These are assets of the party, gathered since the time of Indira Gandhi. Every piece probably represents a gesture, an emotion expressed by an individual or institution, national or international, towards the Congress party and is therefore part of its history.Auctioning them away is like auctioning away the history of the party for ten pieces of silver. People may have saved money, five, ten rupees to buy them for their leaders.Though the whole affair turned out to be a damp squib, the Congress grapevine now has it that the unsold items will be sent to the state headquarters for the PCCs to dispose them off.

Anyone familiar with the political system knows that Sonia Gandhi will not have difficulty in raising funds, if that is the objective of the exercise. It is not as if the sale was going to generate enough money to finance the forthcoming assemblypolls, though that would not make it any more justifiable. The auction was going to mop up Rs 2.5 lakh.

If the idea was to demonstrate that a cash-starved Congress is now taking economy measures, it would have been more effective to have shut down the airconditioners in the AICC office for a month.

If the party does not have a place to keep these souvenirs, and that is surely a lame excuse, it could have donated them to one of the museums in Delhi or in the state capitals. The party has more more than a dozen bungalows in the Capital in the name of its front organisations or various trusts named after its leaders. If nothing else, there is the national museum and another was opened a few years ago in the Red Fort highlighting the events from 1857 to the present.

The Teen Murti House today is also a museum of Jawaharlal Nehru's belongings, and 1, Safdarjung Road of Indira Gandhi's. But there are also things that these leaders and their successors were given in their capacity as Congress chiefs, thingswhich have been gathering dust or locked up in stores.

In fact, the Congress should have thought of creating its own museum, given its 113-year history and rich legacy of the freedom struggle. It would have inspired future generations of Congressmen and women and the memorabilia would have found a natural place there. The party could have done this to celebrate 50 years of independence. As it is, the Congress did very little of import to mark the golden jubilee celebrations of the country's freedom. The BJP upstaged the party when L.K. Advani undertook a `Swarna Jayanti Rathyatra' last year through the country, adopting the Congress leaders of the freedom movement as their leaders.

The Congress has a cavalier attitude towards its own legacy. Take for instance the building at 7, Jantar Mantar Road, which at one time housed the Congress headquarters. All the valuable papers of the previous fifty years were transferred there from Allahabad after independence, and are lying there even today in the librarywhich is going to seed.

Over the years the Congress made half hearted attempts to get the building back. The party could have acquired it after the Supreme Court ruling recognising the Indira Congress as the real Congress in the early seventies, but by then Indira Gandhi was firmly in the saddle and did not consider it important enough to push for it. The building, which was purchased as evacuee property but was not registered in the name of the Congress party, went to the Congress(O) after the 1969 split.

Taken over by unauthorised occupants and housing the Janata Dal office today, its spit-covered walls,broken steps, and its dilapidated look are hardly a memorial to Nehru or U.N. Dhebar who used to sit there, or to the momentous decisions that came out of there.

History creates a sense of belonging in a family, community, party and no nation can afford to forget it.Its future actions are determined by it past.Even individuals do not throw away or sell the mementos given to them which arereminiscent of important occasions because, if nothing else, they instil a sense of pride in the family. The Congress auction struck a jarring political note. Khushabhau Thakre may get away with the sale of all the shawls presented to him when he became BJP president, but this will be more difficult for Sonia Gandhi, given her Italian ancestry. Congressmen are already beginning to murmur that she does not care about these things because she is not an Indian. Thakre may be able to sell things given to him but he too won't be able to auction mementos given to, say, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya. If he does so, it will be in bad taste.

So far Sonia Gandhi has moved with great restraint, mindful of people's sentiments. Whoever suggested the idea did her a great disservice. But ultimately, the decision is hers.

This episode underscores the party's mindset, its downfall. It highlights how over a period of time the Congress has come to view everything in crass commercial terms and has no space even for relationships.The auction marks a clear break between the Congress of yesteryears and the Congress of today.It also shows that the ``baba log" are back in the party's decision-making setup.