New Delhi: In an outspoken and candid interview which will surprise many leading Congressmen whilst enthusing others, former minister of information and broadcasting and present MP for Anandpur Sahib in Punjab, Manish Tewari, says, “There is an overwhelming consensus in the Congress that we need Sonia [Gandhi] as president for the foreseeable future.”
He says this is true of all categories of Congress party members. He specifically confirms that an overwhelming number of Congress Lok Sabha MPs as well as an overwhelming number of members of the Congress Working Committee and general secretaries want Sonia to continue as president of the party.
Tewari says this is also true of the membership of the National Students’ Union of India and Youth Congress. The only body of Congress members that he could not claim overwhelmingly want Sonia to continue as president are Rajya Sabha MPs.
In an interview to Karan Thapar for The Wire, Tewari said that the Congress party “should only look for another president after sorting out its ideological issues.” He said the party needed to call a series of Pachmarhi-style conclaves or gatherings to discuss and thrash out critical ideological issues where the party is out of sync with the mood of the country. Under questioning, Tewari says that this process could take months or even a year or two. It was essential that Sonia Gandhi should continue as president till this process ends. At the end of the interview he said this means she has to continue “for the foreseeable future”.
Also read: Congress Leaders Can’t Decide Whether to Mourn or Celebrate Delhi Election Results
Tewari’s views are in stark contrast to those expressed recently by Shashi Tharoor and Sandeep Dikshit. Tharoor has said: “We do need to find ourselves a new president and we need to do so without any further delay”. Dikshit has said that one reason why Congress is not taking steps to replace Rahul Gandhi is because senior leaders are “scared” that a rival could get the job and, therefore, prefer to continue with an interim arrangement rather than see an opponent as president.
Abhishek Manu Singhvi has also spoken of the need to appoint a new leadership and, subsequently, elect a new president. However, Tewari insists that “the silent majority” of the Congress party disagrees with Tharoor, Dikshit and Singhvi and agrees with his view that Sonia must continue. He says he knows Congress better than Tharoor and Singhvi.
Tewari said the party is very conscious that Sonia has brought it to power on two consecutive occasions in 2004 and 2009. She alone has the experience and skill to guide the party at this difficult juncture. Tewari also suggests that Rahul is not keen to return as president and, in fact, will not do so.
In further comments that will starkly delineate the difference between his views and those of other Congress leaders, Manish Tewari has said that the most urgent requirement for the Congress party is to sort out its philosophical and ideological position on a critical range of issues to ensure that they are in sync with the mood of the country and reflect the changed circumstances of today. He discusses four such issues: secularism, nationalism, entitlement and privilege as well as the party’s economic philosophy.
Watch | Lack of Policy Clarity Led to Corruption Charges, UPA Handled Cases Badly: Montek Singh Ahluwalia
Speaking about secularism, Tewari says that we need to go back to the original constitutional, Nehruvian and Ambedkarite definition of secularism which is “a strict separation between church and state”. He says over the years the original constitutional interpretation has been modified and diluted into sarva dharma sambhav. He says this happened because of the mistaken view that secularism is part of a thousand-year-old Indian tradition. He insists it is not. He says it’s an import from the West consciously introduced into the Indian constitution by people like Ambedkar and Nehru.
He says the only way to correct the slide towards majoritarian positions of the right is to go back to the strict interpretation of secularism i.e. a clear separation between church and state. Tewari accepts this means that many Indian customs and practices like the lighting of diyas at public events, payment of Haj pilgrimages or retainerships for temple priests and imams will have to cease.
On nationalism, Tewari said the Congress must urgently define a concept that is not just different from the BJP’s majoritarian vision of nationalism but also more appealing. He suggests this could be done by borrowing and building on Barack Obama’s concept of nationalism defined by the phrase ‘Together we are one’.
Tewari says a third issue the Congress has to confront is what he calls “a general revolt in the country, especially in the youth, against entitlement”. He says the challenge for Congress is “how do we deal with this question or how do we deal with this revolt against entitlement?” His answer is that Congress needs to distinguish between entitlement and what he calls legacy. The fact that many leading Congressmen are children and grand-children of Congressmen of earlier generations, people like Sachin Pilot, Jyotiraditya Scindia, Milind Deora, Jitin Prasada, Karti Chidambaram or Sandeep Dikshit, is legacy and not entitlement. These people have earned their positions and are not there simply because of their fathers and grand-fathers. He says Congress must articulate this definition and convince people of it.
Speaking about the need to re-think the party’s economic philosophy, Manish Tewari says that Congress ushered in economic liberalisation in 1991 but continued with socialist rhetoric for the next three decades. Consequently, there was a huge mismatch between the economic policies that were implemented and the language of the party. In this context, he said it is important to remember that India has hundreds of millions of young people who are aspirational and the party’s language must appeal to them.
Also read: Ground Report: Congress Is Not Fulfilling Promises Made to Farmers in MP
In response to one of the questions, Tewari agreed that instead of couching its policies in terms of ‘garibi hatao’ Congress should couch them in terms of ‘amiri badhao’. Tewari quoted with approbation Deng Xiao Ping who said “its glorious to get rich”.
Finally, Manish Tewari said it was a major concern that whenever Congress’s vote share slips below 20% and third i.e. regional parties rise, Congress becomes unimportant if not irrelevant. This has happened in Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Orissa, Andhra, UP, Bihar and now it could be happening in Delhi as well. He said this is a problem Congress has to tackle but it can only do so once it has sorted out what he calls its ideological and philosophical issues.
Tewari says that a new Congress president should only be chosen after these ideological issues are sorted out.
The above is a paraphrased precis of Manish Tewari’s interview. Please see the full interview below for details and accurate quotations.
