Indian Political trends - Part III. Demographic shifts and emergence of an aspiring Indian middle class.

                                                                                                                   John Samuel

For a generation born after the 1980s, there is less patience for the ‘long-term’ promises or for that matter an ‘analytical’ paradigm that would bring ‘long-lasting’ changes.   The generation that emerged in the late eighties and nineties got a different set of expectations and many of them do not have the ‘nostalgia’ of the idealists and principled political leaders who emerged through the freedom struggles or grew up in the ‘nation-building’ phase of the ‘free’ India. The generation of the 1990s was less inclined to look at the past-struggles or the nostalgia of the ‘great Indian’ variety as they grew up in an era of new aspirations of the neo-liberal era. In the last twenty five years, globalisation of media, communication and information also raised the level of aspirations and young people wanted better paid jobs, and wanted to exploit the new opportunities like the latest technology, travelling and other consumption options that money offered.  It is during the last twenty five years, that the nature and character of education and campus politics too shifted. 

So a whole range of new aspirations and expectations emerged in different band-width ‘income’ groups. Those third or fourth generation graduates aspired to become well-paid professionals in the global market for high-skilled labour. However, the first generation graduated or semi-skilled workers have few opportunities to climb the income ladder, even though their level of aspirations has also increased due to the exposure to information, consumer market as well as consumer choice. Many of those in the relatively low-income segment (earning less than twenty five thousand in a month) also found that the new urban housing or high rise buildings are way beyond their economic capacity. For them, a decent housing, electricity, water, petrol price and a stable job mattered more than long term promises of ‘revolution’ or ‘egalitarian world. 

The aspiring lower-middle class has significantly increased during the neoliberal era. They have migrated from villages to small towns and small towns to big cities in search for better opportunities. The two decades of economic growth played in multiple ways. On the one hand it provided new opportunities for the middle-class to move in to the high income group and for the vulnerable poor better options for education and employment opportunities. However, the very same economic growth model also deprived the very same aspiring lower-middle class population of the chance to live out their aspirations as their there has been a disjunction between their aspirations, hopes and the real income.  As the economy growth slowed down and large corporations and stock-market driven economic paradigm began to dominate, many of the small and medium scale industries began to suffer, creating new insecurities and vulnerabilities within the aspiring lower middle class.  With more access to information (TV, Internet, Mobile), there is an increasing awareness about the increasing gap between rhetoric and reality; promises and performances of government

Most of the political leaders who grew up on the ideological framework of the nineteenth or twentieth century often could not understand or appreciate the anxieties, expectations and discontent of a significant majority of young people from middle class and aspiring middle class. Many of them saw politics as ‘dirty’, politicians as ‘thieves’ or politics as a career to amass wealth and power.  Political parties were seen as gangs of criminals that consisted of only the rich and the ‘babas and babies’ of the ‘political’ families. While the relatively younger class felt an aversion towards political party establishments and the ‘rich and powerful’ that controlled the political party establishments, they were aspiring for a new politics of assertion, aspirations and performance.  It is the political discontent as well as the political cynicism of the upper-middle class that the AAP tried to mobilise through anti-corruption initiatives, ‘clean’ politics and post-ideological politics. The traditional left completely failed to capture the mood of the younger generation that grew in the neoliberal era. While the left made fantastic ideological critiques and managed party establishments where they managed to retain the governmental power, the traditional left completely failed to engage and negotiate with a pan-Indian aspiring middle class and address policy and political initiatives.

The key issue has been that political party establishments paradoxically become too top-heavy with lots of baggage of power and paraphernalia to be flexible to the emerging generational shift and situation.  Most of the aspiring middle class or middle class professionals found it extremely difficult to deal with ‘closed-spaces’ and ‘insulated leadership’ of political party establishment. The top-heavy leadership of political parties ‘interacted’ with ordinary people only during elections and that too from the large podium or from a ‘comfortable’ and ‘safe’ distance. Those young political leaders in many political parties emerged due to their kinship or lineage rather than their quality or leadership competence.  There is hardly any space for the politically aware middle class people to join the political party establishments as they are still in the old mode driven by old structures.

