Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Is Rahul Gandhi’s stand just a farce?' that was published in Newsband

Is Rahul Gandhi’s stand just a farce?

Rahul Gandhi stated categorically that he would not continue as Congress president. But this culmination does not end the disorder and chaos in the party.  By sticking to his decision to quit as party chief, he has thrown a challenge at his colleagues to find a life outside the shelter of the Nehru-Gandhi family.

Gandhi’s limitation is not in his understanding of the challenges before the party or the country, or in his vision for both or his inexact articulation. His real failure has been his inability to free the party from the clutches of what his father Rajiv Gandhi had famously called power-brokers. The example Gandhi is setting by accepting responsibility for the defeat might help inspire a resuscitation of the party.

Gandhi himself will remain active in politics, as he has made clear, but how much authority he would want to exercise remains an open question. He realizes that the dynasty tag is more a drag than a booster for his politics, and the party, in the current environment.

The process of reducing the Congress to a family enterprise had started with Gandhi’s forbears and their supporters as much as their opponents. If the absence of a Nehru-Gandhi at the helm was a precondition for the reconfiguration of the Congress and the formation of a viable alternative to Hindutva, Gandhi has created that situation.

How did the dynasty rule come into existence? GL Nanda took over the reins of power on Nehru's death and Lal Bahadur Sastri then became the elected leader of the Congress MP's and became the next PM. After Sastri's untimely demise, the clique of power brokers like Kamaraj, Nijalingappa and others hoisted Indira to power, hoping that they would be the de-facto rulers of India. Only that, in the Machievellin game, Indira outwitted them and sent them packing. The decay of democracy started with Indira. Here the 'Nehru-Gandhi dynasty came into full form. This dynasty managed to suppress the Sangh Parivar for a long long time.

The lack of inner-party democracy and giving precedence and more and more importance to the leader with the final or only say paved the way for the rot that reduced the importance of the colossal institution. If this renunciation or abdication is a forerunner to making the party people based more than leader based it should be a good, new beginning.

But do we really believe Congress will be led without the dynasty giving backseat direction? What happened when a non-Nehru were the party president such as Sitaram Kesri or Narsimha Rao? This could be all just charade as long as the dynasty members are still in politics and MPs, they are going to nominate a figurehead president without mass base who won't be able to challenge dynasty control from behind the curtain.