When the Congress shows its inherent weakness and intellectual confusion by backtracking on the first confident assertion made by its president in recent months, it leaves one amazed. To take a position and stand by it is positive leadership, administered with belief and integrity. When party functionaries dilute the assertions, it only shows how ordinary and diffident the second-rung leadership is. Such senseless backtracking makes one wonder whether these people — elected, nominated or just working for the party — have the wherewithal to rule by conviction and stand by a set of political values. Although the press refers to this absurd scurrying about as damage control it is, in fact, a dilution of Sonia Gandhi’s emphatic political statement.

Weak people prefer the status quo, even if it be at the cost of change and development. To be unaccountable is far easier than to face the electorate, especially if you know that you have failed them. However, if you believe that your hands have been tied by those who are actually your opponents but profess, falsely, that they are your coalition partners, you certainly need to free yourself from that stranglehold and govern with the associates who are with you — who are not merely instructing, bullying and blackmailing you from the outside.

The Left has let down coalition politics by its petulant, dictatorial, unwavering and simplistic positions. It was sad to see the erstwhile stalwart of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) at his recent press conference, virtually mute in front of the superficial might of the present ruling dispensation of the party he once ruled with an iron fist. He was so much more reasonable than Prakash Karat, who cannot seem to get out of the mess he himself has created.

A necessary risk

In contrast, images of Sonia Gandhi and Indira Gandhi together, that have begun to appear on television, are sending out an interesting signal — a flashback. Indira Gandhi had triggered a snap poll and won. Is Sonia Gandhi about to do the same for similar reasons — to establish the obvious truth that it is simply impossible to deliver the goods without a clear mandate? Particularly with partners who are publicly confrontational, opinionated, unable to debate new ideas and imperatives — comrades who are not on the same wave-length, who do not share the same ideology, and who do not respect each other and, finally, who are not equally accountable? To break away from such a relationship may well be a political risk, but one worth taking. After all, that is what parliamentary democracy is all about — fight for what you believe in, let the people decide. Needless to say, some must sit in the treasury benches and others in the opposition till the people dictate a change. So why shy away from the hustings?

Indians can see the dilution of public ethics that stares them in the face in every conceivable sphere. They have experienced, over the decades, the misuse of caste, faith and social causes for personal and political ends. They have been the victims of malfunctioning and corrupt administrations, of unlawful activities indulged in by representatives of the government, of endless illegalities that stem from an incorrect, dishonest and exclusive interpretation and understanding of the law and democratic processes, as well the rampant misuse of ruthless political power. The patience of Indians has been stretched to unimaginable limits.

Garibi hatao continues to evoke a response that is not cynical like other, more recent, slogans. There is much to hatao and only an inclusive, joint venture of the government with the ordinary, resilient and unusual people of India can begin to bring about the dynamic and vital metamorphosis that is essential for us in order to live and let live.