It is in this space AAP as a new political party with fresh faces from the aspiring middle class emerged and the innovative ideas and political imagination helped them to outsmart the traditional modes of organising, campaigning and communicating used by the established political parties.  This was evident in the entirely different modes of campaign tactics and communications strategies between AAP and established political parties such as BJP and congress.   While AAP reclaimed the voluntary spaces of activism and contribution at the grassroots level, established political parties operated on top-down management of campaigns managed with funds largely raised from corporate business interests. The perceived dominance of crony capitalism, and the huge distance between rhetoric and reality as well as promises and performance created a set of new discontent among the electorate in Delhi.  However, it is the promise of a clean politics and responsive, inclusive and performing government devoid of corruption that captured the imagination a large number of people. Now the key challenge for the leadership of AAP is to transform the huge positive energy that it derived from an unprecedented electoral verdict into governance with integrity, imagination as well as performance to make a real difference in the lives of the poor and marginalised. The question is whether the second coming of the Aam Aadmi party  be able to herald a new era of politics of promises and hope and whether they will be able to keep the promise for change?

Indian Political Trends: Part II.Emergence of Civic Politics and Monitory democracy.

                                                                                                                    John Samuel

The last twenty five years have witnessed a paradigm shift in the political process. Till the early eighties, politics was to a large extent driven by a state-centric discourse, where the primary stakeholders were the political executive and an entrenched bureaucracy.  Media did play a watch dog, though the print media itself operated largely based on the available information or information supplied by the state.   

The emergency, during 1975-1977, for the first time demonstrated the perils of a state-centric politics and how the powerful bureaucratic -political cartel could subvert democracy and suspend fundamental rights. In a sense the emergency was a wake-up call to the citizens and civil society that Indian democracy could not be taken for granted.  Emergency was in many ways a shock-treatment to the Indian political process, unleashing new political forces and consequent emergence of number of political parties and actors. The period between 1977 and 1982 witnessed dramatic shifts in the Indian political process in a number of ways and one of the major shifts was the emergence of an active civil society process.  The emergence of PUCL, environmental and citizen activism of KSSP( Kerala Sasthra sahitya Parishat) and the publication of the first citizen’s report on environment etc were harbingers of a new civic politics in India. While the Congress party itself faced internal challenges, the Janatha experiment got reincarnated into number of new political parties and actors and the BJP too emerged during this phase in its third incarnation after Jansangh and Jantha party  phase.

The civic politics combined active social action through social mobilisation and public policy advocacy through knowledge, research and policy proposals. While Gandhian organisations organised civil society and civic spaces in the 1940s and 1950s for political and social actions, by the late 1950s most of the Gandhian organisations got sucked in to the periphery of the state and began to work as para-governmental organisations and networks.  However, the revitalised civic social and political spaces, in post-emergency era were informed by Gandhian ethics as well as left and left- of centre perspectives. While political scientists like Prof. Rajni Kothari recognised the relevance and the need for non-party political process, established political parties with strong left as well as right ideological inclinations questioned the emergence of social action groups and new social movements. While the proponents of the left political party establishment accused them of being ‘handmaids of imperialism’, the right-wing sangh parivar saw this as a ‘western conspiracy’ to covert India. Both the traditional right-wing and left-wing political party establishments were sceptical of any ‘politics’ beyond the ‘state-centric’ discourse. One of the major issues of contesting the political and social legitimacy of these formations was the role of ‘foreign funding’ – and it is due to the active protest against the emergency regime that the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act was introduced in 1976. In spite of political party establishments questioning the intentions, integrity and political legitimacy, there has been a resurgence of civic action and political process in different parts of India. 

These formations ranged from networked middle-class organisations such as the KSSP, to movements of adivasies, slum dwellers, environmental networks and the emergence of a number of new knowledge-research institutions. Their work included providing direct services and support to marginalised groups, social mobilisation, research and advocacy. A majority of these formations were inspired by Gandhian modes of social action, social democratic streams and politics of new social movements. In spite of vehement criticism and opposition, over the last twenty five years, an active civic political space emerged through social movements against displacement, environmentally disastrous projects and against bonded as well as child labour. A broader human rights movement for women’s rights, child rights and rights of the marginalised groups also emerged.  The right to education, the right to health and the rights of minorities etc got accentuated in the public sphere and political discourse through civic social and political action along with policy advocacy.

