Nehru's 125th birth anniversary: Cong 'family puja' is too little, too late

“How can Nehru be appropriated by any particular party which is other than the Congress?”

That’s Sheila Dikshit on NDTV pooh-poohing Nidhi Razdan’s question about whether Narendra Modi was “appropriating” India’s first prime minister from under his own party’s nose on the man’s 125th birth anniversary.

But if it’s not nervousness, the Congress’ actions can certainly be read as pique.

The Congress has announced its own two-day conference to mark Nehru’s birth anniversary. And the current prime minister is very pointedly not invited to the first prime minister’s birthday party even though Modi would have been out of the country on those dates anyway.

“We have invited those who respect Nehru’s philosophy and acknowledge his contribution,” Congress spokesperson Anand Sharma tells the media. Those include according to him people who believe “in inclusive politics, respect pluralism, are tolerant of opposition and criticism, understand the importance of the Opposition in a democracy.”

That apparently includes Nitish Kumar who has been no great champion of press freedom while CM and Mamata Banerjee whose police hauled a university professor to jail for forwarding a cartoon that made fun of her. It also includes the Communist Party of China, well known for understanding “the importance of the Opposition in a democracy.”

But then the Congress too would probably fail its Nehru test.

As historian Ramachandra Guha notes “If Indira Gandhi departed from her father in her suspicion of debate and dialogue, Rajiv Gandhi abandoned Nehruvian secularism in successively capitulating to Muslim fanatics (by overturning the judgment of the Supreme Court in the Shah Bano case) and Hindu extremists (by opening the locks to the shrine at Ayodhya.)"

“Congress wears the Nehru jacket but would Nehru have approved of the high command culture or of the Emergency?” asks Sagarika Ghose in Times of India .

And Nehru probably failed his own Nehru test when he dismissed the Communist government in Kerala in 1959 under dubious conditions.

But the Congress still hopes that the 125th birth anniversary celebrations will be a boost to the party’s very sagging morale. Perhaps his great-grandfather can do what Rahul Gandhi clearly cannot – galvanize India’s grand old party.

Congress workers will take a public pledge committing themselves to the values of Nehru. When the “common Congressman” takes a pledge in Pandit Nehru’s name “it somewhere touches his heart, it has a recall value,” says Sheila Dikshit. But what Dikshit and the Congress committee she heads does not realize is that it’s really too little, too late.

Nehru is a fading memory for most Indian voters. His legacy has been moth-eaten by the realpoiltick of his successors so much so that most of us know precious little what he stands for beyond the rose in the buttonhole. If the 2014 election proved anything, it showed a country which is anxious and eager to hear what politicians can offer about the future, a country with little appetite for looking back at the past via nostalgia sessions in Vigyan Bhavan. It’s no accident that Modi is the first Indian PM born after Independence. He won by promising “acchey din” in the future, not by tapping into a hankering for some golden past. By inviting the likes of friend-turned-foe-turned-whatever Mamata Banerjee and Nitish Kumar to their grand conclave, the Congress might hope to isolate the BJP and its allies. But “Save Nehru from Modi” is hardly the battle cry that will lead Congress out of its current wilderness.

Even more problematic for the Congress, there’s very little “saving” to be done. This is hardly snub ka badla snub. It’s not the Modi has announced he will snub Nehru on its 125th birth anniversary. He has just said he will do it his own way. He has reconstituted the committee and included a couple of Congress veterans in it. And as the PM he has every right to do that. As even Dikshit admits “Nehru is not only the Congress legacy. He is the legacy of the whole country.”

As the PM of the whole country, Modi is well within his rights to fashion his own way of marking Nehru’s birth anniversary. What is the Congress’ greatest nightmare is that with the PM’s bully pulpit at his disposal, Modi could well eclipse the efforts of Rahul and co to do the same. In a country which tends to mummify its past leaders, Modi has shown a PR-wizard’s knack of breathing life into them, bringing new ideas to old commemorations and yes, reimagining them adroitly to his own advantage. Whether it was his “townhall” with school children on Dr. Radhakrishnan’s birthday or the ice-bucket-style Swachh Bharat challenge, or the biggest ever statue for Sardar Patel, Modi knows how to make every occasion a media-blitzkrieg. The Congress risks appearing out of ideas and stuck in an old unimaginative rut of hero-worship – a droning conference, a pious pledge, garlanded portraits like those klunky tedious documentaries you have to sit through before the main feature at a movie theatre.

Nehru in his 125th year thus ironically becomes more of a Congress problem than a Congress trump card. Obviously they cannot ignore it. But if they make him out to be too much of a giant, their current leadership looks even more like pygmies. Making too much of a hoopla about him underscores one of Congress’ biggest problems – looking less like a modern party than one family’s heirloom. At a time when the BJP makes it a point to cheekily resuscitate leaders, even Congress leaders, sidelined by the party’s Nehru-Gandhi monotheism, the grand commemoration runs the risk of reeking more of the same old family-puja. Surrounding itself with out-of-power leaders from around the world from Hamid Karzai to Olusegun Obasanjo merely reinforces the Congress’ own image as the party out of power.

By contrast Modi has to do very little to appear the gracious statesman, respectful of the history but not genuflecting to it. Even better for him, now he can, if he wishes, play his favourite role – the humble chaiwalla snubbed by the Lutyens elite. The Congress is looking to get its groove back but Nehru is unlikely to be its ticket back to the future.