Opinion | Baniyans & Bedlam: Congress Party Scales Summit Of Political Pettiness

Of late, under the more impulsive leadership of Rahul Gandhi, the Congress party has embraced a brand of gonzo politics

A shirtless mob of Congress party workers rifled through the main exhibition hall of the Bharat Mandapam where India was hosting the AI Summit. Clearly confusing hooliganism with democratic protest, they made a right royal nuisance of themselves. They shouted anti-Modi slogans and jostled with shocked delegates. This scene that embalmed this swarm of baniyan-donning billy bunters was at once pitiful and consequential. It was pitiful because it captured the intellectual and moral hollowing out of the Congress party. It was consequential because it reflects just how irreversibly broken bipartisanship is in India.

In the last decade alone, repeated disruptions have cost Parliament staggering amounts of productive time. The 2021 Monsoon Session functioned at barely 22% productivity in the Lok Sabha and 28% in the Rajya Sabha amid Pegasus protests; the 2023 Monsoon Session saw over 100 hours lost to adjournments on Manipur; and entire Question Hours have routinely been suspended across sessions. The cumulative loss runs into hundreds of hours of legislative time, a structural corrosion that makes “irreversibly broken" less hyperbole and more diagnosis.

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Nobody has a problem with full-throated democratic protest. It is healthy to ask questions, even with theatrical fanfare, when necessary, but the message is just as important as the platform.

The AI Summit was designed to be a platform where India’s tech innovators were asked to put their best foot forward, to impress upon the world that India is just as, if not more, competitive when it comes to mastering the world’s most transformative technology. And the world has been watching closely. Perhaps a bit too closely. So, it was doubly incumbent upon the government to ensure that Bharat left a lasting impression. But now, after the burlesque antics of the Congress party’s youth wing, one daresay that scoresheet has been daubed by the image of a chaotic country that is at war with itself, compounded by opening-day headlines about logistical confusion, patchy accreditation management, delayed session starts, and the much-reported Galgotias robodog fraud.

The AI Summit’s commons are not for airing political grievances. That’s Jantar Mantar or, better still, India’s Parliament.

But should we be shocked that the Congress let the blood rush to its frontal cortex? Not really. Of late, under the more impulsive leadership of Rahul Gandhi, the Congress party has embraced a brand of gonzo politics.

Rahul Gandhi has tended to prioritise sensation, disruption, and personal, often theatrical, performance over conventional political decorum that was once the hallmark of the party under his grandmother. Political observers will recall that even when Indira Gandhi waged war on democracy—the yet to be surpassed biggest misstep in India’s political history—she did it by invoking constitutional provisions during the Emergency, however controversial and widely regarded as an abuse of those very provisions.

Rahul Gandhi may swear by constitutionality, but his own political actions in Parliament, where he has more than once undermined House procedure, don’t pass the smell test.

© News18