 The issues of environment, women’s rights, human rights, rights of adivasies and dalit communities etc. were brought into the centre of main-stream political discourse by a new generation of civic activists who were doing politics beyond the established political party framework and electoral politics.  The continuous and consistent work of civil society formations, civic activists and civic social movements also created a new culture of monitoring governance and public policy. 

The advocacy for most of the progressive legislations and public policy first began in the civic political and social space. Advocacy for the right to information, right to education , right to health, right to work and campaign to stop violence against women etc eventually created political demand for legislations, policies and programme.

With the emergence of Television, new media, social networking and a revolution in communication, knowledge-advocacy and monitoring of governance and governance institutions became more effective.  The right to information and information revolution through internet and social media created a new generation of civic politics and civic activists.  Unlike the traditional NGOs or highly institutionalised entities, the new network of citizens with more access to information and more technical competence and professional credentials began to engage in civic politics as active citizens. This new generation of civic activists and proponents of civic politics made significant change in the way politics operated in India. They began to be more and more vocal about corruption, the gap between rhetoric and reality and the gap between promises and performance. They have widely made use of the right to information and technology to reach out a large number of citizens. They have outgrown the traditional print and TV Media.

This generational shift in civic politics beyond the conventional political parties, NGOs or even new social movements influenced the Indian political and policy making process in number of ways.  The new proponents of civic politics have been professionals with income and drawn largely from the urban-middle class background.  Their global exposure and better access to information and technology gave them an edge over the previous generation of civil society organisation and civic activists.  Since main-stream politics have been dominated by political party establishment and the entry was restricted largely through traditional feeder mechanism or horizontal cooption through family or interest network, many of the new generation of politically aware young people chose to be active in civic politics by monitoring governance and actively questioning the legitimacy of established political elites. Campaign against corruption mobilised a large number of young people concerned about the subversion of electoral politics through the excessive use of money and muscle by the political party establishments.

The emergence of a new generation of civic politics in the last few years was partly a response to the crisis of the traditional political party establishment and partly due to the shift in the mode of information, mode of technology and thus the consequence was a mode of paradigm shift in communicative action. Political parties or even the government could no longer ‘control’ and ‘manage’ information- and the new generation of civic activists made strategic use of information, knowledge and technology to challenge the claims of government or to question the gap between the promises and performance of political class.

Due to the shift in access to information, shifts in modes of communication and more informed citizens,  politics is no longer about ‘selling dreams’ or  making promises or managing perception. Today a large majority of people in the urban settings or in small towns have access to mobile devices and far faster modes of accessing as well as analysing information. So with a generational shift in the demographic pattern the ‘old media’ mediations do not work; and people expect promises to be translated in to performance that has implications in their practical life and choices.

 The representative democracy is no longer enough to derive ‘legitimacy’ in a new era where there are more options and opportunities to get access to information to constantly monitor the performance of a government. Rhetoric no longer works beyond a few months as the information can no longer be controlled and people have learnt how to see through the bluff

Indian Political Trends : Part I.The second coming of Aam Admi : The politics of despair and hope

                                                                                                          John Samuel

Politics plays out through multiple negotiations of power and perceptions.  Within the context of a nation-state, the politics of the state is in constant negotiation with the politics of the people, particularly in relation to the promises made, actual performance and people’s perceptions. The legitimacy of a government often depends on the organic link between the promises and performance and how perceptions are created or managed to derive the legitimacy required to survive in power. This social contract is based on the legitimacy of power, core principles of governance, and the performance of the government. However, the principle of the new social contract also includes accountability, transparency, responsiveness, inclusiveness and participation as an integral part of political legitimacy. When there is a disjuncture between the principles, promises, performance and general perception, there is a crisis of political legitimacy. This often plays out in multiple ways through the electoral process.

The recent election to the Delhi state assembly in many ways indicates multiple shifts in the Indian political and democratic process.  The electoral performance of a particular party or a candidate  is indicative of the general mood or perception of a particular electorate within a socio-political context. The nature and character of such verdicts also indicate the possible shifts in the perception and power dynamics within a given society at a particular point in time. In the last fifty years, Indian politics and its democratic process have witnessed different shifts in the way power and perception are negotiated through the electoral network and performances.

