‘Pro Muslim’ Party?: Congress’s ‘Secular’ Crisis

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At an India Today media conclave in early 2018, Sonia Gandhi made a rather candid confession: the BJP, she said, had managed to convince many people that the Congress is a ‘Muslim party’. The Congress president’s remarks, in a sense, were a tacit admission that Nehruvian secularism had failed to combat the rising tide of political Hindutva. Her words were also echoing the party’s Antony committee report, drafted in the aftermath of the 2014 election debacle but never made public, that the Congress was seen as ‘pro-Muslim’ and ‘anti-Hindu’. Three years later, as we enter another election season, the Congress’s predicament is even more stark: the party’s secular identity is once again being questioned as it is accused of openly aligning with ‘Muslim’ parties.