The general election in India is underway and I have been following the reports and commentaries flooding the newspapers in India. It seems clear from the polls and pretty much everybody in India that I have talked to that the UPA will be out and we will have an NDA government coming to power with Narendra Modi as PM.

While the Congress led UPA government has been disastrous in the second term that is coming to an end, and they well deserve to be booted out of power, the thought of an NDA government led by Narendra Modi gives cause for concern.

I have reservations about both the BJP and Narendra Modi. First, this whole focus on Hinduvta is to me an anathema. India is a pluralistic society with a clear separation between the secular and the sacred. India is a secular democracy and is for every one of us, Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Jain, Buddhist, Christian, Jew, Zoarastrian, atheist, agnostic, and any other affiliation that I may have accidentally left out. India is not exclusively for Hindus! And, it will be a sad day if we move in that direction. The just released BJP manifesto does portend such a move.

Turning to the prime ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi may have been absolved by the courts of law regarding the 2002 massacre in Gujarat, but given what has been reported in the press about the incident, his role, and some of the things he has said are in his own biography, I personally do not feel one can turn a blind eye to his communal character. So, I worry about the next 5 years and what it has in store for us.

Quite aside from such worries, Modi’s claim that he is a good manager or that the BJP can deliver growth is questionable since Gujarat certainly hasn’t been quite the top performer it has been made out to be. Looking at nominal GDP growth it seems that quite a few other states and territories in India have done better than Gujarat and these better performers are not necessarily ruled by the BJP and certainly not by Modi.

A question that arises then is why is the Congress on its way out and the BJP on its way in. Stated another way, what can the Congress learn from what has happened. At a simplistic level the media suggests that inaction is damning. While this may be true, I think it is much more than that. The Congress has lost its way because it is no longer a party with a vision and a policy. As an organization it is not a meritocracy. It is the fiefdom of the Nehru-Gandhi family. In other words it is not a professional organization but a family owned and run organization. Such organizations have several significant problems.

Consider the British parties since our government is modeled after the parliamentary democracy of that country. Parties are led by elected leaders who when they fail the party are brushed aside to be replaced by a fresh leadership elected by party members. In the Congress party, this is not the case. The leadership positions are reserved for the Nehru-Gandhi family members. Indeed even if the Congress is booted out on May 16th, as Jairam Ramesh of the Congress was reported to have said, Rahul Gandhi will still be around for the next election. This is a big difference from the BJP where Modi has risen through the ranks and has been able to capture the hearts and minds of the BJP and RSS cadre, enabling him to become their leader.

In the Congress the Nehru-Gandhi family members hold sway no matter the state of the paty. As the person responsible for leading the attack, should he fail, it behooves Rahul Gandhi to step aside and make way for a more able leader who can win elections. As Ramesh’s comment suggests, this is unlikely to happen. And, even if Rahul Gandhi steps aside, rumblings are already there to bring Priyanka Gandhi Vadra in to a leadership position. So blood, not merit rules the day at the Congress. This is a recipe for disaster.

A feudal system does not breed leaders as effectively as a meritocracy; it’s a simple numbers game. A feudal system breeds sycophants. A feudal system stops attracting top talent. To attract talent and to find world class leaders, you need an organization where everybody feels that they have a shot at the top job. Thus, people like Nadella were attracted to Microsoft because they saw the possibility of one day leading the organization. Perhaps, if they had believed that to lead you would have had to be a Gates family member they wouldn’t have joined or wouldn’t have worked as hard. The BJPs merit based system is thus one lesson the Congress Party needs to take to heart.

A leader in a merit based system who rises to the top has respect and thus clout. S/he can lead and expect the troops to follow. Not so in a feudal system as the leader commands no respect. S/he is their because of the accident of birth, not because they deserve to be there. Without a leader who commands respect and can be followed, there is an inability to act since each individual follows their own agenda or the agenda of their own conspiratorial faction. The result is no coherent policy and worse still, inaction. This is the Congress Party malaise.

So, if the Congress is to resurrect itself and be a meaningful and superior alternative to the Hindutva led BJP, it has to stop acting as the Nehru-Gandhi Party and turn to meritocracy. Let everyone from the grassroots to the top focus on performance with an eye on one day having an opportunity to lead the party and the nation. That is likely to revive and reenergize the Congress Party and perhaps give it a shot in the 2019 general elections. Without it, I fear that in the next five years the Congress Party will have become even more irrelevant and India will move slowly but inexorably to the right, moving from the secular ideals of our founding fathers to the Hindutva ideals of the BJP and RSS. I for one would hate to see that.