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Thus goes the Congress

'The evil that men do lives after them, The good is oft interred with their bones.'

Sonia Gandhi is realising just how accurately her fellow Italian Mark Antony judged the situation. Indira Gandhi might not have been evil, but in many ways she displayed an astounding lack of foresight. And now, as Tamil Nadu gears up for the assembly election, the late prime minister's daughter-in-law is realising how much decisions taken thirty years ago are costing the Congress.

Exactly three decades ago Indira Gandhi was fighting one of the most desperate electoral battles of her life. The undivided Congress had split in 1969, and mid-term polls were due. There was no guarantee that the lady would return to power. Tamil Nadu was a particular worry; the Congress had lost power in the assembly polls of 1967, and Kamaraj's Congress-O and the Swatantra Party had joined hands to fight the general election.

In sheer desperation Indira Gandhi struck an extremely one-sided bargain with Karunanidhi (then, as now, the chief minister of Tamil Nadu). Assembly elections in the state were held concurrently with the Lok Sabha polls. Indira Gandhi proposed that the Congress take two-thirds of the Lok Sabha seats. In return, she promised that it would not fight a single assembly constituency. Karunanidhi immediately closed in on the offer.

That historic decision began a process where the Congress started to decay at the grassroots level. It did well enough in Lok Sabha elections for a while, but eventually even these began to fail. In 1999, for instance, it could win only two of the 39 constituencies in the state. And even that came because of an alliance with Jayalalitha and her AIADMK.

It was not, to put it mildly, much of an alliance. Jayalalitha felt that she had been betrayed by Sonia Gandhi, and she was correct. There had been extensive negotiations between the Congress and the AIADMK before Jayalalitha withdrew support from the Vajpayee ministry. The Congress had assured Jayalalitha that Sonia Gandhi would form a coalition ministry and that the AIADMK would be generously represented at the Cabinet table.

As we all know, Sonia Gandhi sang a different tune after the Vajpayee ministry lost the vote of confidence. Assured that Jayalalitha could not cross the floor again, she calmly announced that she would lead a pure Congress administration. Leaving no room for error, she repeated the assertion during the subsequent Lok Sabha election campaign. Jayalalitha was clearly unhappy about all this, a fact that became all too clear when she snubbed Sonia Gandhi by refusing to attend a rally at Villupuram.

Today, it is pay-back time for the AIADMK boss, a lady with an excellent memory. She had made it abundantly clear that the Congress counts for little, practically nothing, in her calculations. She has estimated that an alliance with the PMK -- a small regional party -- is of greater consequence than India's oldest party. Congressmen huffed and puffed that they couldn't possibly be part of an alliance that included the PMK. "Take it or leave it!" was Jayalalitha's uncompromising response.

The Congress thought she was bluffing. It turned out that she was not. Now the AIADMK and the PMK are discussing not just Tamil Nadu, but sharing the spoils in neighbouring Pondicherry as well. That is particularly galling for the Congress, given that the current chief minister belongs to that party!

I have dwelt on the situation in Tamil Nadu since it is the most immediate challenge for the Congress. But the truth of the matter is that the shenanigans in Chennai are little more than symptoms of a widespread disease. In state after state, the Congress has withered at the grassroots. And just as Indira Gandhi did in the 1970s, the party high command can think of nothing better than short-term solutions.

In Uttar Pradesh, the largest state in the country, the Congress can't think of any better prospect than to play second fiddle to the Bahujan Samaj Party. In Bihar, the Congress is a junior partner in an alliance dominated by Laloo Prasad Yadav and his Rashtriya Janata Dal. In Maharashtra, the party has been led to the humiliation of an alliance with Sharad Pawar -- whom Sonia Gandhi herself had expelled. And then of course, there is West Bengal, where the party has split yet again, with legislators walking out to join Mamata Banerjee.

I did not choose to mention these states at random. Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bihar, West Bengal, and Tamil Nadu are five of the six largest states in India. Save Maharashtra, the Congress isn't even the third largest party in any of them. (In case you were wondering, Andhra Pradesh is the other large state on the list -- and a Telugu Desam-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance crushed the Congress in both the Lok Sabha and assembly polls.)

We all agree that polarisation is taking place in Indian politics. We may not see the same two parties battling it out in every state, but it is definitely true that there are two major forces in each major state. (Uttar Pradesh is the exception, with the BJP, the BSP, and the Samajwadi Party forming a trinity.) If the Congress is not one of the two major forces, then sooner or later it shall be ground out altogether.

Overdependence on either the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam or the AIADMK has decimated the Congress in Tamil Nadu. Why should it be any different elsewhere?

A third-rate party led by a second-rate leadership -- will that be the epitaph of the Congress?

T V R Shenoy