What does the landslide victory of AAP in the recent Delhi Assembly Election indicate? There have been hundreds of analytical articles and perspectives offered after the rather unprecedented electoral performance of a relatively new political party. The responses vary from jubilation, celebration, and cautioned optimism, critical appreciation to scepticism, grudging admiration and explicit dismissiveness.  While the traditional political parties and other fellow-travellers are seriously trying to understand the new challenger on the horizon, the outward posturing is that of bravado along with deep scepticism.   It is expected that when a ‘credible’ threat risks upsetting the core business of established political parties, there will certainly be opposition to the new actor with a new political agenda competing in the same market for power and perception. This is part of the reason that many of the established political parties and their die-hard believers look with a microscope to find fault with the AAP or anybody and its associates.  Some are concerned about the lack of ‘ideological’ clarity and purity of AAP, while others are simply being dismissive that such passing aberrations happened and disappeared in the past. Some are sure that the AAP is not going to perform and are certain that the party will slowly transform and become like any other traditional political party. A large group are convinced that the AAP is actually a B team of the BJP as a part of the Nagpur plan of RSS, while others are worried about the ‘upper-caste’ character of AAP and how it is not pro-women or pro-dalit etc.  All such responses follow the same old expected pattern, though those who predicted the decimation and eventual disappearance of AAP seem to be a bit concerned and worried about the potential and possibilities of a new challenger to demolish the vote share and ‘electoral’ market of the established actors.

Politics, particularly electoral politics, is a messy affair.  Clean slates of fresh values, ideals or rhetoric of lofty principles are attributes we expect of the people in a perfect world, although in the real world of imperfections, electoral politics reflects the tensions, compromises, aspirations, anxieties, prides and prejudices of society. The relevance or irrelevance of a political formation is within a given space and time. As such, its ability to negotiate with the diverse perceptions and its relative competence to validate them relative to that of other actors, remain in an ambivalent grey zone.

The rather unprecedented victory of the AAP indicates the politics of despair as well as politics of hope. The politics of despair arises from the wide-spread discontent against authoritarian tendencies, the increasing gap between promises and performance, the big difference between rhetoric and reality as well as a widely shared concern about the insecurities of minority communities. The politics of hope was largely due to the positive agenda of clean inclusive politics that promised more responsive governance, free of corruption.  Politics of hope is also due to the promises made to the poor and marginalised communities, particularly in relation to water, electricity, schools and health facilities.  While there are many sceptics and critics of the politics of AAP, the victory of AAP has rekindled the hope in Indian democracy amongst millions of ordinary people across India.

There are three underlying trends that indicate a shift in the Indian political process and the emergence of a new generation of political actors and leaders in the next ten years. These are:

a) Internal and external crisis of traditional political parties and a marketisation of electoral politics.

b) The emergence of a new civic politics and monitory democracy.

c) The emergence of an aspiring as well as vulnerable new middle class across India.

These trends need to be seen in the context of an increasingly entrenched nexus between corporate business elites and political elites on the one hand and the nexus between corporate driven media and political perceptions on the other. While the process of governance is taken over by a new nexus of bureaucratic –technocratic- policy elites, there is an increasing marginalisation of poor and marginalised communities, covered up in the rhetoric of ‘good governance’ and ‘development’. The emergence of new politics is a result of multiple discontents in the traditional Indian political and governance process.

1)   Crisis of political parties and marketisation of electoral politics

 Representative democracy largely operates through established multi-party political process. The health of a democracy and political process is to a large extent dependent upon the health of a political party system in a given country. In the first fifty years of Independence, the main-stream political parties such as the Indian National Congress, Left Parties, and regional parties and then the Jan-Sangh/BJP negotiated the representational democracy through the institutional structures and process of the political parties. However, when an established political party became the power-establishment, contestation between individual interests and the broader ideals of political parties became a primary issue. Those with the resources influence and power (inherited or acquired) began to dominate the political party process.  Most of the political parties began as membership based socio-political movements with mass participation.  However, now, with the emergence of a neoliberal era, we see ‘market forces’ dominating public policy, social choices, and the media, eventually dominating the perceptions of the people. We see that politics itself has been reduced to ‘selling’ a product/brand/ image in the market place for votes. Election campaigns began to be less and less membership driven and started looking more and more like a performance or an advertisement campaign designed to alter perceptions and thus rope in the votes.

