Indian Political Discussion

Team Rahul being wrecked? Congress infighting out in open

Leaders considered close to Rahul Gandhi have come out in open rebellion after being ignored by party leaders. Their rebellion has come as a huge embarrassment for the Congress party.

By Anand Kumar Patel
New Delhi
October 4, 2019 23:59 IST
rahul-770x433.jpeg

Ever since Rahul Gandhi stepped down as Congress party president, those considered close to him are in flight mode. (Photo: PTI)

HIGHLIGHTS
  • Leaders considered close to Rahul Gandhi have come out in open rebellion after being ignored by party leaders
  • Former Haryana state unit chief Ashok Tanwar took to Gandhigiri outside 10 Janpath on October 2
  • Aditi Singh, Congress MLA from Raebareli, skipped Priyanka Gandhi’s march to appear in Vidhan Sabha in Lucknow

Discontent over ticket distribution in poll bound states has brought the rift within the Congress party to the fore. Leaders considered close to Rahul Gandhi have come out in open rebellion after being ignored by party leaders. Congress's 24 Akbar Road headquarters is abuzz with talks of team Rahul being wrecked.

Former Haryana state unit chief Ashok Tanwar took to Gandhigiri outside 10 Janpath on October 2 while party leadership was busy in Padyatra in the national capital.

Same day, Aditi Singh, a young Congress MLA from Raebareli skipped Priyanka Gandhi’s march to appear in Vidhan Sabha in Lucknow amid thunderous applause by the BJP MLAs.

As if two jolts in one day were not enough, Congress party’s former Mumbai unit chief Sanjay Nirupam on Friday claimed that leaders close to Rahul Gandhi were being sidelined by leaders running the show under new party president Sonia Gandhi.

Incensed at being ignored in ticket distribution, Sanjay Nirupam came out in support of Ashok Tanwar. Propped up by Rahul Gandhi, Ashok Tanwar saw rise from youth Congress to center stage of Haryana politics as PCC chief within a short span of time. He was shown the door just before ticket distribution process kicked off.

Aditi Singh was also considered very close to both Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi. Their rebellion has come as a huge embarrassment for the Congress party.

Ever since Rahul Gandhi stepped down as party president, those considered close to him are in flight mode :

> Navjot Singh Sidhu resigned as Punjab Cabinet minister. He is not even in the list of party’s star campaigners for Haryana polls.

> Pradyot Debbarman resigned as Tripura state unit chief citing differences with high command.

> Ajay Kumar, Jharkhand PCC chief also resigned citing infighting

> Ashok Tanwar was removed as Haryana state unit chief to accommodate demands of former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda

Former Congress MP and senior leader Rashid Alvi denied the charges levelled by Nirupam. He told India Today TV, "Rahul Gandhi is our leader. Workers of Congress consider Rahul Gandhi their leader. Party works as per his directions."

"Congress runs as per its constitution. Whoever goes against it, will be punished. It is our internal matter, party high command will look into it," Rashid Alvi added.

While the party is officially denying any rift, the young leaders of Rahul's brigade are openly praising Prime Minister Narendra Modi. After "Howdy, Modi" rally, former Mumbai chief of Congress Party Milind Deora congratulated PM Modi.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1176157801984299010

Party sources say chinks in team Rahul began appearing in December 2018 itself after the party won assembly polls in Chattisgarh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.

Despite Rahul pitching for young guns like Rajesh Pilot, Jyotiraditya Scindia, the party’s old guard managed to seize CM posts.

Rahul Gandhi’s resignation after lok sabha polls left his team out in the cold triggering resignations and angry outbursts.

Former Tripura Congress chief Pradyot Debbarman on Friday said that those people in the party who were loyal to former party chief Rahul Gandhi were being sidelined by older leaders.

He said that since Rahul Gandhi stepped away from the presidential post of the Congress, there are been a change in attitude towards younger leaders appointed by Rahul Gandhi.

"After Rahul Gandhi left the Congress's presidential post, there has been a change in attitude towards people like us who were appointed by him, people like us who want to fight the BJP on the ground," Pradyot Debbarman said.

Pradyot Debbarman, who resigned as the Tripura Congress chief last week, accused the party general secretaries in charge of the Northeast of complaining about other party members to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi.

Pradyot Debbarman slammed the Congress party and its leaders for not being interested in fighting the BJP. He said, "The Congress party that we see today, we call it the grand old party, is a really old party with old leaders who are simply not interested in fighting the BJP and are very comfortable in making their own lobbies in Delhi."

