Guha's charge against Congress renders Gandhi, Nehru, Ambedkar irrelevant too

On 15 November 1947, Mahatma Gandhi referred to allegations by the Hindu Mahasabha that Congress had surrendered its soul to Muslims, Gandhi was a washout, Nehru was no better, and a portion of Patel was a sound Hindu, but after all he was a Congressman.

Then Gandhi asked, 'Who is there in the Hindu Mahasabha who can replace the Congress leadership?'

Then he wrote about Nehru and stated, 'It is because of him that we are held in high esteem in the world today. He is respected outside India as one of the world's greatest statesmen. Many Europeans have told me that the world has not known such a high-minded statesman. I have known Americans who held Jawaharlal in higher esteem than they hold President Truman. Even those who have fabulous wealth, vast armies and the atom bomb respect the moral worth of Jawaharlal's leadership. We in India ought to have due appreciation for it.'

The manner in which the Hindu Mahasabha dismissed Congress, Gandhi, Nehru and Sardar Patel as unfit to lead India in 1947 is reflected in Ram Guha’s analysis dismissing Congress and Rahul Gandhi as incapable of taking on the Modi regime and the BJP.

Guha's recent article titled 'How the Gandhi family has helped Modi consolidate power', advanced an utterly unpersuasive argument in defence of his stand against the Congress and Rahul Gandhi. Because Mahatma Gandhi’s remark in the context of the Congress and Nehru that "we in India ought to have due appreciation for it" is applicable to the context of the Congress and Rahul Gandhi in 2026.

It is rather perplexing that a historian of Guha's stature argues against Priyanka Gandhi Vadra's speaking on the 75th anniversary of the Constitution just because Indira Gandhi imposed the Emergency. How could Priyanka or anybody be defined by what their ancestors did?

By the same logic, Guha might ask how Ambedkar could play a role in drafting the Constitution of a free India when he never participated in the freedom struggle under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi and bitterly attacked him. Or should it be asked how Jawaharlal Nehru talked about complete independence for India when his father Motilal Nehru — one of the authors of the Nehru Report — merely demanded dominion status for our country?

First and foremost, Indira Gandhi was held to account for her decision to impose the Emergency and, in response, tendered an apology for that action. It is preposterous of an academic of Guha's standing to pass on the responsibilities of Indira Gandhi’s acts of commission or omission to Priyanka or anybody else.

His weird logic that 'the Congress remains a family firm, headed by a man who lacks discipline, gravitas and a curriculum vitae', lacks serious reasoning and appears to be some kind of off-the-cuff remark not expected from a writer of his eminence. It obviously smacks of selective targeting, very conveniently ignoring many other political formations, including the BJP, where the unmistakable syndrome of the 'family firm' forms the very texture of their existence and political persuasion.

Questioning the gravitas and curriculum vitae of Rahul Gandhi, who is engaged in reinventing the Congress by providing anchorage to the ideological fight against the BJP-RSS, Guha has trivialised Rahul's arduous struggle in defence of the Republic, which Guha himself says has been endangered by Narendra Modi and Amit Shah.

American history professor Timothy Snyder wrote in his 2017 book On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, 'Tyrants seek the hook on which to hang you. Try not to have hooks.'

The BJP is in incessant pursuit of a hook to hang Rahul by desperately tracing missteps if any. Recall his conviction by a Surat magistrate’s court in a defamation case filed against him in 2019, and the eventual termination of his Lok Sabha membership. It clearly represented a frantic but carefully curated search for a hook.

How is it that the much-acclaimed Guha loses sight of the tyrant's intent to discredit Rahul before 'We the People of India'? Not because Rahul lacks gravitas and an impressive curriculum vitae, but because he poses a huge ideological threat to the BJP and Hindutva forces.

To quote one of the key passages in Guha's article, 'Even when he takes up an important issue, such as the partisan conduct of the Election Commission of India, he rarely does so in a sustained manner. We see him giving the odd press conference on "vote chori", followed by a trip to Europe or Latin America.'

Such utterances completely disregard Rahul and the Congress team’s painstaking work spanning months to study lakhs of pages obtained from the Election Commission and exposing the calculated strategy to steal votes for the BJP. His 'Vote Adhikar Rally' in Bihar was the first of its kind in India in defence of universal adult franchise, and echoed Mahatma Gandhi’s struggle in 1894 in the Natal province of South Africa against disenfranchisement of local Indians. What Rahul did has been taken up by several parties, and it is unfair to state that he failed to sustain the issue.

A cursory look at India’s freedom struggle tells us that Mahatma Gandhi, after his historic Dandi March of 1930, started the Quit India movement in 1942, after a gap of 12 years. Could Gandhi ji be charged with not sustaining his fight against the British Raj because there was a gap of 12 years between the Dandi March and Quit India?

It would have been salutary had Guha written a detailed piece based on his deep insights into history to expose Prime Minister Modi, who did not utter a word when millions were disenfranchised thanks to the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls, while in contrast, Rahul unleashed a huge momentum against vote chori which resonated across the country.

Instead, Guha's indictment of the Congress and Rahul Gandhi lacks the rigour and careful analysis expected of a cultivated historian.

Views are personal

S.N. Sahu served as officer on special duty to former President K.R. Narayanan