Adivasi, Muslim)- in Gujarat. It was VP Singh who 'Mandalized' politics thus confirming the rise and rise of 'Backward Castes'. 

Sonia was backing Gehlot- from the 'Mali' OBC community- and that was a good choice. Malis have traditionally introduced new crops or farming practices and thus are respected by all. Moreover, Gehlot was a successful Chief Minister and thus a good rival to Modi whom, hopefully, other opposition parties could unite around. The mistake was to force Gehlot to resign. He should have been left in office so that the voters could clearly see that a genuine choice was being offered to them. If Gehlot had quit as CM people outside Rajasthan would have assumed he was useless. Sonia had gotten rid of him so as to promote Sachin Pilot who most people credit for the 2019 victory. Rajasthan is prone to anti-incumbency in any case so Gehlot might have been kept on side if his son was looked after. Kharge and Maken were supposed to seal the deal but both turned out to be utterly clueless. Kharge had missed out on being CM of Karnataka and had lost his seat in the last election. As a punishment for failing to get Gehlot, he himself was made President so as to take the blame for up-coming debacles for Congress. Kharge is smart, but he is 80.  Still maybe Congress will win Himachal while Kejriwal might fall flat on his face in Gujarat. But this won't change the fact that what Kharge is famous for is not being Dalit but being super corrupt. He is charged with having acquired wealth to the tune of half a billion dollars! He certainly owes the dynasty something and, at 80, he may as well sacrifice himself. 

Rahul Gandhi is charting a path that diverges from the Congress’ erstwhile matriarchs.

That's certainly true. Rahul's path is out of politics.  

But it would be a lost opportunity if this remains at the level of symbolic tokenism.

Very true. Congress must find even more corrupt octogenarians to lead it. One Kharge is not enough. It is mere tokenism.  

The election for the post of Congress president has had a surreal effect.

Nope. It was dull and predictable. Tharoor looked a bit of a fool but if he quits the Party as he quit the UN then nobody can say he didn't try to reform it from within.  

If you only followed India’s English social media or print and TV news, you would be left with the distinct impression that Shashi Tharoor was both messiah and martyr of his own party.

No. You got the impression that this guy is going to jump ship.  

To be sure, Tharoor styled himself as a reformer and professional politician akin to his western counterparts. This did not come across as cosplay but was true to his celebrity forged on the back of books, speaker fixtures, an international career and as a workaday successful constituency MP. And for a certain kind of Indian, this is IT! How come with that trajectory Tharoor could be denied the top party job?

Because he is in the wrong party. In 1989 he published a very long book in which he equated Congress with the Kauravas- the bad guys in the ancient Indian Epic titled  'The Mahabharata'. Manmohan backed him for the top job at the UN (which was never on the cards) so as to recruit him as a pro-American Foreign Policy expert who could take on the IFS and the national security establishment's hatred of Uncle Sam. 

Pitched as he was against the now clear winner and a man five years older than independent India at 80, Mallikarjun Kharge by contrast has cut his political teeth in labour movements, forging several provincial election victories, and above all is a Dalit, who has overcome steep historic barriers to emerge on top.

And half a billion dollars richer according to newspaper reports. 

Kharge is also a consummate party man adept at manoeuvring Congress factions and structures.

But he couldn't rope in Gehlot. He is being punished for failure.  

His life also proves the cliché wrong that all political careers end only in failure.

Because Kharge is going to pilot Congress to victory in 2024- right? He himself will become Prime Minister.  

Personality aside, the contest has in effect represented the diversity of India.

Both candidates are Southerners. Shruti is a cretin.  

That both men are from the south of the Vindhyas indicates that the Congress fightback will upturn the northern fixation of national electoral politics.

Because 80 percent of the population lives there.  

The contest also underscored that no two social groups are the same and it is the contest between social groups that has made Indian democracy the most competitive in the world.

Plenty of social groups are the same in India. That's why jatis can be ascribed to Varnas or, more recently, classed as 'Forward' or 'Backward' or Dalit or Adivasi.  

Language as class and the power of caste, to my mind, have defined the differences between Tharoor and Kharge while the figure of Rahul Gandhi loomed large over the contest.

Kharge is a lawyer who is much much richer than Tharoor who never had the opportunity to enrich himself by being a 'labor leader' or MLA or a minister in a State Government.  

Kharge was voted in strongly but the English mediascape has been awash with conspiracy, name calling and intrigue with attempts to even malign the election process that, by most accounts, seems to have been pioneering for Indian politics.

Tharoor did make a couple of complaints. He has cleared the decks for his own jumping ship. It remains to be seen whether the Janata Parivar will want to accommodate him. Perhaps Vijayan will recruit him. Tharoor would be an excellent brand Ambassador for Kerala, bringing in plenty of f.d.i. 