When asked whether anyone close to Rahul Gandhi was being eased out, Pradyot Debbarman said, "I have a feeling that the old guard has suddenly been feeling very emboldened."

Team Rahul being wrecked? Congress infighting out in open
 
Gautam said:
Damn. So he wasn't kidding when he said : "Marbo ekhane lash porbe shoshane".

He ever kill anybody ? Why is he visiting RSS now ? I thought all celebrities in Bengal are effectively in Mamata's pocket(Ok she doesn't wear pants).
Click to expand...
Don't know whether he killed anybody. But it seems his own life was in danger after he left naxalism.

May be now he wants to go with the flow and might join BJP as well for next election.
 
Opinion | Why there exists no such thing as a global right wing

4 min read. Updated: 06 Oct 2019, 06:07 PM IST
By Manu Joseph

While the left finds common cause, the right has a pre-occupation with what is locally relevant
2019-09-27T170819Z_1_LYNXMPEF8Q1FS_RTROPTP_3_USA-TRUMP-WHISTLEBLOWER-SERVER_1569639685893_1570186008701.JPG

After the government integrated Kashmir with India beyond any ambiguity, the modern Indian patriot imagined US President Donald Trump (in pic) would cheer (Reuters file)

In the British comedy Fleabag, a young woman is aroused by watching Barack Obama give a speech about democracy. The universality of the moment is in the fact that she could have been anywhere in the world and we could infer she believes in climate change and the liberation of Palestine.

Far less mesmerizing men than Obama have been global heroes—like Hugo Chávez, who was once treated like a rock star at Jawaharlal Nehru University. But all such public figures of various nationalities have one thing in common—they are humanitarians.

Strongmen, on the other hand, are usually local heroes, and if the world outside cares about them at all, it is usually as villains.

There appears to be much in common between “right wing" heroes of various nations, but they are never in alliance, like humanitarians can be.

Is there a global fellowship of strongmen who exchange jokes about Obama, Macron and Marx, and about the latest lament in The Guardian on “the rise of strongmen across the world"? Is there an intellectual festival for patriots from different nations where a Brahmin, a White and an Arab will argue why their groups are superior, what a nuisance poor migrants are, and how cultural diversity is just a device to get cheap waiters?

These concepts don’t exist, but not because people don’t think along these lines. They do. It is the “global" aspect of such a congregation that seems ridiculous. There is something odd about the idea of a “global nationalist".

By nature, the “left wing" is global and the “right wing" is local. Of late, new Indian patriots have been trying to change this; they have been trying to form global alliances with conservatives in advanced economies. After all, the Indian patriot today is more suave than his earlier avatar. New nationalists are culturally and linguistically comprehensible to the West, and they are successful people in respectable professions.

But the global right is a futile exercise. There will never be such a thing.

After the Narendra Modi government integrated Kashmir with India beyond any ambiguity, the modern Indian patriot imagined US President Donald Trump would cheer. As though it was natural that Trump and Modi should get along because the same newspapers are critical of their leadership. Patriots even imagined that a global network of strongmen will support the nationalistic mojo of the move. But supporting Modi on Kashmir was clearly not the priority of “conservatives" across the world. Even so, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, the BBC and Western liberal intellectuals who knew very little about India’s northern-most state magically acquired enough wisdom to bemoan the “suspension of freedom" and “the violation of human rights" and “the suffering" of Kashmiris.

Meanwhile, Fox News and The Sun did not magically acquire any right wing wisdom—that the poor of Kashmir have been liberated from their crooked elite, trauma merchants, terrorist middlemen and economic stagnation.

The “left" is a low-stakes human hive of hearts on auto-pilot that sees the world as a human hive of victims. The “right" is a high-stakes pre-occupation with what is locally relevant. The “left" is a monoculture of a European idea; the “right" is culture. All elites are like parents—conservative at home, where the stakes are high, and liberal elsewhere, an abstract place that is not as important as home.

It is not only the social right that is helplessly local.

Increasingly, the economic right, too, is shedding its evangelism of globalization as it does not serve its interests anymore. Last year, Trump told the United Nations, “We reject the ideology of globalism and we embrace the doctrine of patriotism."

There are, of course, a few global right-wing figures. Hitler, for instance, has for long been a mascot for groups that wish to terminate cultural diversity in society. Russia’s Vladimir Putin has fans who post videos of his motorcade, of his walks down corridors in slow motion, and of his bare-chested horse rides. But these fans are a small fringe compared to the numbers, spread and diversity of the fans of humanitarian figures.

There are powerful reasons why there is no such thing as the global right. Any wound that is global will automatically become a left movement.

