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Bharat Jodo Yatra and the Rebirth of Rahul Gandhi
It has always been easy to critique Rahul Gandhi. By virtue of being the scion of the political dynasty that has given India three Prime Ministers, he has owed his prominence in Indian politics to the accident of birth rather than personal merit. His uneven, often ineffectual performance over the course of eighteen or so years in politics has not helped matters. Political analysts and cartoonists have had a field day with Rahul Gandhi’s mishaps. The nickname Pappu has been repeatedly invoked by Modi devotees and used to mock the political abilities of the Congress MP. In the wake of successive debacles of the Congress party in two consecutive rounds of general elections (2014 and 2019) very little was expected of him.
Rahul Gandhi seemed well on the way to becoming a political nonentity. Take for instance the stinging rebuke administered by Gardiner Harris (New York Times chief of the South Asia Bureau) in the NDTV show The Big Fight (“Rise of PM Modi, fall of the Gandhis? January 31, 2015) a few months after Narendra Modi’s rise to power: “Rahul is not a politician. He is not good at this job…He doesn’t do anything. He is terrible. He is not a politician…The Congress party is going to die if they continue to promote Rahul as the man who is going to lead because he is going to lead it to its death.” The studio audience reacted to the journalist’s outburst by clapping loudly. Many years have gone by since that TV programme. The Modi-led regime has gone from strength to strength thanks to adroit propaganda and has consolidated its stranglehold on all formerly democratic institutions. Communal (anti-Muslim) hatred propagated by social media and the electronic media has resulted in what could be irreversible radicalization in a wide swathe of the Hindu majority. The persecution of religious minorities particularly the beleaguered Muslim minority proceeds at breakneck speed. The Congress in the meantime has continued its steady decline. Only in two states does the party currently hold the reins of government. Until very recently the judgement of the New York Times journalist and others of his ilk appeared unimpeachable.
Almost overnight it seems a tectonic shift has happened with the Bharat Jodo Yatra, a padyatra or foot march from Kanyakumari to Kashmir, taking on unexpected momentum. The aim of the yatra is “to address rampant unemployment & inflation, the politics of hate and division and the over-centralisation of our political system.” The yatra was launched in Kanyakumari on September 7 and attracted little or no notice at first. October 2 or Gandhi Jayanti became the turning point of sorts for the yatra and for Rahul Gandhi. Images and videos of Rahul Gandhi addressing a rapt Mysuru crowd in the rain on Mahatma Gandhi’s birth anniversary went viral. They drew rapturous applause from journalists and citizens who have borne despairing witness to the vicious, Modi-led anti-Muslim Hindu nationalist state’s constantly intensifying assault on minority rights and rule of law, on civil rights and freedom of expression in short on secular, pluralist democracy. Indeed the convergence between the birth anniversary of the Father of the Nation and the rebirth of Rahul Gandhi is an arresting one. To note this is not to imply the intervention of an occult dimension. It turns out that when the Bharat Jodo Yatra was conceived in May ‘the idea was to “go back to what Mahatma Gandhi would do”‘ (Lahiri, Ishadrita, The Print, 7 October 2022). Thus an association was established between the ethics and politics of Gandhiji and Bharat Jodo Yatra. To speak of the Mahatma and Gandhi Jayanti is to be reminded of the beautiful bhajan “Vaishnava jana toh tene kahiye joh peeda parayi jane re” (a true devotee of Vishnu understands the pain of others). The Bharat Jodo Yatra posts showing Rahul Gandhi mingling with young and old from all walks of life and giving patient and empathetic hearing to narratives of struggle could not be more in keeping with the message of the bhajan.
Before Bharat Jodo Yatra had completed the first month of its arduous schedule, the unforeseen had taken place. All along the worst nightmare of the Hindutva forces has been the emergence of a charismatic and dedicated leader in the political opposition. As Rahul Gandhi strides (or sprints) forward to keep his tryst with Nehruvian and Gandhian ideals of pluralist, democratic India, he is rapidly evolving into the kind of leader who is feared by the Sangh Parivar. His performance has received unstinting praise (“Right from the beginning of the Yatra, Rahul Gandhi is showing enormous physical and emotional stamina laced with a degree of honesty conveying a message of love”) even when the same analyst has expressed scepticism as to Bharat Jodo’s impact on the neoliberal politics and electoral performance of the Congress (Shivasundar, Sabrang India, 3 October 2022). Only massive desertion of the BJP by voters can improve the electoral fortunes of the Congress–to state the obvious. Still without succumbing to magical thinking, it is easy to start asking if the improbable can happen a second time.
Rahul Gandhi of Bharat Jodo has done away with the soft Hindutva that has been apparent in recent years in the publicity given exclusively to visits paid to Hindu temples by Congress leaders. In the course of the yatra Rahul Gandhi has visited places of worship identified with three of the religions of India–Christianity, Hinduism, Islam–and thereby sent an important message to the hounded and beleaguered religious minorities. The concomitant affirmation of secular and pluralist democracy is equally significant. In the course of the yatra, the Congress leader has truly come into his own. He has found the language and the medium for mounting a challenge to the rabidly communal Hindutva forces. Rahul Gandhi’s condemnation of the divisiveness of the RSS and BJP and their politics of hatred has been unremitting and unsparing. It is the drumbeat that accompanies his march. By affirming an idea of India based on peace, love and equality and the harmonious coexistence of diverse groups, Rahul Gandhi has succeeded in reinstating the identification of the Congress with secular, pluralist democracy.
