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A supporter of Rahul Gandhi, a senior leader of India's main opposition Congress party, waves a party flag in a public meeting during Rahul's 66-day long "Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra," or Unite India Justice March, in Jhalod town, Gujarat state, India, in March 2024.
Can India’s oldest party make a comeback?
The names Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Indira Gandhi are synonymous with Indian independence and the country’s early development. But with India starting to head to the polls on April 19, we ask what happened to their once-dominant Indian National Congress Party.
A titan in Indian politics for over 50 years after independence in 1947, today’s Congress is struggling for relevancy. If it doesn’t find a way to resonate with the biggest voting bloc, those aged 18-35, in the world’s fifth-largest economy – it will stand no chance of ever facing down Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
Heyday and downfall
Founded in 1885, Congress leaders like Mahatma and Indira Gandhi, Nehru, and Manmohan Singh played pivotal roles in campaigning for independence and later shaping India’s political and economic position. While Nehru, the first prime minister, touted secularism, his successor and daughter, Gandhi, led anti-poverty campaigns during her tenure. More recently, Singh played a key role in making India the second fastest-growing economy by uplifting the country’s GDP to 9% in 2007.
But voters tend to sour on those in power during economic downturns, and a mix of high inflation and corruption scandals led to Congress’ worst electoral performance in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. The party, headed by the inexperienced Rahul Gandhi, won just 44 of 543 seats, creating more space for the BJP.
Congress did only slightly better in the 2019 elections, winning 52 seats, leading Gandhi to quit the party presidency. His mother and one of the most influential leaders of Congress who played a crucial role in the 2004 election victory, Sonia Gandhi, once again took the reins as interim president for three years. Today, Congress is led by Mallikarjun Kharge, and it’s in power in just three of 28 states: Karnataka, Himachal Pradesh, and Telangana.
Lackluster leadership
Congress party leaders are struggling to connect with their base, and efforts to hurt the BJP with slogans like “the watchman is a thief” are not landing with voters. Initiatives like Rahul Gandhi’s ambitious Bharat Jodo Yatra and Nyay Yatra mass marches in 2022 and 2024 have failed to gain much steam.
Congress also “faces issues related to a deteriorating organizational structure and internal factionalism,” says Rahul Bhatia, Eurasia Group’s South Asia analyst.
As recently as last month, internal discord was exposed during the party’s selection of electoral candidates to represent the southern state of Telangana when complaints accused the screening committee of sending the candidate list without consulting party ministers. A similar case was also reported in Chandigarh.
“While the party has taken measures to remedy some of these [problems] in the last two years, it still hasn’t been able to articulate a clear political narrative that captures the imagination of Indian voters like Modi has,” says Bhatia.
Trying to build a worthy opposition
In a bold attempt to challenge the BJP’s dominance with a stronger opposition, Congress pushed to create theIndian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance bloc, aka INDIA, in 2023, initially comprising 41 parties. At first, it looked promising, but the departure of key players like Nitish Kumar and Mamata Banerjee in January has left INDIA in disarray, casting doubts on its efficacy ahead of the election. In the unlikely event INDIA wins, Congress has vowed to raise the 50% reservation quota for nationally recognized marginal communities (Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Other Backward Classes) to get them more representation in educational institutes and employment.
But INDIA is only expected to win 94 seats, with Congress getting 38, while the BJP is predicted to snag 399 constituencies. To secure a majority, a party or a coalition needs 272 seats.
Modi, 73, is widely popular with anapproval rating as high as 75%. “Under Modi, the BJP is a formidable electoral machine, and no one has been able to consolidate the Hindu vote as well as Modi has, drawing in lower middle castes, upper castes, and low-income groups,” says Bhatia.
For now, Congress “is not fighting to win the upcoming elections but rather to limit Modi’s majority,” he adds. The party is expected to retain roughly 20% of the vote and potentially win some state elections.
Should the BJP’s vote share fall, the INC could orchestrate a comeback at the national level. “The party is by no means finished,” says Bhatia.
But to get back to the power of its heyday, Congress would need to go through a complete internal overhaul, experts say. And the immediate problem, says Bhatia, is that Congress “is not ready to accept a complete restructuring, nor will it seek leadership beyond the Gandhi family.”
India after COVID
Few nations were as ravaged by COVID as India, especially when the Delta strain tore through the country in the spring of 2021. Delhi-based journalist Barkha Dutt experienced its toll as both a journalist and a daughter. Back when she first appeared on GZERO World in May 2021, she had just lost her father to COVID. She was simultaneously grieving and covering COVID's impact across India.
