Autocratic parties,democratic polity
It seems that the next chief of the Goa Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) will be appointed by Congress President Sonia Gandhi and will not be elected. GPCC President Subhash Shirodkar is supposed to have said that the selection of a candidate by Mrs Gandhi was “any day better than an election”. Now why would that be? Mr Shirodkar, apparently, feels it is best for a “healthy atmosphere in the party”. Why? In the world’s largest democracy, why would an election to choose the president of the state branch of the country’s largest political party sully the ‘atmosphere’?
What use then is the farcical process of inviting nominations for elections to various posts on the Goa Pradesh Congress Committee? The last day for filing of nominations was supposed to be yesterday. ‘Elections’ have been scheduled to be held on Friday 17 September, but leaders who do not want to be named say that party leaders will pass a resolution after the expiry of the deadline for filing of nominations, authorising All India Congress Committee (AICC) President Mrs Sonia Gandhi to constitute the GPCC.
India may be the world’s greatest democracy, but the political parties that participate in the biggest representative exercise on Earth are all rigid autocracies. While some are openly so, revolving around the charisma of a single individual and his/her family, others go through an elaborate charade of democratic procedures, but end up with more or less the same result.
Like the Congress.
This is such a pity, especially because the traditions of the 125-year-old party are thoroughly democratic, especially in the days before India’s Independence. The leaders of the Congress were always elected at the annual sessions of the Congress. After the 1920s, it was Mahatma Gandhi whose personality completely dominated the party, but even he had to bow before the majority.
This was seen when Subhas Chandra Bose defied Gandhi, took on his candidate Pattabhi Sitaramayya at the 1939 Tripuri Congress in Jabalpur, and defeated him. Bose became President of the Congress for a second term that year against Gandhi’s wishes, but his victory was shortlived. He found he could not function at all, as the rest of the Congress Working Committee (CWC) was loyal to Gandhi and blocked his every move. He resigned, was later expelled with other socialists from the Congress, and went on to form the Forward Bloc.
But the fact is that other parties in India are no less autocratic. The main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s). President Nitin Gadkari, though formally ‘elected’, was actually appointed at the behest of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) which, as everybody knows, runs according to the fiat of a ‘Sarsanghchalak’.
The Left parties follow ‘democratic centralism’. As the name suggests, it is a contradiction in terms. About regional outfits, the less said the better. They gravitate around a personality – like Lalu Yadav, Mulayam Singh, Nitish Kumar, Mayawati, Mamata Banerjee, Bal Thackeray, Chandrababu Naidu, Jayalalithaa or Karunanidhi – whose word is law.
These then, are the arbiters of the world’s greatest democracy. Only God can save this country.
War of words
The Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), which jointly rule Goa, need to cut out the absurd war of words going on between the two. What started as a slanging match between Goa Pradesh Youth Congress President Sankalp Amonkar and NCP Goa spokesman Trajano D’Mello, has now expanded to drag in Revenue Minister Jose Philip D’Souza and Chief Minister Diganbar Kamat. They both need take a deep breath, and tell Trajano and Sankalp to shut up or ship out.
