The dilemma the Congress faces is acute. Who will have the guts to ask the Gandhis to step down? No one.
The Congress party cannot be written off yet. It rules Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Punjab, Puducherry, is a junior partner in the Maharashtra government, shares power in Jharkhand.
That the party is demoralised after its drubbing in Delhi is an undeniable fact. A handful of Congress-men have suggested that the Congress Working Committee should meet to elect a credible leader to reinvent the party. How?
The dilemma the Congress faces is acute. What to do with the Gandhis? Who will replace them? Who will have the guts to ask them to step down? No one. Are the Gandhis an asset or a liability? This question is unanswerable. The reality is that they are indispensable. Hence the status quo will continue. Sonia Gandhi is widely respected. If she decides to step down, the only person who can succeed her is Rahul Gandhi. If he refuses, it will be his sister, Priyanka Vadra. But Sonia Gandhi will remain the Mother Superior, or will she be Queen Victoria?
Shashi Tharoor’s brilliance as a speaker and author is not disputed. His latest pronouncement about reforming the Congress was dismissed not by any heavyweight of the party but by the articulate and fluent Randeep Surjewala. It will take time for him to become a middle-weight. He has, perhaps without meaning to, rubbed several party leaders in Congress, particularly in his home state.
The unfortunate outcome of the Congress running out of steam is that in Parliament there is not even a feeble challenge to the ruling establishment. To put it mildly that is a serious blow to our democracy. No revival is on the horizon.
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Are we overdoing the welcome tamasha for President Donald Trump? To go overboard is to display lack of maturity and absence of dignified restraint.
Of course we must welcome him with cordiality and genuine warmth. He has friendly relations with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Mr Trump is the most unpredictable President the United States has had. We should not be taken by surprise if he were to offer to mediate on Kashmir. His statement in Washington on 21 February appears that the President would arrive in a combative mood. However, regardless of the outcome, the visit of a US President is an event in itself.
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This week I read two engrossing and absorbing books. Montek Singh Ahluwalias’s Backstage is a superb treat for the reader. I cannot decide which to admire more, his academic achievement, his erudition or his compelling fluency. The only thing we have in common is our being Stephenians. He read economics, I history. Montek passed his PPE at Oxford with a first class first. In no time the World Bank scouts spotted him. He spent 11 years with the bank. Manmohan Singh, on becoming Finance Minister, asked Montek to return to India and help him rescue India’s impending economic disaster. This they achieved. A word about his wife Isher. They met at the World Bank (she is also a high class scholar), married and lived happily ever after. Backstage is beautifully patterned and passionately argued.
V.P. Menon’s great-granddaughter, Narayani Basu has written a splendid and inspired biography of what she calls “the Unsung Architect of Modern India”.
V.P. Menon began his career as a clerk and ended it as Sardar Patel’s Man Friday and his most trusted official. Without Menon’s persuasive administrative skills and his vision of post 1947 India, even the great Sardar would have floundered.
Jawaharlal Nehru, with whom too Menon worked closely, comes out as a tantrum prone and ill-tempered Prime Minister. Sardar Patel had disdain for the manner he was running India.
The author provides riveting portraits of Lord Mountbatten, several semi-demented, over ambitious, frivolous, misguided and pleasure loving, irresponsible and insufferable Maharajas and Rajas.
V.P. Menon played a seminal role in the integration of 600 princely states and Transfer of Power by the British to an Independent India. His two books, The Integration of the Indian States was published in 1956, and The Transfer of Power in India in 1957. Both are masterly.
Narayani Basu’s book is a spirited biography of a remarkable son of India. I must add that the book is also a political history of India between 1915 and 1950. After Sardar Patel’s death, Nehru treated Menon shabbily.