From the days of its earliest foundations, the Congress has attracted India’s English-speaking elite and until M.K. Gandhi, English was the membership ticket to the party.

Elite English speakers in India were British, not Indian. Lawyers are not an elite. They are merely lawyers. The Indian elite, at that time were Maharajas, Nawabs, Taluqdars. or- like the Aga Khan- the hereditary leader of a religious sect 

As the language of power, a century later, English now no longer commands rule.

In which case it isn't the language of power. Shruti does not read over what she writes. 

Yet, and precisely because Indian English media houses are wilfully caste-blind — arguably to protect their caste privilege — Tharoor as their favoured candidate was projected with powers to swing the floater voter and represent the aspirational.

Indian media houses either have money privilege or they go extinct. Caste privilege is irrelevant. If you have a caste it means you are of Indian ancestry and thus the descendant of people who were shit at defending or ruling themselves. It is one thing to be descended from slaves kidnapped from their own country or continent. It is another to come from a very populous place which preferred the rule of foreigners because they were less rapacious.  

Kharge was dismissed as not just old but not even the holder of his own views.

His view is that he and his family should be very rich. It is a perfectly sensible view. Why go into politics if you want to just be middle class? 

In a hypocritical blind spot, many of the same outlets had loudly discussed the role of race in Rishi Sunak’s recent failure to get Britain’s top job.

Shruti published this on the very day Sunak became PM.  

Irony has long been dead

says a cretin who thinks become PM of the UK is just as important as becoming President of an Indian political party in terminal decline.  

but this total and brazen lack of self-reflection

If Kapila were capable of self-reflection she would top herself.  

only denudes the power of political commentary.

This shite is 'political commentary'? Oh, the irony! 

So much for analysis as caricature.

Nothing wrong with caricature. An 80 year old who has amassed 500 million dollars worth of disproportionate assets. He failed to rope in a CM for President and so had to take the job as punishment. 

To the extent that the media can influence the drift and direction of political narratives and fortunes, Kharge’s victory has served to reconfirm bias.

What bias? Kapila won't tell us.  

Tharoor’s greatest asset is indeed his media savviness and to his credit, he aces that.

If a x is the asset of y, then y is good at x. But in this case, Tharoor didn't ace shit. If he doesn't jump ship soon he will be remembered as a fool. 

Crucially and since the rise of Narendra Modi, it is entirely unclear whether traditional opinion-making machinery of the Fourth Estate holds any significant power.

The thing never had any power whatsoever.  

It is fair to say that in choosing Kharge, which also effectively gives English media the short shrift, the Congress party is only playing catch up with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

How? By putting an 80 year old who lost his election in charge? That's not 'catch up'. It is suicide.  

Sadly, since I do enjoy the press (and even write for it), it looks like the press was the bigger loser once again.

Kapila is the biggest loser Print.in could find to write for it. Since she is a Professor at Oxford, Indians are afforded a hearty laugh.  

As it stands, the English press will continue having to contend with little to no access to the ruling party while now gaining the disdain of the grand old party as well and diminishing its own credibility and power in the process. This cannot be good news for India’s multi-party democracy let alone its English media.

Congress is dying. That's not exactly news, but it is entertainment. That's all we can expect from the second oldest profession. The question is whether Rahul can feed our schadenfreude much beyond 2024. Once he's out of Parliament, the story dies. 

In Kharge’s victory, the Congress instead seeks to project the power of caste.

How? Gehlot was their choice. But he preferred to stay CM so, at the last minute, they had to put in Kharge because at least he almost became a CM and remained in the Lok Sabha till 2019. The alternative was Maken, who lost his seat in Delhi in 2014.  

In a highly competitive electoral context, the BJP has leveraged and instrumentalised the caste matrix to its own advantage.

No. It has leveraged Hindutva- which is anti-caste- and has instrumentalized fear and hatred of Muslims to achieve cross-caste 'Hindu consolidation'.  

Though Charanjit Singh Channi as the Dalit face of the Punjab campaign did not win votes for the Congress, the party seems to be manoeuvring itself towards this significant, historically oppressed and currently under-represented social group.

Kharge belongs to the numerically smaller 'right hand' Dalit community. It is likely that the numerically larger 'left hand' Dalits will double down on the BJP.  

It certainly offers an alternative optic from both the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)’s wilful neglect of caste

which makes sense for an urban party which is bound to grow with urbanization 

and the BJP’s assertive identity politics. If, however, this remains only at the level of symbolic tokenism, then this would be a lost opportunity for the Congress.

They should find and appoint to the Congress Working Committee ninety year old Dalits who also suffer from various types of disability and belong to the LGBTQ community.  

Undeniably, the resetting of a new politics of caste, in the age of high Hindu nationalism, offers a new political opening.

