The Congress-organised Bharat Summit, held in Hyderabad on November 13 and 14, was projected as a historic international gathering to evolve a new global vision, redefine world order and bring together progressive forces from across the globe. But strip away the grand announcements, carefully choreographed speeches and political publicity, and what remains is an elaborate exercise in self-promotion by a party struggling to rediscover its political relevance at home. That the Congress believes assembling a collection of largely Left-leaning and socialist political representatives from nearly 70 countries can provide a credible platform to challenge Bharat’s democratic mandate and announce an alternative world order is nothing short of a joke in the 21st century. What exactly was the Congress attempting to achieve through this two-day spectacle? Was it genuinely interested in discussing the world’s pressing challenges or was the summit yet another desperate attempt to manufacture an international leadership profile for Rahul Gandhi after its repeated failures to project him as a credible national alternative to Prime Minister Narendra Modi? The answer, judging by the tenor of the proceedings, is not particularly difficult to guess. The Congress appears to have shifted its failed domestic political campaign to an international stage, hoping that sympathetic voices from abroad could lend legitimacy to its increasingly unconvincing political narratives. The presence of approximately 1,000 delegates, including representatives from 70 countries, was repeatedly highlighted as though numbers alone could establish the summit’s international stature. But representation is not the same as influence, and attendance is certainly not an endorsement of a political proposition. How many of these visiting representatives command substantial political influence in their respective countries? What democratic credentials do the parties they represent enjoy? More importantly, what authority do a gathering of assorted Left-oriented and socialist political groups possess to claim that they can chart a new world order? These are legitimate questions the Congress conveniently avoided answering. Even more revealing was the political messaging that emerged from the gathering. The Congress’s domestic slogans of ‘Vote Chor, Gaddi Chor’ appeared to have been exported to an international audience, with foreign representatives joining the chorus against Bharat’s electoral institutions and the BJP-led NDA government. This was not an intellectual debate on electoral reforms but an apparent attempt to internationalise a political allegation that the Congress has been unable to establish convincingly at home. The Election Commission of India is a constitutional institution, and the ongoing debate over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls must be addressed through constitutional and legal processes. Cleaning electoral rolls of deceased voters, duplicate entries and ineligible registrations is a legitimate exercise, provided eligible voters are protected from wrongful exclusion. Indeed, the Supreme Court has examined aspects of the exercise.
The Opposition is entitled to question the process, but repeatedly branding it as electoral theft without establishing evidence does little credit to a party that once ruled the country for decades.The Congress’s desperation becomes even more apparent when viewed against its inability to mount a sustained political challenge to Modi. Having failed to make Rahul Gandhi a convincing alternative through domestic political campaigns, it now seems determined to give him an international makeover. The summit’s discussions on strategic autonomy, multilateralism, artificial intelligence, climate change, economic justice and electoral integrity may sound impressive on paper. But lofty declarations cannot substitute for political credibility, administrative competence or a coherent vision backed by public support. There is also an uncomfortable contradiction in inviting representatives from political systems that do not necessarily subscribe to the democratic freedoms and institutional accountability that the Congress claims to champion. Before preaching democracy and electoral integrity to Bharat, shouldn’t the organisers examine the democratic credentials and political practices of those they have chosen as partners? Union Home Minister Amit Shah was justified in questioning the political utility of such extravaganzas, suggesting that the Congress would do better to spend its energies reaching people in remote villages rather than staging international spectacles. That observation strikes at the heart of the problem. A party aspiring to regain the confidence of Indian voters cannot hope to do so by seeking validation from political groups abroad. The controversy surrounding allegations of external political funding and alleged links to international figures such as George Soros has also added to the questions raised by the BJP. Such allegations require evidence and cannot be treated as facts. Nevertheless, the Congress owes the public transparency about the summit’s funding, expenditure and the precise objectives it seeks to achieve. There is nothing wrong with international dialogue or engaging progressive political movements. But claiming to reinvent the global order while primarily using the platform to attack a democratically elected Indian government is an entirely different proposition. Bharat does not need an imported certificate of democratic legitimacy, nor does Rahul Gandhi need a foreign audience to validate his political ambitions. India’s place in the world is determined by its people, its democratic institutions, economic strength and strategic choices, not by resolutions passed at a gathering of ideologically like-minded political representatives. Ultimately, the Bharat Summit may have generated headlines, speeches and political sound bites. Whether it generated any meaningful global consensus is another matter altogether. Attempting to convert a political publicity exercise into a historic international movement, and a collection of ideological fellow travellers into architects of a new world order, is not merely an exercise in misplaced grandeur. It is a political joke that the Congress seems to be taking rather seriously.
