For more than two decades now I have been arguing that the European terms Left, Right and Liberal make zero sense in India except to a small minority who don’t know India at all. These terms have imprisoned the new Congress into a system of thought that has relevance in Europe but not India.

But 70 years ago Nehru refused to fall into the trap. He was quick to realise its unsuitability and brought in the first amendment as early as 1951 to restrict free speech. He then brought in the fourth amendment in 1956 to restrict the judiciary. His daughter went several steps further. Her understanding of India was, in many ways, superior to her father’s. She governed accordingly and coercively. Her son Rajiv was clueless about India and paid the electoral price for it.

Here’s the circle that Rahul Gandhi’s advisers have to square: if they want the Congress to be like a western European social democratic organisation, what are they going to do with all the restrictive constitutional amendments that Nehru, Indira and Rajiv brought in?

If they retain them, the party is very far removed from the western European model. If they remove them, or try to, how are they different from the BJP?

Peas of a pod

I don’t think Rahul Gandhi and his advisers have thought through this paradox. Their real problem is, therefore, convergence with the BJP disguised by electoral and governance compulsions.

Rahul Gandhi simply doesn’t understand the exigencies of the two and his party’s consequent vulnerability to whataboutery. That’s what happened to his father also. It’s worth recalling that it was during Rajiv Gandhi’s term that the Congress started disintegrating as a party and became an agglomeration of buccaneers.

Another huge problem for the party is the confusion between individual rights and group rights. There’s a vast amount of literature on these subjects but very little about the conflicts between them, except in very technical terms. The main thing, however, is that there is no resolution, at any level, between these conflicts. So what we have had, in all democracies, are policies based on one position or the other.

Indeed very few of Rahul Gandhi’s advisers can even tell you whether it’s a political, economic or philosophical tussle. Barring one or two, the apostles themselves lack clarity.

The BJP, for its part, has come down heavily on the side of group rights. The Congress, however, is unable to decide and, beyond an amorphous feeling that individual rights should take precedence, is unable to articulate its preferences clearly.

Rahul Gandhi has been given some rudimentary tutorials on justice and fairness but his confusion is embarrassingly visible. The intellectual differences between John Rawls and Amartya Sen aren’t his strong points but he talks about them all the time in the same way as ignorant BJP leaders talk about Hindu philosophy. The talk grates.

And this is yet another problem. Whether speaking through him or official communications like a party manifesto, there is zero clarity on what the party stands for. Mohabbat ki dukan just doesn’t cut it even as a slogan.

What should be done

So what should the Congress do if, like the Cheshire cat, it’s not to be left with only Rahul Gandhi’s undoubtedly fetching smile?

First and foremost, if it wishes to be a European style social democratic party, it must repudiate the dozen or so restrictive constitutional amendments made by it between 1951 and 1989. That is, it must walk the talk.

Second, it must fully endorse the world-views of Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh. The many political disasters of their governments were just that: disasters. They happen. But their approaches weren’t. Both understood India way better than Rahul Gandhi can ever hope to. That led to a complete change in the economic paradigm, away from distribution to growth. Rahul Gandhi wants to reverse that emphasis.

Third, it needs to separate its electoral tactics from its intellectual strategies. The failure to do this is a very powerful reason why it’s lost so much ground to the BJP.

It’s interesting to note here that in the 2024 election, the BJP also made this mistake and paid for it. The most telling — but least talked about — consequence was the 4.5 lakh vote fall in Narendra Modi’s margin of victory.

The BJP seems to have learnt its lesson and gone back to its ideological knitting. The Congress, the poor dear, doesn’t have a knitting at all. It should get one quickly.

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