Sonia Gandhi pushed an amazing array of laws

December 9, 1946, was when India’s Constituent Assembly met for the first time. It was tasked with the job of preparing the Constitution of India. On this very day, a person was born in Lusiana, Italy. Who knew then that both the Constitution of India and this charismatic person would change India for the better.

Our nation has witnessed two of our Prime Ministers assassinated. One was her mother-in-law and the other her husband. Yet today, many buy into the right-wing propaganda and question what the Gandhi family has done for this country in the last 70 years. Notwithstanding the personal losses and hardships she’s weathered or the questions being raised, Mrs Gandhi continues to face the world with a stoic smile.

I recall, back in 2004 when the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) was in power, millions of farmers were hit by drought in several parts of the country. I’d organised the ‘Samvidhan Bachao’ rally at Nagpur’s Kasturchand Park. Mrs Gandhi made a huge impact at the rally, calling out the Vajpayee government for introducing a saffron hue to education and tinkering with the statute book. The rally mobilised Congress workers and helped us win the elections that year. In fact, Smt Gandhi travelled 64,000 km, addressing 60 rallies, resulting in 52 of the 60 candidates winning that year.

She capped that victory, bringing together all the liberal secular parties in the country under the umbrella of UPA and debunked the ‘India shining’ narrative of the previous government. In my view, she remains the best student of the ideas propounded by Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Dr BR Ambedkar. From them, she learnt to keep the common man central to governance. From Smt Indira Gandhi she imbibed the skill of executing plans and fulfilling promises, particularly to those left out of the social and economic development process.

Smt. Sonia Gandhi is a grassroots person choosing to work for those at the bottom of the social and economic pyramid. People today crave power and seek to be at the centre of the decision-making process. But Smt Gandhi, as we know, is an exceptional person who gave up politically important positions many times in her life. First, she refused to take the Prime Ministership soon after the Congress-led UPA was voted to power in May 2004. Then again, she resigned as the Chairperson of the National Advisory Council and as elected Member of Lok Sabha due to the NDA’s orchestrated ‘office of profit’ controversy in 2006.

National Advisory Council (NAC) was one of the most progressive government bodies that yielded some of the most reformist and empowering rights-based legislations in the history of India. Against this backdrop, the NDA-engineered attack on her Chairpersonship of NAC and identifying her as a person of foreign origin is most unfair. The people of India obviously thought otherwise and voted for her time and again.

Smt. Sonia Gandhi’s vilification was essentially because she empowered people and shattered the hierarchies of caste, class and gender structures in the society. Unlike the present government that has mounted a vindictive attack on Civil Society Organisations and activists, calling them ‘Andolanjivi’, she worked with them to bring peoples’ issues to the table.

So let us look at what Smt. Gandhi as the Chairperson of the UPA and that of the NAC gave the country and what the present BJP regime has made of them. Right to Information Act, 2005 enabled transparency in governments’ functioning. But since BJP came to power in 2014, not a single Central Information Commissioner has been appointed, without citizens going to court. The MGNREGA gave employment guarantee to rural folks. But halfway through the current fiscal, the scheme has run dry of funds and no supplementary budgetary allocations have been forthcoming. Shockingly, MGNREGA also shows a negative net balance of ₹8,686 crore.

Likewise, the Right to Education Act has been diluted by the New Education Policy, 2020, which focuses more on the privatisation of education. We have all witnessed the condition of food security during the ongoing pandemic. Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 has been diluted by all BJP-ruled State governments.

The Forest Rights Act, 2006 sought to preserve the rights and ensure the development of Adivasis. The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013, prohibited tying Dalits to manual scavenging and provided for their rehabilitation. In the interest of equitable distribution of resources and opportunities, the Public Procurement Policy mandated that central government departments and undertakings would procure 20 per cent of their purchases from MSMEs, four per cent of which would have to be run by SC/ST entrepreneurs.

She also sought to strengthen the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 which was adopted and passed as an ordinance in 2014. On the contrary, the BJP government sought to dilute the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocity) Act, only to revert and strengthen it again with another ordinance after six months of protests across the country.

Smt. Gandhi also pushed for the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Reservation in Posts and Services) Bill, 2008 to provide reservations of appointments or posts in Civil Services by direct recruitment and promotion for members of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in establishments. She also pushed for the 117th Constitutional Amendment Bill, 2012 to provide for reservation in matters of promotion, with consequential authority, for members of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.

Again, she rallied across party lines to get the Women’s Reservation Bill, 2021 passed in the Rajya Sabha. I am confident that if the Congress party had an independent majority, greater social and economic change, through legislation, could have been undertaken in the Parliament.

India badly needs strong leaders like her who have kept all liberal secular political and social forces unified in these challenging circumstances. Smt. Gandhi has been a guide and mentor to many Congress workers, including myself, and inspired millions to work towards strengthening social and economic democracy in India as envisaged by our founding fathers.

(The writer is the Maharashtra minister for energy)