Opinion Sanjay Srivastava writes: Rahul Gandhi points to changing state, its policy and actions. He also needs to grapple with new Aam Aadmi

This will require deft handling of the ‘new’ ordinary Indian’s aspirations without abandoning the broader alternative vision underlined in his Cambridge University speech.

In his Cambridge University speech, Rahul Gandhi pointed to the nature of the state and its policies and actions that, in his view, constitute a threat to democracy and the long-standing project of an inclusive society. (Photo: Congress/ Twitter)

Sanjay Srivastava

March 4, 2023 07:09 PM IST First published on: Mar 4, 2023 at 06:05 PM IST

In a recent speech at Cambridge University, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi outlined a number of contexts that, he suggested, constituted a threat to Indian democracy. Key among these, he said, was the extreme centralisation of power in a federal polity, stifling of opposition voices through bureaucratic organs as well as surveillance mechanisms and increasing attacks on minorities. It is not so much, Gandhi added, that every social welfare policy formulated by PM Modi’s government must be open to criticism. Rather — to borrow a powerful image from the Italian thinker Antonio Gramsci — if we only look at the chirping bird, we miss the cage within which it has been imprisoned. National vision must — Gandhi seems to suggest — include both the small and the big picture: What kind of India is being foisted upon apparently satisfied poor households with a bank account and a gas cylinder?

Gandhi also offered comments on the monolithic vision of India that, he said, is being forced upon its cultural and religious diversity. Certain structural factors, he added, have fed into the rise and mobilisation of right-wing forces. These include the increasing concentration of wealth and the ways in which this has led to the control of the media by a few, (who, in turn, support the ruling dispensation) and the overwhelmingly informal nature of the Indian workforce that makes it difficult to build alternative political coalitions. Notwithstanding statist tendencies towards the centralisation of polity, homogenisation of society and decimation of opposition voices beyond the hustings, Gandhi noted that his experience during the Bharat Jodo Yatra had given him a different picture of India. This was one where Indians wanted to enter into dialogue rather than unequivocally impose their views upon others.

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Democracies need effective opposition voices and the latter must speak on behalf of the people but also beyond it. The category of “the people” is often a misleading one and does not always offer the possibilities of progressive politics. This contradiction is particularly sharp in societies such as ours: How to win votes through speaking to the interests of a majority of voters but also address issues that relate to the welfare of all and not just the majority. National, rather than sectional, welfare depends on it and politicians with a lasting legacy are those who managed to walk this tightrope in a deeply asymmetrical as well as culturally diverse society such as India. If Gandhi hopes to secure power — for that is the only way of putting into practice his vision of India — then it is the nature of “the people” that he will need to focus on.

There are crucial ways in which, over the past decade, the nature of the people has undergone a transformation. This has built upon some underlying tendencies, for no transformation is “all of a sudden”. The first aspect is the manner in which the people have increasingly come to believe that they are actually — and should be — supplicants who receive boons from the government, rather than active citizens who exercise their political as well as other rights. The image of the district magistrate as mai-baap or absolute benefactor — the most powerful figure in an often-remote district — has effectively been transported to a national context. To put it another way, state discourses about public welfare are increasingly in the language of religious boons. Along with this is the message — as is common in relationships between divinities and their worshippers — that the boon is offered in exchange for complete devotion. Devotion, in turn, does not brook a questioning attitude. The transformation of the project of citizenship into a darshanik or worshipful mode has been a key aspect of the change in both how “the people” view themselves as well as how they view their relationship with the state.

Second, the category of the people is transforming through changes in the idea of who the “ordinary” person is. Till quite recently — and even in contexts where the state was seen as the absolute benefactor — the ordinary person category belonged to economically and socially marginalised populations. Over the past two decades or so, however, this slot has been taken up by relatively privileged groups. The new ordinary subject is the middle class as well as — to use a prescient term once invoked by Prime Minister Modi — the “neo middle class” person.

In this new context, ideas of tolerance for diversity and the importance of cultures of actual democracy compete with other beliefs about Indian futures. The new ordinary Indian now demands that the state primarily address demands for material advancement rather than “vague” ideas about tolerance and diversity. The latter are seen to belong to another age where the state, it is frequently argued, confined itself to a variety of “appeasement” policies, whether on religious or economic grounds. It is also in this context that ideological consistency in politicians is not valued and what is most admired is the ability for “practical” action. A politician of Christian background need not any longer fear political backlash should he or she wish to form a government by aligning with a political party that Gandhi may label as anti-minority.

In his Cambridge University speech, Gandhi pointed to the nature of the state and its policies and actions that, in his view, constitute a threat to democracy and the long-standing project of an inclusive society. Political parties that exercise power as the state, do so through an understanding of the nature of the people. The key challenge for the Congress lies in grappling with the nature of an electorate that is no longer what it earlier was and convincing it that the message it has for an Indian future is one that will lead to greater public good than the one offered by the ruling dispensation. This will require deft handling of new aspirational contexts without abandoning the broader alternative vision of India that Rahul Gandhi proposes.

The writer is British Academy Global Professor, Department of Anthropology and Sociology SOAS, University of London