Kharge represents the 'creamy layer' Dalit lawyer politician. The BJP is targeting 'Mahadalits'- e.g. 'left hand' Dalits in Karnataka. Will they succeed? Not necessarily. But the mother tongue issue helps them. 

As the basic structure of Indian society, caste has long been the prison house of Indian democracy.

No. Indian democracy has broken that prison. Niyogi Brahmins, Kayasthas, Khattris etc. have been displaced. Even Ashraf Muslims are in danger of losing the support of Pasmandas.  

Now, it deserves and demands a new imagination and politics beyond the symbolic and instrumental counting of caste heads for electoral equations.

That imagination existed long ago. This woman is from the Punjab. Has she never heard of Kanshi Ram?  

In short, a new caste politics

there is none. Most people my age consider Karpoori Thakur's becoming CM of Bihar in 1970 as the dawn of the type of caste politics we still have with us. The BJP can do 'Hindu consolidation' but has to keep the caste equation in mind. Let us see whether Kejriwal and Prashant Kishor (assuming he sets up a party of his own) can get rid of it altogether. Ultimately, BJP has a responsibility to the Hindu religion to get rid of casteism and regionalism. That consideration must take precedence over maximising economic growth. 

cannot now just mimic the toxic mix of cynicism and fake socialism that defined Mandal politics of an earlier era.

Mandal politics could mean getting rid of good governance so as to have OBC governance. But Gandhian and Nehruvian politics was about the same thing. India became relatively poorer and weaker after Independence. That was cool coz brown peeps got into move into the nice mansions the Brits had built themselves.  

That would be neither effective nor inspiring!

I like that jaunty exclamation mark.  

Finally, the new president is a return to history.

Nonsense! Kesri was krap. Kharge is smart. Still, he is 80 and has made lots of money. He must accept his punishment for failing to get Gehlot to pick up the poisoned chalice that is Presidency of Congress.  

In turning to Kharge amid its mass contact programme of the Bharat Jodo Yatra, the Congress has returned to an older division of political labour.

No. In the olden days, Congress actually held power. The PM ran the country while someone else ran the Party. Now Congress spends its time trying to sabotage such CMs as it retains. It has no power to harm Modi but can harm its own stalwarts. 

Historically, political leadership and party presidency have been distinct.

But, historically, Congress was always the largest single party. Then, it became obvious, Rahul was stupid, lazy, and shit at politics. More surprisingly, so was Priyanka.  Dynastic parties collapse when the dynasty degenerates into outright imbecility.  

This has been since the age of Gandhi

who did manage to delay the departure of the Brits by a decade or two by uniting all non-High Caste Hindus against the INC 

through to Nehru

who turned India into a starving shithole unable to defend itself against not just China but even Pakistan. Had he lived, he'd have handed over Kashmir to Ayub and tried to do the same to Assam.  Why? He, like the Mahatma, genuinely believed Hindus were shit. After all, it was Hindus who'd made him PM- right? Since Nehru had realised he was shit, he drew the obvious conclusion- Hindus should surrender territory to all and sundry.  

and even in the more recent UPA era when party and government were helmed by two different figures, whether in friction or in harmony.

Sonia was a surrogate for her son. With hindsight, she should have forced him to take a job in the Cabinet in 2004 when he had turned 34- the age Pakistan's Foreign Minister,  Bilawal Bhutto is now. It was strange that an Italian lady in poor health was having to be the Regent for a Cambridge MPhil approaching 40. Equally strange was Manmohan's position. He was a technocrat without any political skills. He could have been Finance Minister while sitting in the Upper House. The PM should be in the lower house and have experience in fighting elections. 

Though she has cast a strong shadow, Indira Gandhi was an aberration in that long history, holding as she did the party and political leadership while also being head of government.

Not really. Nehru had made himself the master of his party quite quickly. He had used Kamaraj to get rid of his rivals in Cabinet. But Kamaraj ended up splitting the party and losing his own State for Congress. What was different about Indira is that she succeeded in making her party openly dynastic. But Rahul could have become a Minister at 34 and PM at 40. At the very least he could have taken charge of the Commonwealth games as his father had taken charge of the Asian games. Congress's problem is that it had no PM candidate and then it turned one even its own sitting CMs.  

Dynastic political power deserves its own column, but suffice to say that it is blindingly obvious that Rahul Gandhi is charting a path that diverges from the Congress’ erstwhile matriarchs.

He is walking out of Indian political history. The pity of it is that he will remain the public face of the party- i.e. people will think it represents a useless cretin who will neither work nor let anyone else work. 

In holding a party presidential election at the same time as its mass contact programme, the Congress party seems to have come out of its long complacent chapter.

It could have done so by signaling that Gehlot was its PM candidate. The other opposition parties might have decided to get behind him and thus Modi would have had a credible rival in 2024.  

