NEW DELHI: When veteran leader Mani Shankar Aiyar declared that he was a “Gandhian, Nehruvian, Rajivian but not a Rahulian,” it sounded, at first glance, like another bout of his familiar provocation. But the remark, delivered amid the Congress‘s attempt to present discipline and unity ahead of key assembly elections, quickly raises larger debate about the ideology, authority and dissent inside the grand old party.The Congress moved swiftly to distance itself from Aiyar’s remarks and said the leader had no association with the party. But was Aiyar merely indulging his taste for rhetorical rebellion, or was he pointing to something real about how Congress has changed in “under” Rahul Gandhi?
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Political analyst and Congress chronicler Rasheed Kidwai believes Aiyar’s claim contains “a grain of truth,” but not in the way the former minister imagines.
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From Nehruvianism to ‘civil society’ politics
“What Mani Shankar Aiyar is saying has a grain of truth because Congress has moved from a Nehruvian way of looking at things or so to say the Nehruvian ideology to a civil society,” Kidwai explains.
Rahul Gandhi does not have a clean slate. He has three, four uncles watching over him.
Rasheed Kidwai
According to him, this shift has not happened overnight. The Congress, he argues, has travelled through three distinct ideological phases.“What used to be the Nehruvian thinking … the Congress moved from Nehruvian to economic reforms and from economic reforms, which was there during Narsimha Rao and Manmohan Singh Rao, now it has moved to more of a civil society thinking,” he says.
This transition, Kidwai argues, helps explain why Aiyar’s attack on “Rahulian” politics resonates in some quarters. The Congress “under” Rahul Gandhi does not function within a rigid ideological framework in the classical sense.“So what you see around Rahul Gandhi is people who come from civil society and they are influencing him. So civil society does not have a dogmatic kind of ideology,” Kidwai says.This absence of dogma, he suggests, has consequences for how the party responds politically. Unlike the Nehruvian era, where ideology shaped policy, or the reform years, where economic pragmatism dominated, today’s Congress often appears reactive and issue-driven rather than programmatic.
The ‘Jai Jagat’ influence
Kidwai has written earlier about what he describes as a growing “civil society” imprint within the Congress, particularly around Rahul Gandhi. This school of thought, he argues, privileges moral argument, decentralised activism and individual agency over state-led or party-led political action.This orientation, which gained visibility during the Sonia Gandhi-led UPA years through bodies like the National Advisory Council, has now “almost taken over the party organisation under Rahul Gandhi,” Kidwai has written.
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Civil society protagonists, often associated with the so-called “Jai Jagat” group, are said to enjoy proximity to Rahul Gandhi and occupy influential organisational roles. Their emphasis on plain living, minimalism and symbolic politics has become part of the Congress’s contemporary aesthetic.Yet, as Kidwai notes in his earlier writing, this culture sits uneasily with traditional Congress leaders who rose through the ranks and understand politics as negotiation, organisation and power management rather than moral signalling.
Aiyar’s isolation inside Congress
While Aiyar positions himself as a custodian of Congress ideology, Kidwai is blunt about his standing within the party.“Mani Shankar Aiyar thinks he represents the Congress ideology, whether it is panchayati or foreign policy or socialism with a leaning towards the poor … that is not fine. So there are no takers for Mr. Aiyar,” Kidwai says.“Mr. Aiyar is totally isolated. There is no group, there is no leader in Tamil Nadu or outside who would be subscribing to Mr. Mani Shankar Aiyar,” he adds.Kidwai contrasts Aiyar’s isolation with other Congress leaders who have disagreed with Rahul Gandhi but retain organisational traction.“Shashi Tharoor and many others still have some traction in the Congress … Manish Tiwari and many others. But there is nobody who would support Mani Shankar Aiyar,” he says.Aiyar’s paradox, Kidwai argues, lies in his political identity. “Mani Shankar Aiyar’s claim to fame was his loyalty towards Rajiv Gandhi,” he says. “Now there is a bit of a paradox that he is confronting Rajiv Gandhi’s son,” Kidwai adds.That contradiction goes to the heart of Aiyar’s frustration.