This ‘marketisation’ of electoral politics that was used for manipulating perceptions and voter-choices began to undermine the traditional structures of political parties at the grassroots level. Those at the grassroots level became mere implementers of an “advertising” or “marketing” based campaign strategy designed by the experts for the top-leadership. In other words, the grassroots members of political parties were robbed off their “sense of agency” and eventually “sense of ownership”.

The marketisation of electoral politics and top-down management of political parties looked more ‘efficient’ and effective to keep the “electoral competitive edge” of established political parties. However, marketisation of any product or process or institutions requires funds and investments. And in the neoliberal era, the big-time corporate houses or business interests began to invest in elections, political parties, and leaders. The process that began in the late eighties emerged as a well-oiled nexus, in the last twenty five years, between the corporate and political elites.

While  elections have become a market exercise for influencing and capturing vote share, the media was reduced to a negotiating agent used by political managers and business investors, and political parties began to be dominated by ‘up-ward’ mobile career- politicians.  In this sense, market, media and management began to influence the political party establishments. Those with links in the market, media and management began to dominate the structures and decision making bodies of most of the political party establishments.  In the last twenty years, we see that the grassroots fund-raising or member-ship drives of most of the political parties declined and the total budgets and funds from the corporate lobby increased exponentially. Political parties themselves also found investors to launch media channels for the party propaganda, and entertainment. This also meant that those with the blessings of big businesses or major donors to political parties began to get seats and acquire political clout in different parties. Millionaires could easily buy themselves into seats in the parliament or even join a political party at the very top. As political parties have become new “investment vehicles” in the neoliberal era for “policy returns” and “tax-rebates”, politics itself has become a ‘dhanda’ – a business.  And ‘crony capitalism’ was  seen as a part of the entrenched nexus between few corporate elites and political elites. In the process electoral democracy was made a ‘means’ for elite capture of the state.  The intrinsic political ethics of democracy got replaced by the instrumentalist market approach of using ‘electoral politics’ as a means to amass power and wealth. This has cumilately undermined the  political and social legitimacy of the mainstream-political party establishment as well as the claims of ‘good governance’, ‘economic growth’ etc wherein pro-poor policies were seen more as ‘populist’ or ‘freebies’ to contain dissent or to get votes.

Corporatisation of Political Parties

As politics became a business establishment with the essential corporate components of revenue, expenditure, investment, incentives, media management, network management and branding, those with such skills and competence began to dominate the political parties. The emergence of technocratic retainers and managers in the 1990s is largely due to the shift in the business model of political parties.  Along with the corporatisation  of political parties and managerial dominance in the decision making,  most of the political parties ended up becoming closely held private companies;  either family owned private enterprises operating in the public sphere providing a certain political service or publicly held large enterprises controlled by a power-cartel or family-held managerial clique.  The ‘entrepreneurial’ approach of political parties with business strategies, product, process etc in a way de-politicised  main-stream political party establishments, as ‘ideology’ was either for profiling or branding and the interests of the stakeholders began to  take precedence over the the original ideals of the party. Slogans no longer emanated organically from the grassroots members, but were carefully crafted by PR agents in the bellies of a few advertising companies. Leaders began to hire PR agencies and consultants to ‘manage’ their ‘image’ and profile in the media so that they could maintain perceptions and thus maintain their vote bank. Political parties have become electoral networks where ‘politics’ itself began to get ‘out sourced’;   media was managed through  PR companies  or hired professionals; party events were managed by ‘event management’ companies; and election campaigns were managed by hired  staff. All these required immense monetary power