Since at least 2012, the party has been stymied not only by stunning defeats but, crucially, also by the loss of political language.

Political language is of the form 'we've got a great PM candidate. Vote for us.'  

For now, it is increasingly clear the Congress is seeking its political future by reorienting the region and society to undermine the hegemony of Hindu nationalism.

Which is crazy in a country which is 82 percent Hindu and where only non-Hindus harbor secessionist sentiments. 

Its calls for unity and harmony counter the dominant political sentiments of hostile anger of our age.

It spits bile at Modi and the RSS. But both have won admiration from an ever increasing proportion of the population. 

In this moment, the Congress may have found its utterance, however faltering but anew, and even an initial confidence in its party structures.

Congress can't keep talking of ideology when even the Communists are speaking in a pragmatic manner. Either it provides a credible alternative to Modi or else it needs to play second fiddle to the candidate of the Janata parivar.  

It is the right step and in the right direction but the path to political power still needs to be lit by a grand and captivating vision.

What is that vision? Who does Congress want to replace Modi with? We don't know. All we know is that Kharge will have to take the blame for further electoral losses. To be fair, unseating Modi in 2024 may simply not be possible. The question is whether Congress will survive to the end of the decade. Rahul is not 52. He has never held any Ministerial appointment. Kejriwal is 54. He only set up his party ten years ago. He has routed Congress in Delhi and Punjab. As India urbanizes, he stands to win the most. His persona is that of the 'common man' in the Cities, not the Villages. People can increasingly relate to him. Does he have an ideology? Who knows? Who cares? He is a smart chap and he promises to make the lives of his voters better in very practical ways. That's all that seems to matter.  

Shruti Kapila krapping on Kharge v Tharoor

Punjabis are shrewd people and excellent psychologists. They can easily predict who will emerge the victor in a battle of egos. True, there is a thymotic aspect to the Punjabi politician who might persist in a doomed struggle but that is a tribute to the Punjabi character. 

Shruti Kapila is Punjabi but, sadly, she was brainwashed at JNU and now teaches nonsense to cretins at Oxford. She write in 'Print' re. the Tharoor/ Karge contest that she was initially disappointed at the lack of juicy gossip leaking out but

I am a historian who takes politics all too seriously.

Yet her political journalism is unintentionally hilarious. 

In that vein, and from the comfort of my distant university spires, a different view emerges.

It is a cockeyed view.  

It is curtains for the Congress party as moulded by Indira Gandhi.

Only if Kharge becomes the dictator of the Party- which is unlikely. An 80 year old can merely be a figurehead. Morarji was 81 when he became PM. He presided over a shitstorm. 

If Tharoor wins, which is very unlikely, he will need the dynasty to intercede for him with Northern leaders whereas if Kharge wins, everybody will be going straight to the dynasty with their grievances. Either way, the dynasty will be 'backseat drivers'. 

It is true that Narasimha Rao, and- later on- Kesri- tried to flex their own muscles. But, at that point, Rahul was out of the country and Sonia couldn't be sure it was worthwhile assuming the Regency herself. Still, such was the chaos, she herself had to takeover. It is noteworthy that, once Bofors charges were dropped and Rahul had returned to India, Sonia immediately clarified that she would build the Ram Temple, if that was what the Courts decided, and she roped in a Shankacharya (who had previously performed Griha Pravesh ceremony for her family) to legitimize this. In other words, Sonia had put Congress back on track to be the default National Party. The high price of onions brought tears to the eyes of Vajpayee. Then Sonia played her master-stroke. She put in Manmohan who won two terms. There was a clear time-line for the succession. First Rahul would take charge of the Commonwealth Games, as his Dad had taken charge of the Asian Games. Then he'd bring in young, charismatic, candidates. Finally, he'd shoulder Manmohan aside- complaining of corruption or lethargy- and would lead his party into the 2014. The BJP would put up Advani- who was twice his age- and the Lion of Gujarat would have to be content with roaring once or twice. But Rahul would win by a landslide. Even if he was subsequently brought down by corruption and intrigue- as his father was brought down by V.P Singh and Arun Nehru- he'd have acquired gravitas. Congress would remain the default National party. 

It is only because Rahul was gun-shy and useless that things have come to the current pass. But, whoever becomes President of Congress- an 80 year old Dalit, or a posh 'outsider' who has recently written somewhat disparagingly of Ambedkar- the Dynasty remain the backseat drivers. Sadly, this means a car-crash of one type or another. 

Yes, you read that right. Many of the party’s current stalwarts, especially but not exclusively those huddled under the so-called G-23 faction, cut their young teeth in her (Indira Gandhi's) era or have been mentored by leaders of those decades. This includes Ashok Gehlot.

