A man with a full-grown beard wearing a shirt and a pant with the image of a non serious politician foreshadowing him has come out of it. He is walking the length of the country for communal harmony, peace, and eradication of poverty and income inequality. It seems like a story out of a history book, but it is happening now. Rahul Gandhi is doing this with true grit and determination, and common people are walking with him in huge numbers, clearly showing their support for this cause. It is the year of Rahul Gandhi 2.0, who speaks with his mind and shuts up many of his critics. He is here to stay and foil the BJP-RSS’ plans.
Bharat Jodo Yatra commenced on September 7th, 2022, from Kanyakumari and will end in Kashmir with 109 days of walking across India. Rahul Gandhi is sending out a message to the masses that had written him off after a string of electoral defeats that he is here to stay and fight for the democracy of this country with all that he has.
With media representation of him having been strongly biased, he has now given the opportunity to the common people of India to decide his image of him. The Indian National Congress has been struggling to regain the foothold that is being slowly decimated by the Bhartiya Janta Party when they formed the government in 2014.
This Yatra goes beyond the purpose of an electoral win in the upcoming general elections in 2024. Still, it is to save the very fabric of India, its secularism, brotherhood, and a common purpose of solving the problems in India, which are vastly ignored by the government and remain burried behind misleading statistics.
The Opposition as a united front under the umbrella of Congress is slowly gaining traction, and whatever trajectory this Yatra takes, it is nothing short of revolutionary.
This Yatra seeks the answer for rising prices, inflation, growing unemployment, divisive politics of hate and centralization of power in the Central Government. It is open to all citizens of India.
The Congress launched this initiative on August 23rd 2022, in its headquarters with its website, logo, and slogans. The Yatra began at Kanyakumari with Rahul Gandhi and M.K.Stalin officially inaugurating it.
The fact that a simple thing as walking is going to ruffle so many feathers even now, as it did during Independence is amazing to witness.
Many slogans like ‘Samvidhan Bachao’ and ‘Mile Kadam Jude Vatan’ have become immensely popular. Many noted celebrities and politicians became a part of this revolutionary Yatra, like Kamal Hassan, Raghuram Rajan former governor of the Reserve Bank Of India, Swara Bhasker, veteran actor Amol Palekar, boxer Vijendra Singh, actor Sushant Singh, activist Medha Patkar, and many others.
The massing of the general public in this Yatra shows the actual impact it is having. Farmers, women, and middle-class people are majorly part of this. With their woes, and difficulties they face, they are getting their voice heard, and the fact that someone is listening to the actual issues is what the people need.
There are daily vlogs, travelogues, and tete-a-tete with experts from all backgrounds to know what steps the present government has to take to start eradicating these problems is a direct hint that the general public knows that work is not being done.
Division in the name of religion can only take you to a point after which the facade will not stay long. It will rip at its seams, and the people will realize what our country needs, a secular government, schemes to eradicate income inequality, remove poverty, and ensure that farmers can sell their produce at a profit and safety of women. That is what Congress aims to achieve with this yatra.
Whatever the repercussions of this Yatra, the Indian National Congress has begun to revolutionize their party by going to the grassroots level and instilling the belief in the people that Congress is present. The loyal supporters of the party can breathe fresh air and hope that things are changing for the good.
One plain reason this Yatra is revolutionary is that the public comes out in the open and on foot to save the very fabric of being a Republic that in itself is a revolution.
Although it has been mired with controversies with the Bhartiya Janta Party trying to change its narrative by giving it the name of ‘Parivar Bachao’ Yatra and even tweeting fake news that the girl who had raised the slogans of Pakistan Zindabad at an anti-CAA protest was hugging Rahul Gandhi, this news has turned out to be false.
The power of social media is being leveraged correctly by Congress, by a robust team who are behind the scenes, documenting the Yatra, conversions of Rahul Gandhi with the likes of Raghuram Rajan have garnered over 1 million views on YouTube where they discussed how to ensure maximum selling price for farmers, saving small scale industries which have fallen prey owing to the pandemic and demonitization.
It is a question to ponder whether this will lead to an actual change by shifting the power in the upcoming elections. That is something hard to predict at this juncture.
In the Maharashtra leg of the Yatra, the state government ensured full cooperation, and the yatris spoke with the people and cleaned the grounds as well, which is remarkable. Jairam Ramesh has quoted, “Bharat Jodo Yatra is a revolutionary movement for national politics as well as the party and not an event, and converting it into electoral success will take a while”.
Participating in the Bharat Jodo Yatra made it evident that our nation’s citizens firmly believe in our Constitution. However, to preserve our Republic, we must walk this difficult path, fight against crony capitalists and bigots, and eradicate the part of our culture that thrives on bigotry and polarizing politics.
With the Yatra reaching Delhi and on towards Kashmir, one can hope it will be a beacon of hope and light for Indian democracy.
Congress is the only party that can fight this communal madness, and Bharat Jodo Yatra is a significant step towards that goal. It should not become a mere event but a movement after it concludes.
Rahul Gandhi’s ideological purity and his firm stand against all the odds in the face of BJP and their entire media machinery is something to admire and to get inspiration from. Defeat after defeat, attack after attack but he is not giving up the fight for a peaceful progressive India with his spine straight and intact.
Bharat Jodo Yatra is writing a history chapter for our future generations and rather a glorious one which would tell the people that when the odds were against the unity of India one more Gandhi stood up and walked the talk to bring the nation together back on the right track.
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