Bharat Jodo originates in the arena of electoral politics. The yatra is organized by a political entity, the Indian National Congress, and the leading participants are Congress politicians. All the same Bharat Jodo is developing into the natural successor of the great civil society movements that blossomed in recent years: the protests against the anti-Muslim and anti-constitutional Citizenship Amendment Act of 2019 and related proposals for a National Registry of Citizens and the year-long farmers protests against the anti-farmer, corporate-friendly farm laws of 2020. Both movements succeeded in recruiting civil society participation that went well beyond their immediate base, and they received international plaudits and attention that shed unflattering light on the Modi-led regime. In one of his Bharat Jodo posts Rahul Gandhi expressed his admiration for the farmers movement and acknowledged his indebtedness to the latter. In turn when the farmers protests were in progress (November 20-December 21) some of the members spoke of being inspired by the Shaheen Bagh dharna. The chain of causation and the connections are there for all to see. The format of the yatra allows free mingling between the political leadership and citizens who want to show their support or voice their grievances. Because Bharat Jodo is a foot march in the blistering heat, the overall effort includes the deliberate espousal of suffering. This was brought out by Rahul Gandhi in his press conference in Karnataka. One is reminded that the farmers kept year-long vigil and defied the worst that the changing seasons could inflict on them, and that the Shaheen Bagh dharna began and continued in the coldest winter the capital had seen in decades. The efflorescence of creative, artistic and performative energy that went hand in hand with the civil society protests is becoming evident in Bharat Jodo as well.
The insightful, ever reliable analyst Asim Ali has called Bharat Jodo the biggest mass outreach program of the Congress in at least three decades (The Telegraph, 9 October 2022). In all probability the fortunes of the yatra will be decisive in determining whether the Congress–on its own or as part of a coalition–will stand a fighting chance in General Elections 2024. As huge crowds gather along the Bharat Jodo route, as the message of love and unity, of unwavering affirmation of secular, pluralist democracy emanate from the yatra winding its way through India, as delightful moments of laughter and camaraderie are brought out, it is easy to delude oneself into believing in the imminent collapse of the towering edifice of anti-Muslim bigotry and anti-minority hatred erected by the Sangh Parivar. To thus underestimate the hold of the destructive forces is to fall into a dangerous trap.
On Gandhi Jayanti two processions were taken out in Udupi, Karnataka (Bhat, Prajwal, The News Minute, 3 October 2022). The smaller of the two had participants from different religions. The procession affirmed the ideal of peaceful coexistence of diverse religions by visiting a temple, a mosque and a church and concluding at Gandhi Bhavan. The second of the two processions outnumbered the first by a factor of fifty or so. Participants chanted slogans of hatred, made inflammatory speeches, brandished weapons and called for the establishment of Hindu Rashtra. The contrast between the two Gandhi Jayanti processions is a rough measure of Hindutva ideology’s toxic hold and of the extent to which the Hindu majority has been radicalized. Can Bharat Jodo Yatra and allied forces surmount the seemingly insurmountable? This much is clear at this time–that the fortunes of the yatra will be followed with anguish, with hope and fear, by those who believe that minority rights and civil rights should be protected, that religious minorities should not be persecuted, that dissent should not be criminalized, that wealth should not be concentrated in the hands of the favored billionaires of the regime in power, in short that the elected government of the day should uphold the values of secular, pluralist democracy.
(Radha Surya is a freelance writer. Courtesy: Countercurrents.org.)
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Protesting Shrinking Freedoms, Walking for Hope: What I Saw on the Bharat Jodo Yatra
A pilgrimage, a carnival, a roadshow, a celebration, a place to make new friends and to meet people from all over the country. The Congress party’s 3,500-km Bharat Jodo Yatra from Kanyakumari to Jammu and Kashmir is all this and more.
I walked with the Yatra in Karnataka for a day-and-a-half, on October 9 and October 10, along with five friends. When we joined them, the yatris had been walking for 32 days already. The total journey is expected to take about 150 days.
The walk – averaging 23 km a day – was a time to experience the landscape, the people, the villages and towns of India. It gave me time to think. The mood was uniformly upbeat.
For me, joining the Yatra was a personal protest against the state of the nation today, and a chance to show solidarity with someone standing up against it, especially the hate and divisiveness. It was also a protest against the shrinking of our freedoms. I guess there comes a time we must each stand up and be counted.
The organisation of the Yatra, which is being led by Rahul Gandhi, is a massive exercise in logistical planning. From planning the route, to locating the places where the containers in which the participants sleep can be parked in the night, to places for eating and resting during the day; from putting up hoardings and taking them down and moving them ahead; from providing water and refreshments (fruit, dry coconut with jaggery); from arranging breakfast and lunch sites for the yatris on the way; from a green truck following the yatra picking up (almost) all the discarded plastic waste – all this must have taken enormous planning.
