In the elections currently underway in India, the main opposition to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is the Indian National Congress: the traditional party of the national bourgeoisie with roots going back to the anti-colonial struggles of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

For decades after formal independence in 1947, Congress completely dominated the Indian political stage at the national and state levels. Until it was ousted in 1996, the party had held office continuously at the national level with the exception of two three-year terms. Today, the party is shadow of its former self. Its claims to stand for the interests of the masses are in tatters and its bases of support are rapidly dwindling.

In the last national election in 1999, Congress was eclipsed by the Hindu supremacist BJP, winning just 112 seats out of 545 in the Lok Sabha or lower house of parliament. While the BJP fell short of a parliamentary majority with 182 seats, it was able to form a coalition, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), with a number of smaller parties. Congress was only able to gain the support of allies with a total of 22 seats.

In the current election, Congress is not expected to make any significant gains, despite growing hostility to the NDA government's programme of economic restructuring, which has led to a widening gulf between rich and poor. According to the London- based Economist magazine, even party strategists say the maximum it can achieve is around 135 [seats]. The party could, however, do considerably worse. It was routed in state elections last December in three out of four states Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh.

One sign of Congress's decline is that the party has been compelled to turn to a series of electoral alliances with regionally-based parties. The rise of these parties in the 1990s, which whip up local prejudices on the basis of language, ethnicity and caste, is another reflection of the widespread alienation from the major parties. In previous elections, Congress eschewed electoral pacts, believing such arrangements were not necessary and undermined its national image.

Now, however, Congress is desperate for partners and in this election has accepted a subordinate status in several key states. In its alliance with the Rastriya Janatha Dal (RJD) in Bihar, Congress had to be satisfied with just four of the state's 40 seats in the national parliament far less than the 14 it had demanded. Congress has also forged alliances in Andhra Pradesh, Maharasthra and Tamil Nadu. But in the most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, the Bahujan Samaj Party and Samajwadi Party have shunned its approaches. Currently, Congress only holds nine of the state's 80 seats.

Nothing underscores the party's bankruptcy more than its dependence on the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty. Not only has Sonja Gandhi, the Italian-born widow of assassinated prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, been pressed into leading the party, but her two children have also been enlisted in the campaign. Her son Rahul is standing as the Congress candidate in the Uttar Pradesh seat of Amethi, in an effort to lift the party's standing in that state. His sister Priyanka is also campaigning prominently in the seat.

The party's tenuous links to the leaders of the anti-colonial movement Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru are all that remain of its claims to represent the interests of the working masses of India. Congress was always a party of the Indian bourgeoisie, which ensured that the vast movement against the British rule never threatened private property and became the means for securing its own privileged position. At the same time, through its leadership of the anti-colonial opposition, Congress established deep political roots and a reputation as a party of progressive change that enabled it to dominate the political stage after the end of the British rule.

Congress's ability to maintain its increasingly tarnished image was a product of the peculiar global economic and political conditions that followed World War II. Successive Indian governments were able to maintain a highly regulated national economy, based on import substitution, and make limited concessions to workers and the oppressed masses. In the context of the Cold War, Congress leaders were able to balance between Washington and Moscow, and, with the assistance of the Stalinist bureaucrats, posture as anti-imperialists. India was one of the leaders of the so-called non-aligned movement.

However, in the 1980s and 1990s, the processes of globalization undermined all forms of national economic regulation the sharpest expression being the collapse of the Soviet Union. The impact was no less profound in India where, in the early 1990s, the Congress government of prime minister Narasimha Rao initiated the first stage of market reforms and opened up the country's huge reserves of cheap labour to foreign investors. While a layer of business and the middle class benefitted, the economic restructuring resulted in savage attacks on the living standards of the working class and oppressed masses. The mounting resentment was the main reason for the party's defeat in the 1996 elections.

No alternative to the BJP: While it capitalized on the disaffection with Congress, the BJP has implemented the same programme of restructuring since 1998. Foreign investors have exploited India's supplies of low-cost,educated, English-speaking labour to create a range of computing, research and office services, and produce a spurt of growth that has benefitted layers of the Indian middle class. The BJP election campaign has centred on a government-funded "India Shining" media blitz designed to portray the party as bringing India economic growth and international recognition.

The slick media campaign glosses over the fact that the government's economic policies have led to a widening of the deep social divide between the rich and the vast majority of the population who remain mired in poverty. In seeking to attack the BJP's record, Congress faces a fundamental problem: its policies are no different from those of the government. As a result, its campaign is fraught with contradictions: Congress attempts to convince big business of its ability to continue the open market agenda, while trying to dupe the masses with empty promises to improve their living standards.

Thus the party's election manifesto boasts: It is the Congress that launched liberalisation and economic reforms. It is the Congress's policies that made India the world's fourth largest economy by 1998. Moreover, it promises to provide further financial incentives for private investors and to streamline the system for approving foreign investment by making it more transparent.

At the same time as pledging to continue and extend the BJP's policies, Congress blames the government for growing unemployment and rural poverty. To appeal to the rural masses, its manifesto calls for a "National Employment Guarantee Act" to provide one member of each rural household with at least 100 days of employment on asset-creating public works programmes every year at minimum wage.

The hollow character of the party's promises is exposed by its willingness to support the anti-working class measures of the NDA government.-Courtesy: World Socialist Website