Congress and the Concept of Ricorsi

                                                         Congress and the Concept of Ricorsi

If May 16 officially stamped the rout of the Congress, just about two months later, on July 14,it suffered a greater embarrassment when the Lok Sabha passed the TRAI ordinance with the support of Trinamool Congress, AIADMK and  NCP and a  day later the Rajya Sabha voice voted in its favour. This was a massive victory to the Modi-led BJP and a massive blow to  Congress  still licking its post-election wounds. Modi’s Congress-mukht Bharat  is now a reality,  for the 44 member Congress in the parliament does not count for anything. It is as good as being non-existent. When it rises to squeak and protest in the Parliament, it is heckled and ridiculed for daring to oppose the mighty ruling party, since it does not have even one tenth of members to pull down the ruling party. The media gleefully headlines that Congress is isolated in the Parliament.  And nobody wants to touch it with a bargepole. The media which has arrogated to itself the power of kingmaker does not lose an opportunity to lampoon the Congress when it speaks or when it sleeps. The media uses words like ‘pariah’ to state that all parties shun the Congress – words that are unofficially considered unprintable because of their derogatory slant against a community. Trinamool Congress is known for its prevarication. Its horizontal nod on any issue will turn into a vertical one and vice versa. Trinamool survives only by its unpredictability. It will shun an issue on a particular day and taking umbrage in the truth that a coin has two sides, it will embrace the same issue the next day.  This flip-flop is not the monopoly of Trinamool alone. All parties do the same at any given moment of exigency. That is the only way for political survival. The pre election rhetoric of the BJP against FDI and GST- just to cite two obvious examples- is turned on its head once it has come to power.  When the then finance minister P Chidambaram had raised the issue of FDI  in Defence with the Opposition in 2012, Narendra Modi had taken on the government for doing so. He had tweeted "Bharat Ko Congress party videshiyon ko bech raha hai" (Congress is selling away the nation to foreigners - we must oppose FDI)" in December 2012. Now the tables have turned. The Modi Government has enhanced FDI in defence to 100 percent, but after all round opposition in the country, has brought it down to 49 percent. AK Antony , the former defence minister told reporters in Parliament. "My feeling is that in itself is a dangerous beginning. Gradually all Indian private sector defence companies will be controlled by foreign multinationals. That will affect our national security.” Most of the UPA schemes that BJP denounced before the elections have been retained now when it is in power except for a change in the prefixes adding  Shyama Prasad Mukherjee and Deen Dayal Upadhyaya to them . Congress which had borne the brunt of opposition’s paralysis of the Parliament has resorted to the same game now that it is in opposition. So are the media hypes that oscillate between exaggerated promotion and demotion of a person or a party.

It is often said what is thrown up has only to come down. The entire universe moves on the concept of ricorsi-the process of repeating itself in a self-similar way. This is what Shelley refers to in his famous aphorism: “When winter comes can spring be far behind?” Gambittista Vico describes the history of the world as the history of cycles- the age of Gods(the Divine Age), the age of heroes( the Aristocratic Age) and the age of men ( the Democratic age). The last mentioned morphs into the age of Chaos  and the cycle will re-start. In our philosophy, this cycle is designated as the Satya yuga, the Treta  yuga, the Dwapara yuga and the Kali yuga.

So if Congress had ruled for the last ten years in a stretch, it is time for the BJP to step in. But  the media( hopefully BJP unlike the Media is intelligent enough to recognize) that lives from day to day cannot visualize the circle and therefore its current hype is for the ruling government. If it damns the Congress today as a “pariah” ( my apologies to quote the media’s vocabulary), it will damn the present ruling party tomorrow. It survives only by hype and exaggeration.

But the moot question is whether the Congress will prove an exception to the rule of ricorsi that is in operation in the universe?  After the humiliating defeat in the recent polls, the Congress party has not been able to gather itself up and stand on the strength of its illustrious founders like Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel, Maulana Azad, Rajaji who made the Congress a defining influence on modern Indian nationalism, committed to social reform and human upliftment. Today Congress is reduced to Hobson’s choice with th e only option of accepting the dynastic rule. The dynastic rule had failed to deliver and the blame was put on the ManMohan Singh’s government for its policy paralysis. The good work done by the previous government was interred with their exit and the follies of the dynasty are forgiven. It is time for the Congress party to face the truth squarely and say no to the Hobson’s choice of the mother-son leadership. It is a tough choice to make but it is the only one to lift the Congress up. Mrs.Gandhi has to make yet another supreme sacrifice of denying her prince the remote possibility of a return to power. She had denied herself the Prime Ministership in 2004. Ten years later, she should have the courage to deny her son the PM’s chair- in the interest of the Nation and the party. However well meaning Rahul may be, he is not a PM material. A country like India with diverse cultures, languages, demands and demographic aspirations needs a strong and dynamic leader who can understand and address this diversity with wisdom, compassion , concern and humaneness. The Congress has been for a very long time sheltered by the Gandhi family. To be fair to the Gandhis, they have nurtured it well in the past. Times have changed and demand new leadership. If the Banyan tree syndrome continues, no new shoots will emerge. It is time for the Gandhis to hand over the reins to younger people and there is no dearth of bright young men and women in the party to take up the responsibility. You can learn to swim only when you are in water. The Gandhis can now withdraw, having served the party for so long and thereby escape the discomfiture that the Steel man (Lohapurush) of the BJP is now being subjected to. The gratitude of the party and the nation will be in full measure if Mrs.Gandhi makes a second sacrifice.  The Congress should accept the ricorsi principle and bide its time.