Mix this up with the masses of people thronging the roads or walking in the yatra for a little while, the security vehicles, ambulances, media truck, security personnel and the local police – and you could have a mobile, logistical nightmare. But it all worked well and very smoothly.
The yatris themselves were strung out over a distance of 2 km to 3 km – some of them preferring to start early and walk at a slower pace than walk with the main convoy where Rahul Gandhi sets a brisk pace that few are able to keep up with. I spoke to some of them during my time with the yatra. Not all are Congress party members.
On Sunday morning, when we reached the village of KB Cross in Tumkur district from where the yatra was to begin that day, we were met by a group of yatris walking in advance. They greeted us with warm smiles.
I met Jamina Khatum from Davanagere district who was here to express solidarity with the ideas that the Congress party stands for. She does not support the party, she said, but the issues they raise through this yatra – against hate and divisiveness – are valid. She works with beedi workers and was particularly concerned about their situation today with wage stagnation and runaway inflation. She, too, was walking for a day-and-a-half.
Walking through Karnataka was Dr Vanitha, a gynaecologist from Bangalore, who quit her government job three years ago to become a Congress worker. That was just before the Covid pandemic struck, she said, and being with the party allowed her to help people during that time. She said she was enjoying her walk with the yatra because it allowed her to meet and talk to many people. At the end of each day, she stayed in the home of someone in the village where the yatra stopped for the night.
Walking from Pochkatte on Monday, I overtook Ratna Painkra who is from Jashpur in Chhattisgarh. We discovered some mutual friends in Pathalgaon, She was limping a bit and urged me not to wait for her as her knee was troubling her and she would take time to reach the site of the morning halt.
The prize for gamely carrying on, however, went to Chandy Oommen who was doing the yatra barefoot, limping a lot, but carrying on singing songs and shouting slogans and being unfailingly cheerful.
Two other young yatris I walked with were Rahul Rajbhar and Brajesh Arya. Both were from Uttar Pradesh and were Congress workers. They said that they believe that the religious divide in the country is very harmful and that we need to take a stand against it. They said the yatra had received an overwhelming public response in Tamil Nadu and Kerala but it was less enthusiastic in Karnataka.
Rajbhar said he was handicapped by not knowing Kannada and so was unable to seek the views of the people on the street about the yatra and the issues being raised. He said that he felt strongly that the Constitution of India is worth fighting for but added that this battle to protect it will be a long haul.
Rahul Gandhi himself was, unfortunately, hemmed in by a security ring. Unfortunate but necessary, I think, given the crowds of people wanting to see him, to talk to him, to take selfies with him. The police held a rope all around to keep bystanders from pressing in.
On Tuesday, a group of young men ran alongside the security ring for quite a while holding aloft a portrait of Ambedkar. “Rahul Bhaiyya, Rahul Bhaiyya,” they shouted, wanting him to sign the picture for them. They jogged through the mud on the side of the road, trying to keep up with him.
All along the route, there were various groups wanting to speak to Gandhi and explain their concerns and problems – forest rights activists, members of the transgender community, people working with farmers. Some were allowed to walk part of the way with him inside the security ring so they could talk to him for a while.
Our group had an opportunity to walk with him too, and we shared our concerns about public health: universal access to public health care; nutrition support; social security.
During the morning and afternoon walks, there were eight to ten such interactions, apart from the longer meetings during the lunch break with various groups.
The security ring was preceded by the media van and a jammer and the pace was very brisk. Ahead of this main group, there was a carnival-like atmosphere. People lined the route in welcome and curiosity, some holding flags, some with portraits of Ambedkar. I came across at least four groups of dancers and drummers, waiting in welcome. Another group put on an exhibition of paintings inspired by the spirit of the Yatra.
After the morning walk (usually of three and a half hours or so), the group halted until the late afternoon. Two large areas were marked out: the yatris walking the length of the country had a separate area where they eat and rest (folding cots were put out in a large tent and several were asleep on mattresses on the ground). The adjacent area was for others – members of civil society who had registered could obtain a pass to enter this area where lunch was served and chairs laid out to enable participants to sit and talk.
We met a group protesting the New Education Policy and another that represented the concerns of the transgender community. In this area were also several senior Congress leaders listening to issues raised by civil society groups. My colleagues and I had prepared a policy brief on public health priorities, and we spoke to several of them about it, sharing a copy with them. I was impressed to see them actually reading the document and asking questions about it.
Walking with a large group of people with a shared purpose made me feel the strength in numbers. I came away with a deep respect for the yatris: walking across the length of the country is no mean feat. Each of the yatris I met exuded joy and was welcoming of us short-distance fellow travellers.
The tagline for the yatra asks: “Saath hamara kaun chalega?” Who will walk with us? I did, and I hope many more will, too.
(Ramani Atkuri is a public health physician who has worked extensively with rural and tribal communities in central India. Courtesy: Scroll.in.)