Dissent, discipline and the ‘uncle syndrome’
Aiyar once again claimed that the Congress of the past tolerated rebels while today’s leadership punishes them. But is it true?“In most political parties, when adversity strikes them, they split,” he says, recalling the Congress splits after 1967, 1969, 1977 and the fragmentation of the party during and after the Narasimha Rao years.What makes the post-2014 period unusual, Kidwai argues, is not intolerance but endurance.“What happened in 2014 to 2024, and now it’s 2026, is very unique, because there’s been a long spell of adversity, but no split. 150 leaders have left, but there’s been no split in the Congress,” he says.
The result is a party carrying multiple generations of leadership baggage.“Rahul Gandhi does not have a clean slate. He has three, four uncles watching over him,” Kidwai says. “Mani Shankar Aiyar is one uncle who says – you are not doing things right.”Also Read: The grand old party’s crisis – Why Congress partymen are parting waysAiyar’s anger is deeply personal. “He felt that during Rajiv Gandhi’s time, he was at ‘arsh’, which means the cloud line. And he’s come to ‘farsh’ (ground),” he says.Aiyar, he adds, has not reconciled himself to his diminished access to the Gandhi family. “He’s very hurt and angry about this whole thing,” Kidwai says.
Why Congress finally drew the line
Aiyar has repetedly left the Congress red faced with his remarks like “chaiwala” and “neech aadmi”. The recent outburst had nothing new. So did Congress act now after all these years, clearly stating he has no association with the party? Kidwai attributes this to shifting internal equations.“There was a perception that Mr. Sam Pitroda and Mr. Mani Shankar Aiyar are close to the family,” he says. That perceived proximity once acted as insulation.But that cover, Kidwai argues, has vanished. “Now people know that he does not have a backing of the family. So Mr. Aiyar had a false kind of cover … now that stands exposed,” he says.By contrast, Kidwai notes, Pitroda remains protected. “Mr. Sam Pitroda is still in good books of Rahul Gandhi, so nobody says a thing about him,” he says, even though both men, in Kidwai’s says, are “motor mouths” whose remarks have often “hurt the political interests of the Congress.”
Spin doctor without a party
Kidwai traces Aiyar’s instinct for provocation to his past.“Before social media and the internet boom, Mr. Mani Shankar Aiyar was an original spin doctor,” he says, recalling Aiyar’s diplomatic career and his role as a key Rajiv Gandhi aide.That instinct, Kidwai argues, remains intact, but now operates without institutional relevance.“He’s trying to seek attention of Sonia Gandhi and Rahul and Priyanka … and he’s not getting it,” Kidwai says.Aiyar’s use of the term “Rahulian,” Kidwai believes, is part of this attention-seeking strategy rather than a serious ideological intervention.“He has that ability to give a spin, and that is what he’s doing,” Kidwai says.But is there any truth in Aiyar’s warning?While dismissive of Aiyar’s influence, Kidwai does not entirely reject his diagnosis.“There is a discomfort, which is not evident,” he says, referring to unease within the Congress over Rahul Gandhi’s reliance on civil society inputs rather than organisational consensus.He points to campaign slogans and movements like “chowkidar chor hai” and “vote chori” as examples of strategies that did not emerge from internal party deliberation.“None of these things have come from the Congress organisation,” Kidwai says.Yet, unlike Shashi Tharoor, who secured 11–12 percent of votes in the 2023 Congress presidential election, Aiyar commands no following.“Mani Shankar Aiyar will get zero,” Kidwai says bluntly.For now, Aiyar has coined new term “Rahulian” which the Congress’s opponents may try to stick to public memory. Its originator, however, may fade further into irrelevance.Aiyar may have named something real, an ideological shift from structured doctrine to civil society politics. But in doing so, Kidwai argues, he has personalised a transformation that is larger than Rahul Gandhi and older than Aiyar’s own grievances.In the end, Aiyar’s rebellion may say less about the Congress’s future than about one veteran’s inability to accept that the party he once shaped has moved on without him.