Only Kharge could be said to have entered politics in Indira's era. But he rose by merit within his own State. That's why he would have been a good choice- but for his age.

Obviously, slightly younger Congress leaders could only have 'cut their teeth' in Sanjay's era. Gehlot was pushed up by Rajiv and later by Sonia. That's what makes him more of a loyalist than Azad. The case of Manish Tiwari- who was an MP from Punjab- is most interesting. He seems to have risen by merit. But Congress is wholly without merit. There is little point being in the driving seat if the car will inevitably crash. 

This end is not merely a generational shift.

Sonia is 75. Kharge is 80. What 'generational shift' is Shruti talking about?  

But rather a shift that has been demanded by India’s new political reality today.

But this 'political reality' is likely to give BJP a third term. Now, as eight years ago, Congress has no Prime Ministerial face. Kharge can't be PM- or even CM of Karnataka. Tharoor can keep his seat because he is an excellent constituency MP and he will retain his hold over the rising, aspirational, English-learning and increasingly English-speaking class. He deserves to. He has worked hard and has an attractive personality. But he can't be CM of Kerala and is too much of a nice guy to achieve anything within Congress's Augean stables. 

For one, the Congress party, as remade after Indira Gandhi split it in 1969, was overwhelmingly concerned with the pursuit and maintenance of power.

Because previously it was concerned with the pursuit of nice flower- right?  

Pragmatism or the belief that ideas were only good if they were successful and practical created a distinct and arguably a brutal new polity in India’s history.

This stupid woman does not seem to understand that Indira turned sharply to the Left because she quite genuinely was of the Left. Later, disillusioned by the utter failure of Leftist panaceas, she became pragmatic. But so did a lot of other Socialists over the course of the Seventies.  

Good or bad, authoritarian, or populist, some of this is now being debated about her era, at least in scholarship.

It was debated long ago. There is now no such thing as 'scholarship'- just affirmative action for the victims of epistemic self-abuse.  

In terms of the Congress, what was key is that there was little to no distinction between Indira Gandhi’s massive persona and the party.

No. What was key was that there was a massive difference between Sanjay's & his Mummy's persona. She called elections in '77 to cut the fellow- and his goons- down to size.  

This in turn created a new kind of politician who was marked by savage self-interest.

The 'aaya Ram, gaya Ram' politician- i.e. strategic defector notorious for corruption- was a well established stereotype of the late Sixties.  Indira was trying to make Congress a full blown Socialist Party with a Defense Pact with the Soviet Union etc. 

Indira’s Congress overturned the idea of political work as sacrificial duty that had defined the earlier generations who had transited the party and indeed India from colonial rule, to national self-government.

This is nonsense. There was municipal corruption from 1923 onwards. After 1937 the thing had become a scandal. It worsened after Independence because of the arbitrary power of officials tasked with regulating the public distribution system and licensing system. Only by lifting all such controls could politics have been purified. The thing never happened. Nehru's centralizing drive made New Delhi the center for extorting money from the private sector to finance the Party. Indira's husband, Feroze, could be considered the foremost anti-corruption campaigner of the period. He forced TTK's resignation much to Nehru's displeasure. 

The all too aggressive power-plays in the Indira era overwhelmed idealism or the pursuit of political principles.

No. Idealism was in plentiful supply from JP & Co. It was the disastrous decision to make an 81 year old crank, whom everybody hated, Prime Minister which destroyed idealism. Better a dynasty than anarchy.  

The Congress party with Indira Gandhi morphed into a system of patrons and clients

which is what it had always been 

as politicians divvied up factions, or sections of society that they represented.

Factionalism within Congress was at its most intense at the time of 'Lal, Bal & Pal' heading the 'Garam Dal' which fought tooth and nail with Gokhale's 'Naram Dal.' 

Power emanated from her and ended with her.

As had been the case with Nehru after Patel's death.  

Above all, this arrangement was only possible as the Congress party was the party of power.

A leader can have an iron grip over her party even if out of office. 

In the forty years since Indira Gandhi’s violent death, India’s democracy changed dramatically. Not only has political power been pluralised

It was always plural- that is why there was partition. In1957, Nehru's Congress retained 45 percent of the vote but JP's party got over ten percent and the Commies got about 9 percent.  

it is now distributed along several parties, social groups, and regions.

That transition occurred in the late Sixties and early Seventies. Janata's victory in 1977 was actually a victory for a Kaleckian 'intermediate' class. The future lay with vernacular, caste based, regional outfits. Brahmin/Kayastha domination was over though this was not apparent so long as the BJP could appear to be a Brahminical outfit. But it was the 'casteless' Advani whose 'rath yatra' opened the gates to power for them. Rahul's 'pad yatra', foot-journey is supposed to reverse the outcome of the 'chariot' journey. But Rahul could have been Prime Minister. He chose to get out of the chariot and hand it over to Modi who, it must be said, has used it to some good purpose. 

