The first time I donated blood was in December 1971, shortly after my final school examinations. Having more than an hour to kill before meeting a friend, I was wandering aimlessly around Chowringhee in Kolkata. It was during the Bangladesh war and although the city was not far from the frontline, life was exceptionally normal. A few people spoke about the likelihood of air raids by Pakistani bombers but that didn’t seem to worry people in the city. They went about their business normally.
The normalcy extended to political activity. Amid the cluster of hawkers selling woollen garments opposite Metro cinema, I heard loudspeakers blaring patriotic songs. On closer examination I discovered a makeshift stall set up by the Bharatiya Jana Sangh. It aroused my curiosity for the simple reason that in a city and state obsessed with Left politics, it was rare to see a so-called Right-wing political party doing its thing. However, my hopes of procuring some Jana Sangh literature were dashed when I discovered that, instead of propagating its politics, the party had organised a blood donation camp. The party wasn’t actually collecting blood on the streets. It was merely setting up appointments for prospective donors to go to the blood donation centre in the big army base in Ballygunge. I volunteered, took a printed form and two days later donated blood for the jawans.
It wasn’t a big deal and certainly nowhere as significant as the time in 1962 when all the women in our joint family set out one morning to donate a few of their precious gold bangles to the National Defence Fund. Yet, as a 16-year-old I felt good that I had done my modest bit for the war effort. At the same time, I was struck by the fact that in the midst of war, the party that had so bitterly opposed Indira Gandhi in the general election, barely nine months earlier, was organising a blood donation camp for soldiers.
To me, it was an important lesson in politics: the awareness that there are occasions when differences are set aside. Unfortunately, not all parties were aware of their national obligations. In 1962, a big section of the undivided CPI openly sided with China during the war. I remember a family friend, an active aristocratic Communist, being picked up by the police and detained for his pro-China sympathies. I also remember how a crowd taunted a next-door neighbour — also an active Communist — for his dodgy partiality for Maoist China. I don’t recall any tears being shed by the elders for either gentlemen.
A war or even tensions involving a foreign country, inevitably results in the nation coming together regardless of whether they are Left or Right. In 1914, despite initial protestations about a possible “imperialist war”, the socialist parties of Europe joined the war effort in their respective countries. Only a few, notably Lenin in Russia and Rosa Luxemburg in Germany, dissented and that became the basis of the enduring schism between the Social Democrats and the Communists. In the Britain of 1939, there was initially a reluctance to confront Hitler’s Germany. However, once the decision to back Poland was taken, all the parties, with the exception of British Union of Fascists led by Sir Oswald Mosley, actively backed the war effort. The Labour Party even joined the National Government headed by Winston Churchill. Mosley — otherwise a brilliant and charismatic leader — became a political pariah. When he was interned — despite him invoking the law of Habeas Corpus — neither the people nor the judges thought his civil liberties took priority over national unity.
In normal circumstances, the duty of the Opposition is to oppose. However, war or a conflict with another country is a separate matter altogether. In such circumstances, it is always “my country right or wrong”.
These lessons from history seem to have been lost on the Congress leadership. Over the past month, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has overruled other colleagues from his party and decided that the Narendra Modi Government must be confronted over the tensions — or even the undeclared war — with China. On the face of it, the former Congress president has been articulating an ultra-nationalist line and charging Modi with capitulation to China, but this is not how it comes across. To most people — only too aware of the misplaced Nehruvian attachment to Panchshila and Hindi-Chini bhai bhai — the Congress leadership’s belligerence seems an attempt to undermine national unity at a time when China is at its aggressive best. In the public imagination, it is inextricably linked to the awkward noises made by the Congress in the aftermath of the Balakot air strikes against terror bases in Pakistan.
During the Kargil war of 1999, when Sonia Gandhi was at the helm, the Congress had displayed such an attitude. Throughout the conflict, it kept harping on alleged intelligence failures and military lapses. As spokesperson, Kapil Sibal was absolutely vitriolic in his denunciation of the Government.
The approach didn’t go down well and in the general election held shortly after the war was over, the Congress was strongly rebuffed by the electorate. The pattern repeated itself in 2019 when the Congress, for the second time in succession, failed to secure 10 per cent of the Lok Sabha seats.
It is for the Congress to ponder over why this errant political behaviour is repeated over and over again. Whether this is due to Rahul Gandhi’s innate lack of understanding of national impulses or the excessive influence of Left intellectuals in the Congress ecosystem is for Congress-watchers to ascertain. But contrarian behaviour in times when national unity is of paramount importance has merely served to drive a mainstream party to the fringes.
