Indians, we were told, lack a sense of history. That may have got discredited as a classic Orientalist overstatement, but in the case of our own tribe it often seems true. Political journalists and commentators share a penchant for delivering sweeping political judgments and writing instant political obituaries regardless of how wrong we may eventually be proved. This is particularly true in the case of a ‘historic’ victory or a ‘crushing’ defeat at the hustings. We may or may not unreservedly venerate the victor, but we invariably dismiss the loser as a hopeless has-been. In 1977, when Indira Gandhi led the Congress to its first resounding defeat, everyone thought it was curtains for her and her party. Yet three years later she bounced back with a comfortable majority. More recently the BJP’s string of victories in assembly elections in November 2003 — and the spate of analyses that followed — convinced the party leadership that the Congress continued to be in a state of terminal decline. That conclusion imbued the BJP top brass with so much confidence that it advanced the general elections by six months and we all know what happened thereafter. Of course, electoral verdicts — especially in bipolar states — tend to get overturned in every alternate election, thanks to the matrix of expectations and disappointments that come under the lazy rubric of ‘anti-incumbency’. It requires no great powers of prophecy to predict that the Congress could regain, say, Chhattisgarh the next time round, or the BJP has every chance of winning the Delhi assembly. But sometimes it is much more complex and subtle than that. Sometimes the very seeds of a party’s revival lie in the reasons and magnitude of its defeat. This was true of the BJP post-1984 and it could well happen in the case of the Congress in Uttar Pradesh despite the drubbing it received last week. In the general elections of 1984 the Congress party won its biggest victory and the fledgling BJP was reduced to just two seats. It was not just the ignominious defeat but the reasons behind it that set the BJP leadership thinking. While the BJP had been trying to shed its Jan Sangh past, Indira Gandhi had started flirting with the ‘Hindu’ vote after her second coming. The tentative moves made by her became the central motif of Rajiv Gandhi’s election campaign when he raised the spectre of national disintegration at the hands of minority secessionism. The focus was on Sikh extremism and the assassination of his mother by her Sikh bodyguards. The killing of thousands of Sikhs in Delhi and other northern cities in November that year formed the macabre background to the Congress campaign. While most people attributed the 1984 verdict to the ‘sympathy wave’, the saffron leadership realised it reflected something more fundamental. It indicated that the elusive ‘Hindu’ vote was actually in the making but instead of being acquired by a ‘Hindu’ party, it was being usurped by the Congress. That led to a complete overhaul of strategy and, under the leadership of L.K. Advani, the party embarked on an aggressive Hindutva journey. Something similar — albeit rooted in an entirely different political and social ethos — has happened in UP. Much has been written and spoken about the extraordinary victory of the Bahujan Samaj Party, which successfully managed to build a superstructure of a variety of castes on a solid base of dalit support. But the victory of the ‘rainbow coalition’ based on a re-jigged dalit-brahmin axis is not just a tribute to organisation and strategy. The verdict also reflects the average UP-wallah’s fatigue with the politics of fragmentation and a yearning for social harmony. And while the BSP tapped into this yearning this time, the Congress party remains the natural flag-bearer of ‘inclusive’ politics. This was brought home to us on a visit to a village — chosen at random — in the boondocks of Barabanki district just a day after Mayawati’s spectacular victory. Even though the Congress party has been reduced to a shadow of its once mighty self in UP, it seems to have retained a large measure of goodwill — especially among its erstwhile supporters who have now turned to the BSP. A couple of brahmins were clear that if the experiment of backing Mayawati failed, they would vote the Congress next time. More significant were the voices of the dalits. A young Jatav (who has opted for the Gautam surname in this part of UP) explained that the dalits voted for the BSP because it was “our party”. Elaborating, he said: “BJP panditwad hain, Mulayam yadavwad, Beni kurmiwad aur Mayawati harijanwad. Isiliye hum Mayawati ke saath hain.” And what about the Congress? His instant reply, to the approving nods of his kinsmen, was: “Congress koyi wad nahin. Congress sabke liye hain.” And yes, added another in the group, Congress could be an option if Mayawati failed. As did Mohammad Yunus, a wizened farm hand, who said: “Pehle to Congress ke the — agar Congress wapas aati, to wahi jayenge.” You can always dismiss them as stray voices, but when a shopkeeper in Lucknow says much the same thing the next day — that things are coming full circle and the Congress can return if only it tried — a pattern begins to emerge. The vote in UP this time was a vote for the politics of harmony and inclusion. And the BSP worked hard to get it but is yet to prove — both to its old base and new adherents — that it has truly become the party of the “sarvjan samaj”, the empowered 21st-century version of the old Congress party. By changing the conflict-ridden paradigm of UP politics, the BSP — ironically — has also provided the objective conditions for a Congress revival. But that can only happen if the party works relentlessly on the ground, and realises three things: that the politics of old-style patronage is over; that you cannot transcend caste by simply pretending it does not exist; and that you cannot subsume the desire for empowerment under an overarching one-size-fits-all development rhetoric. Given that every UPite takes great pride in belonging to India’s ‘heartland’, a reinvigorated Congress may fare better in a national election even if the BSP consolidates itself in the state. But for that to happen, the party must shed its customary lethargy and start working at the grassroots right away. It has no time to lose.