Even a strand of the Indian freedom movement that was led by the first generation of Hindu nationalists who did not seem to believe in ideas like non-violence, found support in Britain only from the left, including the early feminist movement which saw in the plight of Indians the plight of all British women. On the other hand, it was natural for British nationalists to despise Indian freedom fighters. This principle operates today in every right-wing struggle.

Nationalists of a society tend to perceive other nationalists as foes. And nationalists themselves often become liberals once they migrate—as is the case with many Indian patriots who live in the US.

Also, everyone, including nationalists, has a quota of compassion that they need to display. And it is easy for them to show compassion to victims outside their borders. For instance, it is easy for Trump supporters to sympathize with Kashmiris. It is easy empathy, very sweet, and does not affect their own lives.

When the stakes are low, everyone is a leftist.

Manu Joseph is a journalist, and a novelist, most recently of ‘Miss Laila, Armed And Dangerous’.

Opinion | Why there exists no such thing as a global right wing
 
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Gautam said:
Opinion | Why there exists no such thing as a global right wing

4 min read. Updated: 06 Oct 2019, 06:07 PM IST
By Manu Joseph

While the left finds common cause, the right has a pre-occupation with what is locally relevant
2019-09-27T170819Z_1_LYNXMPEF8Q1FS_RTROPTP_3_USA-TRUMP-WHISTLEBLOWER-SERVER_1569639685893_1570186008701.JPG

After the government integrated Kashmir with India beyond any ambiguity, the modern Indian patriot imagined US President Donald Trump (in pic) would cheer (Reuters file)

In the British comedy Fleabag, a young woman is aroused by watching Barack Obama give a speech about democracy. The universality of the moment is in the fact that she could have been anywhere in the world and we could infer she believes in climate change and the liberation of Palestine.

Far less mesmerizing men than Obama have been global heroes—like Hugo Chávez, who was once treated like a rock star at Jawaharlal Nehru University. But all such public figures of various nationalities have one thing in common—they are humanitarians.

Strongmen, on the other hand, are usually local heroes, and if the world outside cares about them at all, it is usually as villains.

There appears to be much in common between “right wing" heroes of various nations, but they are never in alliance, like humanitarians can be.

Is there a global fellowship of strongmen who exchange jokes about Obama, Macron and Marx, and about the latest lament in The Guardian on “the rise of strongmen across the world"? Is there an intellectual festival for patriots from different nations where a Brahmin, a White and an Arab will argue why their groups are superior, what a nuisance poor migrants are, and how cultural diversity is just a device to get cheap waiters?

These concepts don’t exist, but not because people don’t think along these lines. They do. It is the “global" aspect of such a congregation that seems ridiculous. There is something odd about the idea of a “global nationalist".

By nature, the “left wing" is global and the “right wing" is local. Of late, new Indian patriots have been trying to change this; they have been trying to form global alliances with conservatives in advanced economies. After all, the Indian patriot today is more suave than his earlier avatar. New nationalists are culturally and linguistically comprehensible to the West, and they are successful people in respectable professions.

But the global right is a futile exercise. There will never be such a thing.

After the Narendra Modi government integrated Kashmir with India beyond any ambiguity, the modern Indian patriot imagined US President Donald Trump would cheer. As though it was natural that Trump and Modi should get along because the same newspapers are critical of their leadership. Patriots even imagined that a global network of strongmen will support the nationalistic mojo of the move. But supporting Modi on Kashmir was clearly not the priority of “conservatives" across the world. Even so, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, the BBC and Western liberal intellectuals who knew very little about India’s northern-most state magically acquired enough wisdom to bemoan the “suspension of freedom" and “the violation of human rights" and “the suffering" of Kashmiris.

Meanwhile, Fox News and The Sun did not magically acquire any right wing wisdom—that the poor of Kashmir have been liberated from their crooked elite, trauma merchants, terrorist middlemen and economic stagnation.

The “left" is a low-stakes human hive of hearts on auto-pilot that sees the world as a human hive of victims. The “right" is a high-stakes pre-occupation with what is locally relevant. The “left" is a monoculture of a European idea; the “right" is culture. All elites are like parents—conservative at home, where the stakes are high, and liberal elsewhere, an abstract place that is not as important as home.

It is not only the social right that is helplessly local.

Increasingly, the economic right, too, is shedding its evangelism of globalization as it does not serve its interests anymore. Last year, Trump told the United Nations, “We reject the ideology of globalism and we embrace the doctrine of patriotism."

