G-23 rebellion is elitist, mocks Dalits

None of the faults of the Gandhis can justify the decision of the Group of 23 G23 to renew its demand for organisational elections in the week the Congress sought to acquire ideological coherence and reconfigure its traditional social base The G23rsquos clamour overshadowed the significance of the Congress choosing Charanjit Singh Channi a Dalit to replace Amarinder Singh a Jat Sikh as Punjabrsquos Chief Minister and inducting into the party two youth leaders Kanhaiya Kumar and Jignesh MevaniThese measures were as radical as any centrist formation like the Congress can take Channirsquos elevation was a message not only to Punjabrsquos 32 per cent Dalits but also to Dalits countrywide that they can hope to wield power through the Congress which traditionally has had the upper castes particularly Brahmins dominate its leadership structureThis implies the Congress has temporarily abandoned hope that upper caste voters the partyrsquos mainstay in north India until three decades ago will return anytime soon to its fold from the Bharatiya Janata Party Leaders belonging to socially advanced groups have in fact deserted the party such as Jyotiraditya Scindia Sushmita Dev Jitin Prasada Priyanka Chaturvedi Lalitesh Pati Tripathi etcKanhaiya Kumar has mellowed down from his university days Yet he is still seen as a member of the fictitious ldquotukde tukde gangrdquo which is malevolently projected as having an agenda of fracturing Indiarsquos territorial integrity A communist Kumar is a feisty opponent of Hindutva His induction suggests the Congress will shift to the Left and even more importantly not feel embarrassed about it Jignesh Mevani made his mark as a Dalit activist during the protest against the 2016 Una flogging incident Unlike the Ambedkarites his politics combines caste and class Ambedkar and MarxThese meanings were lost out on G23 spearhead Kapil Sibal Or he understood their significance and therefore reiterated his demand for organisational elections within 24 hours of the induction of Kumar and Mevani At one stroke theirs and Channirsquos newsworthiness diminished Only a Brahminical mindset can explain why national newspapers have yet to interview Channi in contrast to them repeatedly showing this favour to Chief Minister Adityanath whose ability to spin is nonpareilOr take another G23 leader Manish Tewari who tweeted ldquoAs speculation abounds about certain Communist leaders joining INC it may perhaps be instructive to revisit a 1973 book Communists in Congress Kumaramangalam thesis The more things change the more they remain the samehelliprdquoTewari was referring to Mohan Kumaramangalam one of the communists whom PN Haksar diplomat and Indira Gandhirsquos brilliant Principal Secretary brought into the Congress Haksar and communist leaders such as Kumaramangalam were the driving force behind the nationalisation of 14 private sector banks and coal mines and the crackdown on smugglers and black marketers These measures revived the Congress battered by the electoral setbacks of 1967 and the 1969 split Perhaps someone pointed out to Tewari the ahistorical nature of his tweet for he subsequently clarified that since the Congress embraced the ldquoneoliberal economy in 1991rdquo he wondered whether Kumar and Mevani would subscribe to this ldquoexpansive liberal and ideological orientationrdquo Tewari forgot that the term neoliberal is pejoratively used by its detractors No one says he or she is a neoliberalist Nevertheless his muddled explanation reflects the disquiet in the Congress over its growing Leftwing tiltG23 leaders latched on to the political instability fomented by the mercurial Navjot Singh Sidhu whom the Gandhis had chosen to head the party in Punjab to question its leadership Yet this G23 tactic was deplorable They harped on Punjab being a sensitive State as it borders Pakistan a subtle attempt to stoke the everlurking fear in some segments of Punjab primarily Hindus about the return of Sikh militancyThen there is Amarinder Singh who met Home Minister Amit Shah to canvass for changes in the three new farm laws It does not take much to imagine Singhrsquos gameplanmdashfloat his own party get the Modi government to give concessions to farmers and then tie up with the BJP or go solo Farmer leaders have already scoffed at Singhrsquos flirtation with the BJP apart from insisting that nothing less than the repeal of the three laws will prompt them to call off their agitation Some of them told me that they will always blame the BJP for over 600 deaths in the ongoing agitationEven P Chidambaram appears to have thrown his weight behind the G23 He has been sharply critical in his media columns of the Modi governmentrsquos disdain for human rights Yet it was he who armed the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act with predatory claws ignoring the critique of activists like Ravi Nair Under Chidambaram operations against the Maoists led to the ruthless killing of Adivasis in Chhattisgarh and weakened opposition to corporates coveting their habitats rich in mineralsThis analysis does not devalue organisational elections But what arouses suspicion about G23 leaders is that they resurfaced at precisely the time the Congress would have wanted the ideological message symbolised by Channi Kumar and Mevani to be communicated to the people This makes the G23 rebellion elitist and neoliberalist it mocks Dalits and their aspirationsThe writer is a senior journalistSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper