That India and Pakistan aren’t the best of chums is a truth widely known. Naturally, this hostility is a rich source of capital for politicians to squander.

In Pakistan, the army has bloated into an obscene blob, mostly by generals brandishing the threat of India. In India, the Pakistan bogey has frequently been used by civilian politicians.

Over the past two decades, Indo-Pak cricket has been the frequent belting boy of Indian politicians looking to harvest votes from jingoism. This has mostly been the preserve of the Right wing, with the Shiva Sena and the Bharatiya Janata Party frequently raging against the game. But now even the Congress has rushed in. The Himachal Pradesh Congress Committee has opposed a T20 World Cup match scheduled to be held in Dharamshala on March 19.

Congress gets into the act

“Congress supports the demand of families of martyred soldiers and general public and calls for shifting of match from Dharamshala stadium,” Himachal Pradesh Congress president Sukvinder Singh Sukhu was quoted as saying in the Times of India on Monday. Sukhu’s political target was Anurag Thakur, president of the state cricket association and a BJP MP.

It is understandable if this evokes some schadenfreude at Anurag Thakur’s predicament. After all, the BJP is past master at both politicising the sport of cricket as well as using the “what about our soldiers” argument to demand that cricket ties between the countries be halted.

For his part, Thakur was brazen, ignoring his own party’s record and complaining about the politicisation of cricket.

Of course, Thakur can be brazen because there is little chance of the BJP’s positioning as India’s most jingoistic major party going away. As everyone knows, Indo-Pak cricket bears little correlation with India’s security situation. In fact, other than cricket, India has continued to happily play Pakistan in every other sport.

Neither here nor there

What is most intriguing here is the Congress’ flirtations with this sort of Right wing jingoism. It's a good example of the complete lack of direction of Congress policy.

Another instance was visible just a fortnight ago, when party vice president Rahul Gandhi rushed to Jawaharlal Nehru University to express support for the students charged with sedition. This was an admirable position to take in favour of free speech. But no sooner had the BJP applied the slightest bit of pressure than the Congress backed down on it. Gandhi has not been heard on the issue since.

Long history of waywardness

In many ways, ideological waywardness is not new to the Congress. Almost since it was founded more than a century ago, the party has been a big tent, giving shelter to Right, Left, liberal and all manners of beliefs in between. Till the 1980s, there was probably only one defining feature of the Congress: the fact that it was dominated by the upper castes.

But then the Mandal-Mandir phenomena changed Indian politics. The country's polity fractured on the basis of reservations in education and government jobs for backward castes as well as the BJP's corrosive campaign that resulted in the demolition of the Babri Masjid. As the BJP’s stock rose on the basis of Hindutva, regional parties grew across the states on the back of various Backward and Dalit caste coalitions. The Congress, which once stood for everything, now suddenly stood for nothing. Since 1991, it has seen a steady erosion of its vote share, with only 19% of Indian voters opting for the Congress in 2014 – a hard fall for a party that once claimed to represent the Indian nation itself.

Ideology or bust

Even now, though, it seems the Congress hasn’t woken up to reality. It’s still trying to be all things to all voters – and falling hard between two stools. If the Congress wants to use jingoism to become a Right-wing party, then it should go for it wholeheartedly and try and dislodge the BJP from its perch. This isn’t as outlandish an idea as it seems, given, for instance, the grey role the Congress played in movements such as the Babri Masjid controversy.

Of course, the Congress could just as easily rediscover its own rich history of Nehruvianiasm to stay the course on secularism and steer clear of the politics of vituperative identity. After all, Hindutva is hardly a necessary policy position for parties seeking to win an election.

Either way, the Congress needs to choose. Being an ideological grab-bag was fine earlier. With the political marketplace open and up for grabs, the party will have to position itself clearly to its voters. This sort of wishy-washiness won't take it much further.