To be sure, the challenge to Indira’s Congress came from

Sanjay's Congress. Indira could lock up everybody except her own son. This was the Mughal dilemma replayed in a family descended from a Mughal-era 'kotwal' (police superintendent).  

highly mobilised social movements of caste, religion, region, and sometimes even just sheer anti-Congress-ism.

There were rival Congress parties- Congress O, CFD, etc. You could say this was a battle for the soul of the party. Then, in 1980, it became dynastic. But autocracy is tempered by assassination. Rahul prefers that the dynasty die nasty only in a political sense. He doesn't himself want to end up like Daddy or Granny.  

The rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party came precisely as it pursued its exclusive ideology but crucially created a social mobilisation for itself.

This is nonsense. The fact is Lohia and then JP brought in the RSS and Jan Sangh for their own purposes. But a price had to be paid. The Janata Morcha fell apart on the 'dual membership' issue. Thanks to Advani's rath yatra- and Vajpayee's charisma- it was the BJP which inherited the Janata mantle. Modi got his start by publishing a book about his subversive activities during the Emergency. But it was Advani who lifted him up so as to make his rath yatra a success.  

However, the BJP in Gujarat was as faction prone as Congress. Modi was brought in as a trouble shooter. His intelligence and hard work did the rest. 

By contrast, in the intervening period and despite being in government for ten years, the quintessential Congress party politician remains, with few exceptions, someone who is

either a parasite or a paranoid nutjob. Merit has quit the party. Which way will Manish Tiwari jump? What of Sachin Pilot? They know they can't join Kejriwal because he will pump and dump them. Perhaps Nitish has a plan. Mamta may decide to concentrate on Bengal. People are looking across the border at what Sheikh Hasina has achieved. West Bengal must catch up. Hasina's new trade initiative sends a clear signal. The entire region can rise rapidly through inter-industry trade. Calcutta's glory will be restored. Economically, it remains the most promising metro because of its unrivalled status within its hinterland.  

adept at factional fighting and pursuing and gaining patronage.

But, Punjab has shown that this talent is useless. Factionalism and intrigue are useless if your entire party is wiped out. Instead of sitting in the C.M's chair you may be grinding corn in jail. Look at the brilliant Sidhu! 

Therefore, Congress MLAs, whether in Punjab or Rajasthan or Goa, are prime if not easy targets for the party’s opponents. After all, the question remains what is it that they stand for, now that the grand old party is no longer a power machine?

Their constituents know the answer. So long as the MLA does a good job for his voters, he can be re-elected. Ultimately, all politics is parish pump politics. 

From transactional patronage to ideological faith

Congress has always been a big tent affair. No 'ideological faith' was required. Party discipline was sometimes very lax.  

Whether or not you want to dismiss them as romantic or useless, principles, in fact, make and break politics.

Only if those principles translate into benefits- 'deliverables'- for the voters. In the short run, people may believe that the 'principled' man will deliver what he promised. When they discover otherwise, they drop the fellow like a hot potato.  

Principles create power.

No. Expectations of achievement create the power to attempt turning promises into reality.  

Arguably and in a perverse manner, this is the singular lesson that the ruling BJP has given to Indian democracy.

No. The BJP has shown that hard work and organizational cohesiveness is all that matters. Focus on booth management and last-mile delivery. You must always bend your principles so as permit salutary developments. Politics is the art of the possible. If you are stupid and useless, go be a professor of Political Science somewhere far far away where students won't immediately be able to spot you for an ignorant cretin.  

Its ‘principles first’ project for Hindu nationalism has also identified the average BJP party worker as a ‘committed’ political actor.

No. The RSS and some BJP activists work hard in a self-abnegating way. But then AAP was able to mobilize people of this sort of diverse classes first in Delhi and then in Punjab. Let us see if they can succeed in Gujarat.  

Whilst I am all too aware that it is a cadre-based party with a complex structure in alliance with other organisations such as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, at least in popular perception, the typical BJP politician is not up for sale nor in any danger of becoming a turncoat.

Shankarsinh Vaghela turned his coat twice or thrice. There is nothing unique about the BJP. It's a different matter that people get behind a leader of exceptional skill. But that is a function of public spirit and desiring what is best for the country.  

It has little to do with power. The many now benched ministers and Rajya Sabha MPs of the ruling party seem to be holding their nerve quietly.

My guess is that Modi finds them something useful to do. This may not always be possible. Still, to have served under a great Captain is itself some consolation. Problems arise where merit is replaced by sycophancy. 

This should give the Congress politician a pause and cause for concern.

It has done more. Many have quit. Congress must allow CMs to get on with the job rather than spend all their time fighting off intrigue.  