Two years later, Ian welcomes Dutt back on the show to discuss a wide range of US-India issues, but also to check in with her on how the trauma of COVID has changed her life, as well as the direction it has taken her country, two years later.
"It's been, personally, a very, very painful time, and professionally, ironically, some of my best work, and to reconcile that is quite a difficult thing to do, emotionally."
Tune in to “GZERO World with Ian Bremmer” on US public television to watch the full interview. Check local listings.
North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un rides a horse during snowfall in Mt. Paektu.
Hard Numbers: Russian horses for Kim, Delhi’s toxic air, no dirty bomb in Ukraine, fake Americans
30: Russia and North Korea have resumed rail travel for the first time since the pandemic began. Guess what the first cargo was? Food? Fuel? Medicines? Nope — 30 thoroughbred Russian horses, which Kim Jong Un famously loves to ride to look uber-cool in the snow.
500: Thanks to nearby farmers burning crop stubble, air pollution in Delhi has now gotten so bad that the concentration of dangerous inhalable tiny pollutants known as PM2.5 is above "severe" levels of 500 in parts of the city. Of course, it's gotten political, with the AAP party — which runs India's capital — and PM Narendra Modi's ruling BJP party blaming each other for the toxic air.
3: After checking out three nuclear sites in Ukraine, the UN nuclear watchdog found no signs of the "dirty bomb" that Moscow claims Kyiv wants to detonate. Russians and Ukrainians are waging an information war to persuade the world that the other side is planning to commit the atrocity.
5: A BBC reporter came up with five archetypes of Americans and gave them each their own social media account in order to better understand US politics — and Big Tech's influence on voters — ahead of the Nov. 8 midterm elections. The experiment has sparked a fierce debate among those who think it's unethical journalism and those who value learning how social media companies target voters. What do you think? Tell us here.Local resident gather in a courtyard near a block of flats damaged in the southern port city of Mariupol.
What We're Watching: Battle of Donbas, Turkish attack on Kurds in Iraq, violence in Delhi
The Battle of Donbas begins
In eastern Ukraine, the Battle of Donbas, the much-anticipated storm of destruction expected in the war’s next phase, has begun, President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on Monday. Heavy fighting is reported in the Luhansk, Donetsk, and Kharkiv regions. In other parts of Ukraine, and beyond its borders, millions are watching to see what happens next. Will Russian soldiers make quick gains on the ground? The Kremlin is wondering why it’s taking so long to seize control of the port city of Mariupol and finally declare a big battlefield victory. Residents of Kyiv and Lviv are waiting to see whether deadly Russian artillery strikes on their cities are short-term payback for Russia’s loss of its Black Sea flagship or something that will continue. In nearby countries – Lithuania, for example – locals are worried about the war potentially spilling over borders. Russians, meanwhile, are waiting to see how much economic damage Western sanctions will inflict, and the nearly 5 million Ukrainians who’ve fled their country and the estimated 7 million more who have been displaced internally are waiting to see whether and when they can return home.
Turkey hits Kurdish militants in Iraq
Don’t look now, but Turkey has launched a fresh offensive against Kurdish militants in Northern Iraq. The new operation against the Kurdistan Workers Party, known by its initials PKK, looks to have been a sizable one, involving warplanes, drones, helicopters, and special forces. For decades, Ankara has been at war with the PKK, which has used violence to advance its aim of greater autonomy for the 15 million Kurds living in Turkey. The group, considered a terrorist organization by the US, EU, and Turkey, has set up bases just outside of Turkey in Iraq, which Ankara claims a right to attack. But doing so has strained Turkey’s ties with Baghdad, which views incursions like these as violations of its sovereignty. Perhaps no one is more caught in the middle than the leadership of the Kurdistan Regional Government in Northern Iraq, whose territory is used by the PKK but which also wants to maintain strong trade ties with Turkey. Masrour Barzani, the head of the KRG, met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara just a few days before the offensive began.
Intercommunal violence in Delhi
A weekend procession in Jahangirpuri, a neighborhood in Delhi, to mark a Hindu festival kicked off peacefully Sunday, with worshippers chanting and parading swords and trinkets. But things soon turned ugly when clashes broke out between Hindu worshippers and Muslims at a nearby mosque. Both sides blame the other for starting to throw stones, igniting the inter-communal violence that resulted in dozens of injuries, including at least one gunshot wound. This is the latest flare-up between Muslims and Hindus in India, which has picked up in recent months since pandemic lockdowns have subsided. Critics say this violent dynamic has been stoked by nationalist PM Narendra Modi’s ruling BJP Party, which has shown deference to Hindu vigilantes since Modi came to power in 2014. In 2020, communal clashes in the capital led by Hindu hardliners resulted in the worst violence in the country since partition. We’re watching to see whether this violence will die down, or whether it’ll spread to neighboring towns and cities.
