New Delhi. Congress-ruled India has lagged so far behind the way India has taken shape in the last decade that even the party’s existence is in danger and its chances of remaining even as the main opposition party are far away, let alone returning to power. It is getting foggy. This claim has been made in a new book.
In ‘What If There Was No Congress: The Uncensored History of Independent India’, political commentator Priyam Gandhi-Modi ponders how different India would have been if the Congress had not been in power for most of the last 80 years.
The book, published by Rupa Publications, throws fresh light on some of the key events that have shaped India’s political history over the last 80 years – Partition, Kashmir, governance, scams, democracy and its constraints, economic policy, intellectual colonization and foreign policy. And also presents a blueprint for future India.
Priyam claimed, “The people of the country have been choosing progress over corruption, truth over fabricated lies, security over terrorism and progress over obstacles. In my opinion, it is very difficult, if not impossible, for Congress to return to power in the near future.”
He said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had raised a question in the winter session of Parliament in February 2022 that “What would have happened if there was no Congress in India?”, then India’s intellectual fraternity, historians and the army of social media etc. had to find the answer. And some of them did so with the intention of supporting his views, some with the intention of opposing and the rest with the intention of trolling.
He said that “Congress played an important role in the Indian freedom struggle, although its leadership also made some mistakes due to which undivided India was divided.” Priyam raised the question that if Mahatma Gandhi’s call to end Congress had been accepted, what would India have been like today?
He said, “To understand why the Mahatma (Gandhi) ultimately gave such advice, I have attempted to understand the circumstances surrounding the time of Indian independence and the elements within it which were the result of hundreds of years of colonial rule.” .”
Priyam wrote that his book is an attempt to understand the working style of Congress in its current situation. According to the author, she has tried to study historical events from the four lenses of ‘partition, territorial integrity, economic policy and governance’.
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Tags: Congress, mahatma gandhi
FIRST PUBLISHED: January 7, 2024, 21:21 IST