While in the seventies and early eighties, election expenditure was primarily raised from people and locally managed, from the 1990s, election funds came from the top and the campaign strategies and advertisement campaigns were centrally managed. So in the first thirty years of independence, being a political activist meant giving up many comforts and the key concern was ‘how can I or we contribute to the party or a cause’. But in the last twenty years, there has been a perceptible shift at the grassroots as those who got active began to ask the question: ‘what do I get from the party’. When election campaigns imitated corporate advertising campaigns, or a reality show on the TV studios, the grassroots workers of political parties refused to work without clear ‘incentives’ and in elections this incentive meant ‘money’. Those who contested elections to the Lok Sabha and Assembly began to pay for the workers ‘time and energy’ while also covering almost every other expense.  Volunteers and voluntarism diminished or simply disappeared. Thus elections have become very expensive; much beyond the reach of ordinary people or the aam- admi and aurats to contest. The success of political leaders began to be seen in proportion to the funds and money he/she controlled.  Bigger the party and bigger the leaders, the bigger were the need for financial resources and this also exponentially increased the rate of legitimate and illegitimate ‘rent-seeking’ behaviour or corruption in the political class. The predominance of corporate money, often circulated as unaccounted black money, subverted the quality of democratic politics and political party establishments. Often, the money collected through corruption was sent out of the country through ‘havala’ route and a significant number of politicians or their kith and kin became investors or highly paid senior staff of such companies. A part of such corrupt money got back to the country in the pet-name of ‘foreign direct investment’ through shell companies registered in Tax-Havens.

Macro-Governance and Local Governance as power-sharing arrangement

In the last twenty five years, there was a clear division between macro-politics and ‘local politics’. With the enactment of the 73^rd and 74^th amendments, there was an opportunity for a clear division of a power-sharing arrangement. Local party workers and leaders got the incentive of being elected in the local government institutions and local government institutions too offered some amount of power paraphernalia (vehicles, sitting fees, privileges etc.) and significant budgets to implement the government programmes. The macro-politics of the Lok Sabha and Legislative Assemblies were managed centrally and the decisions were made by a small group of people and the seat distribution began to depend on ‘winnability’ , ‘user value’ or ‘loyalty quotient’. This power management within the political parties reflected the new configuration and alignment between macro-power and micro power in consonance with macro-governance and local governance.  The policies were increasingly decided by a bureaucratic-technocratic elites, the political parties were managed by a nexus of political and business elites, and political party structures were filled with loyalists of one kind or the other where votes were managed through the caste/identity network While this division of power-arrangement between local government and state/central government looked like an effective system of managing power incentives within political parties, it also eventually killed the volunteer base or mass base committed to the ideology, programme and politics of a given party.

 While there was a political incentive for those local party leaders with loyalty to the top leadership, there was no political or material incentive for the ordinary people for their loyalty to a political party on the ground. And this loyalty at local level began to shift to identity –networks based caste, creed, new religious/denominational affiliations.. When the mass- volunteer base of many political parties declined, they began to be increasingly dependent  on the caste/identity networks or institutions to reach out to the ‘vote-banks’.

When the rhetoric of policy promises and promised economic growth failed to deliver on the ground and when the stories of corruption could not be controlled in the era of the internet and social networking, discontent on the ground among the ordinary people and masses has been increasing. Many of them felt they have no stake in politics. They became simply voters and unsatisfied ‘consumers’ of services provided by the government.

It is this discontent on the ground among the common people and the legitimacy deficit of the traditional parties that the new political formation the Aam Aadmi Party (‘common people’s party) tried to mobilize and began to project as a counter discourse in the method of party politics. They began to build the volunteer base many political parties lost in the last twenty years; they began to mobilize the ideas, expertise and imagination of a large number of young people. They began to enter in to the grey political and social spaces vacated by the Indian National Congress and BJP. Hence the victory of the AAP is also indicative of the crisis within the political parties and also the crisis of governance wherein a political policy and technical experts began to dominate.

Where is the Indian National Congress going ?

