Bangalore
Date : 10.07.2014
Sri A.K.Anthony,
8, Krishna Menon Marg,
New Delhi
Dear Sri Antony, Namaskar.
Just within 24 hours after I met you in New Delhi I am writing this letter to you.
I am writing this letter to yourself as chairman of the committee you head for enquiring into the causes for the defeat of the Congress Party in the 2014 elections.
It was very good of you to have received me and my wife without any prior appointment and when you were so preoccupied with so many other important things. So, thank you for the very nice gesture on your part.
Though brief was our encounter you are no stranger to me. You might have forgotten but we have met more than once long time ago at the AICC. It was of course a long time ago. Of course I know most of the Kerala leaders, both Congress and the Left leaders. May be more intimately and fundamentally, the great leaders, EMS, E.K.Nayarnar and C.A.Achutha Menon.
As for others I know many of the literary and artistic people. Some of them were with me in Santiniketan in the 1950s, 60s like A.Ramachandran.
All this to tell you I am no stranger to Kerala and Kerala affairs. Now, as for the Congress affairs, I have to again to tell you I know all the old Congress leaders, I “worked” at the AICC under Kamaraj, Atulya Ghosh and Sadiq Ali and others. I wrote the 1967 General Elections propaganda pamphlets!
Anyway, now, after seeing so many changes in the party, after the massive rout and now in the post-defeat mood how do I see myself?
I call myself the Last Congressman!
Now, I am writing a book in English on the Decline and Fall of the Congress and how to revive it. I had already sent you a letter detailing what your committee should be doing. Obviously, you didn’t
remember or recall that letter when I met you yesterday. Of course, the chance and sudden encounter might have not given enough time to recall or see anything what I had written to your committee. Anyway, here is the copy of the letter attached.
Now what you said about what your committee is doing and what your committee is doing really shocked me to say the least!
How can you find out the causes for the defeat by just enquiring the Delhi unit and others in states like Karnataka?
You said you didn’t visit Karnataka but there was news in the papers about your visit. May be I am mistaken. However, what you further said about the “mandate” you are given to enquire just the “list”(of people) by the AICC just seemed very disturbing.
I have also attached here with the letter I wrote to Mrs.Sonia Gandhi, of course a very stinging letter, written in the heat of the shock we all received as old and long-standing Congressmen had some harsh truths to tell. The party president and the vice-presidents must have resigned and nominated an interim president to carry out the reorganisation of the party structure, from the top to the grassroots.
All I can say now, as I told you briefly in person, is that unless you tackle the most important and most traditional Congress bastions like TN, W.Bengal and UP and Bihar, how can we hope the Congress party can be revived and it can at least imagine a comeback?
These are serious questions of moral responsibility, less a strategy, more a question of credibility.
I won’t go further than this much.
I am glad to tell you I also met Sri Motilal Vohra and got his views.
May be I may incorporate more of my views in the forth coming book.
I like to thank once again for your kindness to receive me and also your honesty of purpose and simplicity and total unpretentious personality.
With regards,
V.Isvarmurti
1.Copy of previous letter(A.K.Anthony)
2.Copy of letter to Sonia Gandhii