The transacting of patronage between different levels of the party hierarchy is now a withering game of diminishing returns.

Negative returns.  

And that’s true for all in the party, regardless of their position— from the very top to the regional brokers, the media darlings of Delhi, to the faceless backroom operators in party offices.

No. Congress still has some very talented and inspiring people who can tap into the huge reservoir of public spirited people of all walks of life which exists across the length and breadth of a nation on the move.  

Suppose Rahul, at the end of his yatra, says 'look, I'm not smart. But I have a good heart and will work under orders of anyone who has ability. We should not be concerned with who is President. We only care to serve the nation.' Then Congress will revive. Rahul himself will feel happier and a burden will be lifted from his family. 

We can understand why Modi wants to be PM. He genuinely is good at the job in all its aspects. Most importantly, he has a personal narrative which by itself goes a long way to defeat some prejudices older Indians still have.

Suppose Rahul gives up dynastic privilege to become a humble svayamsevak or volunteer of the party- then he can rise in spiritual and moral stature thus safeguarding his family's legacy.

The two contenders for the party’s official mantle — Kharge and Tharoor — have little in common

Except one thing. They can't control the party. The dynasty will remain an 'obligatory passage point' fostering factionalism and intrigue. Sonia had a good adviser and appealed to Indians as a pativrata widow safeguarding the interests of the family and its loyal retainers. Rahul initially had even greater appeal. But he wouldn't step up to the plate. It may be in taking leave of power, he will gain moral authority. But, only if he actually does take leave of power. As a 'backseat driver' he will have 'power with out responsibility' which is 'the prerogative of the harlot'.  

. Ultimately, it is inconsequential who takes over the vast if now largely hollow Congress party machinery.

No. It is highly consequential. The machinery will fall into other hands- perhaps anti-national ones of a yet more mischievous type.  

Without the redefining of the Congress politician, in this era of little power, the task to helm will be fiendish.

A Congress politician is defined as an Indian politician competing with other Indian politicians of other Indian political parties. Any other definition or redefinition is pointless. The more Rahul kept bleating of 'vichardhara'- ideology- the more people thought him a moon-calf without an idea in his head. By contrast, Bhutto's grandson, Bilawal, now Foreign Minister of Pakistan, appears smart and confident. He is 34. Rahul is 52. Why couldn't Rahul have joined the Cabinet in 2004 when he was 34? What was his major malfunction? Stupidity is no bar to high office more particularly if you are an aristocrat- that too one with an Ivy League education. 

The leadership election is a tipping point for the Congress. No, not for its death as that prophecy is as old as the party itself.

No it isn't. There was a theory that Congress would remain an elite talking-shop. But as, Viceroy Landsdowne noted, the Arya Samaj led anti cow-slaughter movement had given it a mass contact vehicle. That was back in the 1890s.  

Instead, it is a critical moment to adjust the party’s default settings to its original inheritance.

Cow protection? Mahatma Gandhi and Prasad and so forth got that into the Constitution long ago. Congress, as the Mahatma said in 1939, was the High Caste Hindu party. It delivered power into the hands of the 'learned' Brahmin, Kayastha and other similar castes. It began to falter with the rise of 'dominant' supposedly 'educationally backward' groups. From 1967 onward, these castes gained control in the regions. But they could not establish hegemony at the Center. The BJP was Brahminism's B team. It was 'Mandir vs Mandal'- i.e. the need for Hindus to unite rather than squabble over reservations- which gave them salience. But the Ram Mandir should have been Rajiv's legacy. Sonia, the pativrata Sita to Rajiv's Ram, staked her Party's claim to build the Temple 20 years ago. Now Modi has got the credit. This was pure luck. But, had Shah mishandled the building of the Temple, it could easily have been a poisoned chalice. Modi & Shah aren't miracle-workers. But they can seize any opportunity presented to them and profit by it. 

It is early days for the long Bharat Jodo yatra which seems to be channelling the Mahatma’s ideas of mass contact for the pursuit of principle.

The Mahatma led the Dandi march. He highlighted an issue- symbolic perhaps- of relevance to the masses and thus showed them that Congress was unlike other parties. It was not concerned with the spoils of office. It wanted to reduce the tax burden on the poor.  

By contrast, Bharat Jodo is a stunt. The country is already united. Why pretend it is divided? The other problem with the pad yatra is that it has already angered the CPM. When the need of the hour is 'unite the opposition'. Congress should be trying to build up a 'States' Rights' Coalition in which Regional parties can feel confidence. This is particularly important for the South which has had demographic transition and which would lose representation if seats are redistributed according to population. 

Can the Congress politician sacrifice the search for patronage?