                                                                                                            John Samuel

At last the grand old party ,after its existence of 130 years, managed to discover the magic number of Zero , right under the nose of AICC, in Delhi. Is it the beginning of its end or end of its relevance? Or is it the beginning a new incarnation ? Will the zero performance make any difference or critical reflection among its top-heavy leaders and ever eroding grassroots workers ? Many younger leaders and grassroots workers began to question in public and private the reasons for the paralysis of the party that claim the legacy of the freedom struggle. Many seem to know the problem though not sure about the solutions .The perils of arrogance, elitism, root-less power cliques, cartels of groupism, interests and vanities of power are signs of a deeper crisis of ethics, value and the very purpose of a party that ruled India for most of the time ever since independence . Congress Party was supposed to strengthen the idea of democratic India; the idea of a diverse, peaceful, responsive and inclusive state, based on the letter and spirit of the Indian Constitution . Can congress reclaim its original ideals or revitalise or reinvent ?

Congress has to go back the original Gandhi, Ambedkar, Nehru, Azad, Patel, Subhash Chandra Bose and the core values of freedom struggle . Congress Party has to go back to the basic principles , values and struggle for freedom that ignited its life as a mass movement of 'aam admies/auraths' once upon a time in the distant past. Congress Party may send retirement notice to the palace politicians and chamchas in search of crumbs of governmental power and it's comforts. Congress party may send home the technocratic elites who believed country and governments are made for them to rule and enjoy. The Chidambarams, Allhuwalias, Nanden Nilakkanies, and other 'eminently' qualified elites ,more at home in the cocktail circuit of the rich and powerful ,are a huge liability than an assets. It is time for those root-less wonders and smooth talkers in the TV studios to home and enjoy their pension as Parliamentarians and ministers for several decades.

Congress party has to learn to serve people at the grassroots, listen to the voices poor and marginalised and get rid of the rootless self-serving careerists whose only purpose is to get power, paraphernalia and of course 'return on investment' through somehow getting a slice of governmental power; the leaders who are too used to the seduction and comforts of governmental power. A party can't be revitalised or rebuilt by the sedated leaders and their side-kicks and chamcha still in the hangover 'intoxicating ' power-trips and 'official' privileges that they are so used to.A party can't be built with politics of chamchagiri or charm or chances. Building or revitalising any institutions require a shared sense of purpose, passion, people, positive vision, politics and performance.

But can the party be able to get out of its present mode of being a network ,dominated in many states, by , of and for those who became 'leaders' through lineage, or patronage or 'favour' or through vested interests money or muscle ? The rise and fall of Jaythi Natarajan is indicative of the deeper crisis. Without winning any election, without working at the grassroots , she got in the parliament, ministerial chair via TV Studios and claiming the legitimacy of the family legacy. Will the congress be able to move beyond it's present predicament of decay within ? Does it have the collective leadership capacity , political imagination and humility to reinvent itself ? Can it stop being a party of everything to everyone and party of perpetual compromises and accommodating vested interests for the sake of winning elections at any 'cost'? Will it be able to restart from a clean slate of Zero seat or rise up from it ashes across different states of India ? Can it tolerate principled mass based grassroots leaders, beyond lineage, money, muscle or 'loyalty' ? Can it attract a million young people to go and work at the grassroots to serve the people, learn from them and make difference on the ground as volunteers ? Can it attracts fearless leaders with integrity, imagination and courage of conviction,commitment to the original ideals and above all emerging from the ground ? Can it declare a moratorium on 'parachuted' leaders? The future of congress depends on all these questions .

But the question is how many leaders will have the guts to stand up and challenge themselves and change themselves ? How many leaders have the courage of conviction to go beyond a politics careerism and chamchagiri? How many leaders are ready to get out of the consorts of capital cities and air conditioned life to the heat and sweat of real people at the grassroots? How many leaders are ready to retire and realise their own redundancies in the generational shift in the new politics? The questions still remain simply as questions. The longer it takes to ask questions, the quicker formations like AAP will fill in the political space.

 It is often interesting to see how many 'once up on a time' powerful political parties ended up as NGOs in many countries and how so many NGOs got politicised and filled the political vacuum for principled and civic leadership. Aravind Kejarival or AAP is not the cause of zero performance of the congress; they are the result of it. AAP has not taken away any vote from congress; Congress voters simply went after the AAP. Congress still have enough retainers to run its own NGO Rajiv Gandhi foundation in Delhi and Kejariwal no longer will have time to run Kabir or Parivarthan ( the NGOs he founded) as he will have to lead the government in Delhi and also lead a political party . So where is the Indian National Congress Going ?