Migrants walk towards the Bruzgi-Kuznica Bialostocka border crossing in an attempt to cross the Belarusian-Polish border in the Grodno Region, Belarus November 15, 2021.
What We’re Watching: EU vs everyone, Austria vs the unvaccinated, India vs smog, Barbados vs real world
The EU targets "everyone!" The EU on Monday unanimously agreed to impose fresh sanctions on "everyone involved" in bringing migrants to the Belarus-Poland border, where a diplomatic and humanitarian crisis continues as thousands of asylum-seekers shiver in makeshift camps. Brussels says Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko has deliberately created this crisis to strike back against existing EU sanctions that were imposed in response to his sham re-election last year and his hijacking of a RyanAir flight this summer. Reports show that Belarus loosened visa restrictions for migrants — largely from Iraq — to serve as a transit point for migrants hoping to cross the EU border to apply for asylum. Details of the new sanctions aren't yet decided, but they are likely to target political officials, travel agencies, and airlines. Lukashenko has vowed to fight back, but he won't cut off the Russian gas flows that traverse his country on the way to Europe — Vladimir Putin quickly slapped down that possibility after Lukashenko raised it over the weekend. The question remains: will EU sanctions change Belarus' behavior?
Austria's lockdown of the unvaccinated. Beginning Monday, unvaccinated Austrians will be required to stay in their homes for all but essential outings or face a fine of 500 euros ($572). The move comes as Austria suffers one of the highest rates of new COVID infections in Europe. The country currently has a vaccination rate of 65 percent, which lags behind most of Western Europe but exceeds levels in Eastern Europe, which is experiencing an even harsher wave of the virus. The Austrian measures will last for 10 days and be enforced by police spot checks. The unvaccinated were already prohibited from entering restaurants, but the government says the additional restrictions are necessary to boost vaccination rates and head off a crunch at ICUs. Critics — including the right-wing Freedom Party — say the policy is discriminatory and violates Austria's constitution.
A different sort of lockdown in India. India's Supreme Court called on Monday for an immediate lockdown of Delhi, the country's capital. But this time, the threat to public health comes not from COVID but from the toxic smog that regularly pollutes the city's air. The Delhi government has pronounced itself "ready to take steps like complete lockdown," while calling on the governments of neighboring regions to do the same. There will be no in-person classes in schools this week, government officials will work from home, and private businesses are urged to do the same. The city's many construction sites will also remain shut down for three days. Delhi suffers from the exhaust produced by millions of vehicles, crop-stubble burning by farmers, coal-fired plants on the outskirts of town, and the open burning of garbage. By some measures, India is home to 13 of the world's 14 most polluted cities, and in 2019 air pollution was blamed for more than a million deaths.
Metaverse diplomacy. What happens if you run into trouble when visiting a foreign country? You call your embassy or consulate, of course. But what if you're in the Metaverse, a catch-all phrase for the virtual and augmented reality world Mark Zuckerberg wants you to spend a lot of time in? Well, you're in luck if you're a citizen of Barbados, the first country to open an actual embassy in this virtual world. The tiny Caribbean island nation plans to build and purchase digital "land," offer e-visas to visit virtual Barbados, and develop virtual transport to move avatars to and fro. What this all means in the real world is unclear, but crypto bros are very excited about it, and we don't want to burst their bubble.
How one Indian-American couple raised over $500k to send oxygen equipment to Delhi
An Indian-American family in California decided to take action after acquaintances, friends, relatives and finally their own parents in Delhi became sick from COVID as the city was overwhelmed by the outbreak. In just a few days, they organized a massive logistical and fundraising effort to send critical oxygen equipment to Delhi. "We came across oxygen concentrators as one of the major needs in Delhi, as oxygen supplies were low, and agencies, hospitals, and nursing facilities were running out of oxygen and putting out SOS messages." The couple explains how they have partnered with SaveLIFE Foundation, an organization out of Delhi working directly with the local government. "India needs all the help that it can at this point in time."
For more information about this fundraising initiative, visit: https://covidreliefindia.com/updates/
Watch the episode of GZERO World with Ian Bremmer: India's COVID calamity