If, like Tharoor you can get re-elected on your own, then- sure. But a Congress heavyweight can always create his or her own party and ally with the National Party when convenient. Sharad Pawar and Mamta are examples- though it seems Sonia's rapport with Mamta has been disrupted.

The plain fact is that a politician who needs patronage is likely to be corrupt or incompetent. Since Congress is becoming unelectable, its leaders will neither be able to give candidates money to campaign nor a charismatic leader who can attract votes. 

Gossip or no gossip, the answer to this question will indeed determine the future of India’s oldest party.

No. The question is whether talented people will come to Congress or remain in Congress. A politician can't decide to be talented. In a meritocratic party, the sycophants and parasites will be deterred from attempting entry. 

The question facing Congress is whether it will join an Opposition coalition and accept a non-Congress Prime Ministerial candidate for 2024. If it doesn't do so, its potential allies will seek to cannibalize its votes. It is one thing for Modi and Shah to take potshots at Rahul. It is another for all parties across the spectrum to start attacking Rahul for backseat driving his Party to disaster. Consider how much the BJP was damaged by the allegation that the RSS leader was pulling its strings. Congress will now be in that position. Sonia is gone. Rahul says he is gone. Priyanka (and thus her son) have also been ruled out. 

What comes in with Kharge? To answer this we need to look at Kharge's role in Karnataka- where a Congress/ JD (S) coalition was recently brought down and BJP secured its 'gateway to the South'. In the process, Kharge lost his seat in the Lower House to a Congress turn coat. It stands to reason, that Kharge's first priority will be to bring down Bommai by hook or crook because the nightmare for Congress is that the rapidly urbanizing Dravidian States will see a decline in casteism and their intrinsic Hindu identity will reassert itself. Stalin, in T.N, is well aware of this possibility- remote as it might seem. The problem, of course, is that Bommai has an incentive to poach more Congress MPs so as to show up Kharge as a senile fool. Stalin, who suffered torture during the Emergency, may decide that the UPA is as dead and buried. His peers are Mamta and Naveen. I think he is the same age as KCR who, having pumped and dumped Congress in 2014, made a feeble attempt to create a 'Federal Front' in 2019. In fact he is still talking of creating a new opposition party. Maybe Stalin will see some profit in throwing a lifeline to the ultra-religious KCR if only to send a signal that the Southern CMs need to work together. It is better that a regional satrap cannibalize Congress while projecting a 'States Rights' candidate who has a chance against Modi. But this still means that BJP gets momentum in urban areas while picking up support from disaffected castes- especially Dalits. Some fresh thinking is required but it requires ideographic knowledge. 

In my opinion, Kharge, who rose by merit and is considered clean, would have been a great choice but for his age. People see him as a guy with a legitimate grudge of a more than politically partisan type. Why was he denied the Chief Minister's post? The answer, I am sorry to say, is caste. Kharge represents the old 'Brahmin-Dalit-Muslim' strategy which only elderly folk like me can recall. What opposes it is the 'Janata Parivar'- represented by the Gowdas in Karnataka. This includes Naveen Patnaik, Nitish Kumar, Akhilesh and Lalu Prasad Yadav, Chirag Paswan etc. If Kharge fails to unite Congress, Indian politics, at the Center, might become Sangh Parivar vs. Janata Parivar. In other words, Congress will be marginalized as two offshoots of the Janata Morcha square off against each other. On the one hand, casteism; on the other hand 'Hindu consolidation'. Which way will Gehlot jump? He understands anti-incumbency in Rajasthan. He can hang on as CM for now. But if the Janata Parivar can cobble together a PM candidate and Congress does not join in, his best bet is form his own Regional party and go to the polls on that basis. Even if he loses, he has staked his claim for the next round. 

The problem for the Janata Parivar has always been that the Jan Sangh was the only non-wholly shite component of the Janata Government. Under Modi the BJP has greatly improved over what it was under Vajpayee. But we can't say Akhilesh is a great improvement over Mulayam. As for Nitish, he is back in the arms of Lalu. Congress, of course, is in a completely separate category. There has never been anybody quite as stupid and useless as Rahul. 

Perhaps Congress will become a 'B' team- i.e. something kept around to split the other party's vote. Whose B-team will it be? That of the Sangh or the Janata Parivar? Will it matter? Like Congress politics, Janata politics is passe. Without casteism, Hindu consolidation too is passe. 

AAP took Punjab easily enough. It only came into existence ten years ago. Prashant Kishore has started his own party. It may be that by the end of this decade, a 'youth-quake' will wholly reconfigure Indian politics. I hope so. The next Modi can't arrive soon enough. Rapid economic growth is what takes hysteresis out of politics. That means 'historians' get disintermediated. Ergodicity permits 'economia'- not the rule of economists- who are only marginally more hysterical than historians- but ecumenical rule based on a common oikeiosis.