Nearly two decades ago, when Priyanka Gandhi was returning from offering prayers at a temple in Amethi, a wisecracking reporter asked if she had prayed for her mother’s victory in the elections. "I don’t mix religion with politics," came the repartee. Hindu, Parsi or Christian, politics is the only religion of the Nehru-Gandhis. Priyanka is their final political possibility -- the last stand of a vintage dynasty.
The Gandhi women are formidable figures, having shaped their organisation in their own form. After Motilal and Jawaharlal Nehru, the men simply did not have it in them. Former Congressman Piloo Mody gets the credit for giving Indira Gandhi the sobriquet, "the only man in her Cabinet" -- a sexist statement had it been made today. Because Indira was the indomitable Prime Minister and party boss who ruled mercilessly through fear, intimidation and charisma. From her to Sonia, the signature Congress leitmotif is men of straw led by the Iron Lady.
The amiable and well-meaning Rajiv failed to take the hairpin bends of malicious molehills that became mountains of infamy. It was Sonia who cast aside her widow's weeds and resurrected the dynasty, taking the party to power in 2004. But the Gandhi women also played their part in emasculating the party, driven by the anxieties of maternal instinct. Both national and regional leaders with a grassroots base strong enough to challenge her progeny were cut to size.
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After Rahul Gandhi, the most colossal catastrophe in Congress history, led the party to crippling defeats and went mentally AWOL, the party drifted into la-la land. Seniors began to revolt, though none of these septuagenarians abandoned air-conditioning for street fighting, inviting arrest during protests or getting pummelled by police batons.
Elected Congress governments in many states were toppled through BJP-engineered defections of trusted coattail comrades. Or were threatened by generation gap conflicts forcing the family to take the final call, usually the wrong one, like in Punjab, or issue a tricky fiat in Rajasthan with Sachin Pilot glowering in the wings. Rahul quit the chair but not the job, to the relief of spineless leaders and dismay of workers and voters. New Delhi scuttlebutt suggests that Priyanka could be the next Congress president, after cutting her teeth in Uttar Pradesh. Or break a tooth.
Uttar Pradesh wrote Rahul Gandhi’s political obituary when Smriti Irani defeated him in Amethi in 2019. Priyanka lost to Force Modi in the previous UP elections when the Congress won only seven seats out of 403. On the current skyline dominated by posters where Priyanka evocatively resembles her grandmother, the Hour has produced the Woman. Her ballot pitch is niche -- goodies for Uttar Pradesh's over 10-crore women. But PG faces a different G-Force now than Indira and Sonia Gandhi ever did -- MoGi, which combines Modi's mass appeal and Yogi's Hindutva.
Her advisors are said to be Left-wing politicians and academics, who would have been at ease in her grandmother’s socialist salons. Priyanka is between a 56-inch rockstar and a hard place. Should she be labelled the CM face in UP and lose, the Gandhis cannot stay at the helm anymore. Should she win, she will be the Congress's PM face for 2024, a proposal the powerful regional parties will laugh at. The dynasty's control is shaky. There is a new, young restless Congress leadership in the states, burning with ambition and ready for a coup. They are watching. At stake for the younger Gandhi woman is not just the future of her party, but the interlinked survival of her dynasty. In the ancient tradition of ancestor worship, democracy could be Indiana Joans' temple of doom.
Ravi Shankar can be reached at ravi@newindianexpress.com.