A VISION FOR INDIAN POLITY, 2024 & BEYOND

The Congress needs to highlight that inclusive growth is a visceral conviction, not vote bank politics. The INDIA bloc should not be shy of reiterating this belief too

- SHASHI THAROOR

WITH general elections barely four months away, and in the wake of the setbacks faced by the Congress in the recent state elections, the air is thick with pessimism. Worse still, the doomsayers lament the alleged absence of a coherent agenda for the INDIA group, and its lack of a single face to pit against the redoubtable Narendra Modi. Do we have answers to them? The second criticism is more easily dealt with. The BJP has a single face to pitch to the nation as in the last two elections, Modi's. INDIA has several. Our slogan should ideally be one we briefly tried in 2014 and failed to persist with: "Main nahin, hum (Not I, we)." Those Indians tired of the Ime-myself personality cult will welcome a team of experienced and proven leaders who will work collectively together in the public interest.

On the first charge, it is my view that we must reaffirm the idea of India that the Congress has stood for and the positive agenda it offers the nation. Despite the BJP's colossal failures of governance, its propaganda machinery is so effective that their successes are remembered. In turn, the public wants to hear a positive message from the INDIA alliance. Don't just attack Narendra Modi and the BJP, we are told; give us a narrative of your own.

INDIA's, and the Congress's, core beliefs reflect the values it has embodied since the freedom struggle in particular inclusive growth, social justice, abolition of poverty and the protection of the marginalised, including minorities, women, Dalits and Adivasis. These have been distorted and portrayed as pandering to vote banks rather than as the visceral convictions they are.

The Congress has been speaking out for these sections of Indian society and INDIA must do so with even more intensity.