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| All The President’s Men | | | S.L. RAO
Since Independence, both the national parties when in office have usually placed the head of the party at a lower level than their prime minister. When they have not, as has been the experience in the Congress, there have been conflicts and problems.
Jawaharlal Nehru was without doubt the primus inter pares. In his 17 years as prime minister, he was president of the Congress for the three years following the dangerously divisive Purshottamdas Tandon, whose aggressive drive for Hindi almost led to the secession of the Madras presidency. The remaining years saw Congress presidents who accepted Nehru’s status as Number One and deferred to him.
Indira Gandhi broke the party in 1969. After that, she had as Congress presidents a timid Jagjivan Ram, pliant Shankar Dayal Sharma, and toady D.K. Baruah (who famously said, “Indira is India”). Then she combined the positions of head of party and of government in herself. Her son followed her example during his five years as prime minister. After his assassination, his widow would have been the logical Congress president, but in her emotionally shattered state, she did not want it. She realized soon that Narasimha Rao, who became prime minister and Congress president from 1991 to 1996, was marginalizing her, and not giving her any deference. After the Congress defeat in the elections, Narasimha Rao was in the wilderness, and she made the family loyalist and treasurer, Sitaram Kesri, the Congress president in 1997. But the Narasimha Rao experience had taught her that to preserve the family inheritance, she had to take charge of the party. She has done so since.
Sonia Gandhi’s stroke of genius was in turning the renunciation of power to her advantage, following the hostility towards her caused by her foreign origin. While she handed over the prime ministership to Manmohan Singh, she retained the party presidency. She had the power but not the headaches or the responsibility of running the government.
In August, 2004, I had written in this column that “The present prime minister [Manmohan Singh] is without any doubt the potentially most qualified of the available candidates in his party to hold the office”. But his ministers, selected by the Congress president, were from the old guard. “One observer said that many ministers were part of the ‘graveyard shift’, having been resurrected from retirement.” As chairperson of the National Advisory Council, Sonia Gandhi had “cabinet minister status and spent government funds but was responsible to neither prime minister nor parliament. Instead he is subject to her authority.” The Punjab assembly resolution, withdrawing a statutory agreement with Haryana on sharing waters, showed “clearly an absence of political leadership in the Congress, even a failure. The political and administrative responsibilities of the prime minister are separated. People sense this dichotomy. The problem is soluble. This separation of political and administrative powers with the prime minister must stop. Ministers must have one boss, the prime minister. Chief ministers especially of Congress ruled states must know that the prime minister is the one they must look up to, not anyone outside government. Bureaucrats must not be scurrying to other persons to feed information about what government is doing. They must remain in awe of the prime minister and his office.”
Now, five years later, separating political from government leadership, with political leadership being the final authority, is not just a way to structure our governance; it seems to work. The Congress now projects the prime minister as the final authority for cabinet appointments and portfolios (“Prime minister’s prerogative”). All ministerial prospects, even from the other parties in the alliance, keep saying this. He is credited with the electoral success of the Congress. The nuclear agreement with the United States of America is projected as a demonstration of the prime minister’s resolve as is his dealing with the many years of personal insults from L.K. Advani. The president of the Congress graciously defers to him. He is involved in the political discussions on coalition formation and ministerial appointments. The early practice of top bureaucrats, like the national security advisor, being appointed because the Congress president desired it is now very private. Over the past five years, ministers who appeared to challenge his authority (Natwar Singh, Mani Shankar Aiyer, et al) have lost their ministerial positions (unless they belonged to coalition partners like T.R. Baalu or A. Raja).
Political strategy is determined by the family, by Rahul Gandhi, his sister and mother. He has prepared himself by extensively touring the country, meeting many hundreds of ordinary people and political workers, creating his own group of mentors and advisors, and evolving a bold political strategy (formally approved by the working committee of the Congress). He was the principal Congress campaigner during the elections. The Congress did better than it had for 20 years, and the party and a fawning media give him all the credit for the ‘victory’. His renunciation of government office so as to work for the party has earned him much kudos and adds to his political appeal.
For the Congress, this model has the First Family using its dynastic appeal for the electorate, campaigning for it. In a way it is like the queen of England being distanced from her government. Unlike the queen though, our First Family will give political inputs and directions on behalf of the party to the government. The government is to focus on policy and implementation. Thus the family escapes any public ire about dynastic rule. The Congress becomes a paragon of democracy while protecting the family heritage, which is of ruling India. On this argument the family must not take office, including that of prime minister. It must go to loyal servants who will be given all respect. The Family will firmly hold the reins.
Is this a model that the other national party, the Bharatiya Janata Party can follow? The BJP has a cadre, but it belongs to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh with its anti-Muslim and other antediluvian views. It restricts the BJP’s appeal. Until the BJP is able to cleanse the RSS or has its own cadre, it will remain a party that will approach but never seize power by itself, always with its policies moderated by coalition partners. But it might consider imitating the Congress model after Advani steps down. The tallest leader left is Narendra Modi; flawed and with not many in India or abroad who will accept him as prime minister. But Modi could be president of the BJP à la Sonia Gandhi, with a trusted loyalist to lead the government in policy and implementation.
Modi is a brilliant party organizer and administrator. Only he can build the BJP’s grassroots and even change the RSS, but he must move more to the Centre of a tolerant India. As with the Congress First Family, he will hold the reins of the party, and direct the prime minister. He and the BJP will have to identify and develop someone to be such a credible prime minister, with competence and capability and the willingness to be subservient to the party president. In his second term, Manmohan Singh is well placed to offer more decisive leadership. The Congress party and its First Family also have learnt how to wield the levers of power without being too obvious about it.
This model is not new to India. Till his assassination in 1948, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who held office in the Congress (as president, once in 1924), was the final authority for all the party’s major decisions. The relationship of the First Family in the Congress (holding the Congress presidency) and the prime minister and government is no different. By copying this model, the BJP could resolve its crises of leadership and of an extremist RSS cadre.
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