There are, of course, a few global right-wing figures. Hitler, for instance, has for long been a mascot for groups that wish to terminate cultural diversity in society. Russia’s Vladimir Putin has fans who post videos of his motorcade, of his walks down corridors in slow motion, and of his bare-chested horse rides. But these fans are a small fringe compared to the numbers, spread and diversity of the fans of humanitarian figures.

There are powerful reasons why there is no such thing as the global right. Any wound that is global will automatically become a left movement.

Even a strand of the Indian freedom movement that was led by the first generation of Hindu nationalists who did not seem to believe in ideas like non-violence, found support in Britain only from the left, including the early feminist movement which saw in the plight of Indians the plight of all British women. On the other hand, it was natural for British nationalists to despise Indian freedom fighters. This principle operates today in every right-wing struggle.

Nationalists of a society tend to perceive other nationalists as foes. And nationalists themselves often become liberals once they migrate—as is the case with many Indian patriots who live in the US.

Also, everyone, including nationalists, has a quota of compassion that they need to display. And it is easy for them to show compassion to victims outside their borders. For instance, it is easy for Trump supporters to sympathize with Kashmiris. It is easy empathy, very sweet, and does not affect their own lives.

When the stakes are low, everyone is a leftist.

Manu Joseph is a journalist, and a novelist, most recently of ‘Miss Laila, Armed And Dangerous’.

Opinion | Why there exists no such thing as a global right wing
Click to expand...

Manu is perhaps only partially right about there being no such thing as a global right. There is no global right in the manner like we had the global left, where subjugation on the human soul by centuries old traditions, superstition, class based exploitation was acknowledged universally and its emancipation was to be a concerted global effort. But right wing nationalists globally do recognize the need to hark on the 'other' constantly and to that extent there is indeed a common global rightist ideology.

What is sad is to witness the daily reversal of 200 years of human social progress, where , after centuries of struggle against the forces of class elitism and exploitative imperialism, man and his rights became the sole arbitrator of our political consciousness. Today we are again taking a step back and have sacrificed the man in order to worship the state. While global left celebrated the universality of its cause, it failed to act locally. While left focused on Hitlers of the world, it forgot to pay attention to the Bismarks who were sneaking through.

French rationalist and philosopher Ernest Renan made a remarkable observation about the nation states. In his seminal essay on ' what is a nation' he observed that nations come together not so much by adopting those things that are common, but more so by a willful act of collectively ' forgetting'. Nations ability to stay strong and united depends on its ability to forget those things that will foster disunity, hatred and chaos. Right wing-nationalists on the other hand thrive on not to forget, or at least selectively remember what we as a people had decided to bury in order to forge a nation. The real question is will the nation survive this new ideology of selective reminiscence, because you can never know what things people might start recalling.
 
S. A. T. A said:
Right wing-nationalists on the other hand thrive on not to forget, or at least selectively remember what we as a people had decided to bury in order to forge a nation. The real question is will the nation survive this new ideology of selective reminiscence, because you can never know what things people might start recalling.
Click to expand...
Replace right-wing with left-wing, and the statement would be equally true. Its just the two groups select different things to remember.

We have to look no further than our history books, the leftist academics have made many successful attempts to distort our history in a way that is politically palatable to them. Now when the right-wing tries to "rectify" these books, the leftist historians cry their heart out. They are criticising the other side for doing what they have done for a long time. Hypocrisy much ?

A border is what marks out the geography of a nation. The last time I checked, it was the left that wanted open borders, not the right. Doesn't open borders in effect mean end of nations as we know them ?
S. A. T. A said:
What is sad is to witness the daily reversal of 200 years of human social progress, where , after centuries of struggle against the forces of class elitism and exploitative imperialism, man and his rights became the sole arbitrator of our political consciousness.
Click to expand...
Historically, the rise of the Left globally was largely due to the failings of the Right. Similarly the rise of the Right we see now, is due to the failings of the Left. It is a circle that keeps turning.

Yes you are right there are many great contributions brought about by the Left to humanity. It is undeniable. However one must also admit that the Left as it were in its heyday, is not the left as it is today. The left of the old brought about universal adult suffrage, fundamental rights and so on, thus I admire them greatly. The left today speaks of eating babies to stop global warming, you'd forgive me if I find nothing worth admiring there.

Politics is a churn, it always has been. It is those actions and the combined with lunacy and pseudo-science that drove people away from the left to the right. I suppose its only a matter of time before the right fu*ks up and we go to the left again. That's just how things work in democracies, well most democracies anyway.

I suppose the most important take away is that, its not that people are attracted to a certain political ideology(left or right). Its just that they are repulsed by the other side. Just my two paisa.
 
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