Sonia Gandhi confirms Congress' soft-Hindutva strategy first time ever

What has long been evident in the Congress party's conduct has just been confirmed by none other than the authority who lorded over the party for 19 long years.

Sonia Gandhi, who stepped down as Congress president just last year, has said in an interview that the recent temple-hopping by her son and successor Rahul Gandhi, is a response to the BJP's success in convincing Indian voters that the Congress is “a Muslim party”.

“I wouldn't say brainwash. Its a rude word. But the BJP has succeeded in convincing the people that Congress is a Muslim party,” Gandhi said, responding to a question on whether her party is practicing “soft-Hindutva”. Notably, she said nothing to deny the “soft-Hindutva” strategy and instead quickly presented her defense, stressing that “Most people in our party are Hindus”.

Rahul Gandhi's advisers appear to have prescribed temple visits as political strategy sometime in late 2014. From 2015, Gandhi started touring temples at well-known centres of Hinduism, including Kashi Vishwanath temple in Varanasi, Kamakhya temple in Assam and Badrinath and Kedarnath temples in Uttarakhand. 

These were not private visits as they were widely publicised by the party itself, leading to ample media coverage. Many believe the strategy partly paid-off when the party managed to inch very close to the ruling BJP's performance in Gujarat Assembly polls, in December 2017.

Convinced that the strategy is working, Rahul Gandhi has been visiting temples again in Karnataka, all set to go to polls soon. So far, he and other leaders of his party did not admit that this was a considered strategy, with Gandhi himself retorting every time he was asked about these visits that is he not allowed to visit temples?

His mother's statements mark the first time that top leadership of the party has admitted that the party is consciously trying to improve its image among those for whom visiting temples is important. Significantly, Gandhi said Congress leaders including herself used to visit temples earlier too but never made a show of it.

That they have decided to openly demonstrate a love for Hindu practices is a landmark moment. It shows that Congress has formally accepted that among the most significant reasons responsible for its defeat in the last Lok Sabha polls is the perception that it had positioned itself too close to India's religious minorities.

This was not just the BJP's allegation against Congress, it was also the view privately held by many Congress leaders as well as party-workers. The AK Antony committee's internal report, which was leaked, reportedly said that a perception of minority-appeasement proved to be the party's undoing. 

Sonia Gandhi is not the Congress president anymore but she is still the chairperson of the Congress Parliamentary Party. Her comments have made it clear that the party indeed took the post-2014 analysis seriously and is still working to reverse that perception.

What needs to be considered is will this manifest only in temple visits or will it impact other aspects of the party's electoral strategy too? The Sangh Parivar's vicious political tools of gau-raksha, love-jihad and ghar-wapsi have left the Muslims in a deeply vulnerable position.

Further, the BJP winning polls after polls even after refusing to give tickets to Muslims to contest is also leading to their electoral marginalisation. Things have now come to such a pass that RSS is openly revealing its military ambition and RSS-cheerleaders are threatening bloodshed and civil war.

It is important in these times for the right-wing to be contested, electorally as well as socially. With the electoral decline of the Left, this onerous task has fallen on the shoulders of the Congress party and regional satraps committed to secular politics.

In such times, it is as important for the Congress to recover electoral ground as it is to assure the minorities of solidarity. It will be tricky for the party to do so while appealing to Hindus by visiting temples.