A sharp shift in the political temper of the country, heading to the 18th Lok Sabha elections, can arguably, be attributed to the explosive revelations – followed by independent media investigations – around the Electoral Bonds Scheme (EBS) that has exposed a level of brazenness in political corruption by India’s dominant party, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is unprecedented.
Other issues swimming to the surface, in an otherwise propaganda-heavy political campaign – hampered particularly by the aggressive weaponisation of centrally-driven investigating agencies (also a hallmark of the 10 years of this regime) – are the crucial barometres of systemic attacks on fundamental freedoms, dissent, free media, unemployment, life insecurity, collapsing health and educational infrastructures acute hunger and deprivation (price rise), agrarian distress, apart from increased violence against India’s most marginalised (Dalits, Muslims, Women, Adivasis, Christians).
Does the manifesto of the Indian National Congress, Nya Patha released on April 5, two weeks before the first phase of the polls, capture this simmering discontent and herald a return to the fundamentals of democracy in the public debate? And therefore signal a significant change? That India’s oldest party, moreover the one that had led the country to freedom against British colonial rule is battling a rigorous internal re-jig is evident from the document.
Political scientists often say that a political party in a deep crisis reverts back to its core ideology to revive itself. Sabrangindia has analysed how the Congress appears to have learnt some lessons and has jettisoned its soft majoritarianism to herald a return to a programme for national reconstruction based on principles of social justice, a nationwide caste census, re-distribution of resources and revival of the agrarian economy and manufacturing sector while ensuring rights and protections for the worker in formal and informal sectors, the manual scavenger, minorities and marginalised of various descriptions and hues.
Most significantly, there are important points of emphasis in the document in two sections titled “Defending the Constitution” and “Reversing the Damage.” From de-criminalising the offence of defamation, to upholding the people’s right to assemble peacefully and without arms; to reviewing and repealing laws that have affected the free press and privacy the manifesto goes further. It assures its voters that it will – if part of the next government – un-legislate weaponised and unconstitutional laws.
“All laws that interfere with personal freedoms will be repealed,” states the document. Egregious legislation brought in by the NDA 2 Regime, to be either repealed or amended have been laid down and these include the have been listed including the Broadcasting Services (Regulation) Bill, 2023; Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023; Press and Registration of Periodicals Act, 2023, etc.) that give unbridled powers of censorship to the government. There are also welcome indicators on steps to assure lasting Autonomy to the Election Commission and the Indian Judiciary apart from basic accountability from law enforcement agencies (like CBI, ED etc) making them accountable to Parliament.
This is not the place to list all the good points in the manifesto or labour on obvious silences, including no specific references to the repeal of the CAA (2019) or the Amendments in the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA 1967) effected in 2008, 2014. It is worthy of note, however, that the first amendment came under the first government of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA-I, 2004-2009) and was in a sense a betrayal of its promise made in the Common Minimum Programme (CMP) of 2004 is worthy of a simple note.
A simple few lines in the CMP of 2004 had stated, “My government is concerned about the misuse of POTA in the recent past. The Prevention of Terrorism Act 2002 was repealed, as promised. As this writer wrote in Frontline in 2021, Terror and the Law, the trajectory to draconian post-2014 amendments in this law were set in motion by the UPA-I, in 2004, even after it “honoured” its CMP promise to repeal POTA, when it brought in “terror” into everyday, normal criminal law. In 2008, after the Mumbai terror attack, when the second set of draconian amendments were introduced to the UAPA (1967), the only parties that opposed the move were the Communist Party of India (CPI), the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the Janata Dal (JD), the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK), the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) and the All-India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM).
That despite this history, the INC has clearly committed itself to a repeal of all laws, including those brought in the arena of criminal justice, in its manifesto suggests a serious re-think. A re-think which, if the seemingly difficult political change does happen, needs to withstand an accession to power amidst entrenched interests once the logic of governing under a battered bureaucracy kicks in.
A recall of the Presidential address by Jawaharlal Nehru at the Faizpur Session (Maharashtra) of the Indian National Congress, December 26, 1936 in Maharashtra is in order: “We have seen the gradual transformation of the Congress from a small upper class body, to one representing the great body of the lower middle classes, and later the masses of this country. As this drift to the masses continued the political rôle of the organisation changed and is changing, for this political role is largely determined by the economic roots of the organisation.”
Ninety-eight years later, the transformation that the Nyaya Patra promises signals not just a re-statement of a return to real political re-structuring and change, but it also emphasises the depth to which India has politically, socially and economically, regressed in the 2014-2024 Modi decade. It has been a decade that experienced a vicious counter-revolution from the most entrenched and reactionary social and economic forces present in India.
Congress Manifesto Suggests Party Return to Core Ideology by Shedding Soft Hindutva
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14.04.2024
A sharp shift in the political temper of the country, heading to the 18th Lok Sabha elections, can arguably, be attributed to the explosive revelations – followed by independent media investigations – around the Electoral Bonds Scheme (EBS) that has exposed a level of brazenness in political corruption by India’s dominant party, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is unprecedented.
Other issues swimming to the surface, in an otherwise propaganda-heavy political campaign – hampered particularly by the aggressive weaponisation of centrally-driven investigating agencies (also a hallmark of the 10 years of this regime) – are the crucial barometres of systemic attacks on fundamental freedoms, dissent, free media, unemployment, life insecurity, collapsing health and educational infrastructures acute hunger and deprivation (price rise), agrarian distress, apart from increased violence against India’s most marginalised (Dalits, Muslims, Women, Adivasis, Christians).
Does the manifesto of the Indian National Congress, Nya Patha released on April 5, two weeks before the first phase of the polls, capture this simmering discontent and herald a return to the fundamentals of democracy in the public debate? And therefore signal a significant change? That India’s oldest party, moreover the one that had led the country to freedom against British colonial rule is battling a rigorous internal re-jig is evident from the document.
Political scientists often say that a political party in a deep crisis reverts back to........
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