How Bharat Jodo Yatra was not a mere walk across the nation. An extract
G.N. Devy
At a time when the Indian rupee had further taken a tumble, the unseasonal rains had wreaked havoc on standing crops, the Bilkis Bano case convicts had appeared on the board at the Supreme Court, the country had slid down several spaces in a global hunger report, the Congress presidential elections had come to a boiling point and the Bharat Jodo Yatra had seen a maximum turnout in an area where it least expected to have mass support, most television channels were occupied discussing the fight over mad dogs versus angry citizens. As a fond dog lover, who has had some of the happiest moments in being with dogs, I fully agree with the argument that their care—pet or stray—is our responsibility. However, for TV channels to dedicate so much time to this discussion when even more critical issues face the nation is either unknowingly or by design a distraction. That many channels sought to choose to distract the nation is a telling comment on the condition of the Indian media-either pet or stray.
It is unnecessary to openly articulate that electronic media has become a solid wall standing between citizens and the government, blocking information that it is expected to convey to citizens. We no longer have any reliable and credible way of knowing the TRPs of different channels, but anecdotal accounts indicate clearly that most people who used to watch TV news channels have switched to other ways of getting news and information. Are print media houses any different? The answer is a resounding no. It is only the small-circulation papers, non-corporate productions, that are, if at all, spreading ink on paper to serve the age-old purpose for which newspapers came into existence.
It is also no longer breaking news that not just the media, but most other pillars of democracy too have come crumbling down during the years that the present regime has governed India. This includes not just the institutions that work for, work with and work at the government. It includes the party system itself, the absolutely non-negotiable backbone of Indian democracy. The way the Bhartiya Janata Party has gone out seeking elected representatives in auction or seduction and through intimidation and fear-mongering shows how little it cares for the spirit of the Constitution, which provides for elected representatives to voice citizens’ concerns and interests.
Once formed and after the ritual of elections is over, most governments normally tend to forget that they are there to work for the people and the nation. What is worse is that people themselves give up on their right to be represented as soon as the ritual of elections is over. The five-year period between two elections is normally seen by them as the period of their ‘civil holidays’. Though these are harsh words, self-blinded citizens and deliberately deaf representatives together have made a mockery of the spirit of the Constitution. India has arrived at this situation, and the means of restoring the spirit of true democracy and the spirit of the Constitution appear to have been sent into a coma during the present regime.
The Bharat Jodo Yatra started waking people up from this coma-like state. Though the media tried its utmost to play it down, thousands and thousands were joining the Yatra voluntarily every day. When it commenced its long march, most predictions were unfavourable, even in circles that did not subscribe to the BJP ideology. But, every soon, the Yatra had gathered great moral capital. People realized that Rahul Gandhi was not what the image-manufacturing machinery of the BJP had made him out to be. At every step of the walk, he came through as an extremely perceptive and yet very humane person, full of care for everyone. A child can climb up on his shoulders and feel comfortable there; an old woman can hold his hand and walk with him in dignity; girls can go up close to him and feel the affection of an elder brother. He has acquired through this entirely public spectacle an image that no amount of propaganda can bring to anyone else. Whether the media and the etherized followers of the right-wing ideology admit it or not, today Rahul Gandhi has become the largest persona, the most spectacular presence in India’s public space. The moral capital that the Yatra generated was deepened by the aesthetics of the Yatra, its optics, its grace and its atmosphere of no hatred.
I saw that a large number of people joining the Yatra consisted of students, workers and farmers. The largest numbers were of the Other Backward Classes (OBCs). Besides, civil society activists who had in the past detested going with the Congress, and writers, artists, singers and filmmakers were participating in the Yatra with unprecedented enthusiasm. The Yatra had generated social capital too. The most significant impact was seen among the Congress party karyakartas. For year together, they had been asking for opportunities to converse with the national leadership. The Yatra allowed them space to rub shoulders with the upper echelons of the Congress party. Their morale was elevated as never before. All of this generated some political heft as well. The moral, aesthetic, social and political capital gathered and brought together by the Yatra was an indication of the seismic shift that the Indian political arena is going through.
Rahul Gandhi was frank and articulate throughout the Yatra. He made it clear again and again that the Yatra had nothing to do with the coming state elections. He repeatedly described it as a ‘tapasya’—a pilgrimage for introspection and self-searching. He also described it as a journey to know India intimately. His companions in the Yatra, too did not talk politics, but rather of taking politics to a higher plane. They have collectively shaped and are shaping a new political idiom. It is very far from the language of politics that is marooned in communalism, divisive, rhetoric and innuendoes that constantly go back to the Partition of India and the birth of Pakistan. The discourse of the yatris was filled with metaphors of love, concern, compassion, innocence and self-search.
BHARAT JODO YATRA: RECLAIMING INDIA’S SOUL
Pushparaj Deshpande and Ruchira Chaturvedi
HarperCollins, Pg 301, Rs 499