From the windy shores of Kanniyakumari to the snow-covered roads of the Kashmir Valley, through the lashing rains in Karnataka and biting cold in New Delhi, the Bharat Jodo Yatra has seen it all.
From 7 September, 2022, when the yatra was kickstarted by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and DMK Chief MK Stalin, till 30 January, when it marked its conclusion, Bharat Jodo Yatra and the Indian National Congress have seen many highs and lows — and a lot more in between.
The passionately defended walkathon of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi culminated with the unfurling of the national flag at Srinagar’s Lal Chowk on Sunday. The finale of Bharat Jodo yatra, however, was held on Monday, 30 January, with a rally amid heavy snowfall in Srinagar.
Undaunted, the Congress put up a display of Opposition unity, albeit with much lesser numbers than anticipated, with leaders of nine Opposition parties — DMK, National Conference, People’s Democratic Party, Communist Party of India, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, among others — participating in the rally.
In his final public address of the Bharat Jodo Yatra, Rahul Gandhi chose to speak of the pain that violence leaves behind with anecdotes from his life.
It was in keeping with the party’s messaging of what the Bharat Jodo Yatra attempted to achieve — a movement to unite the country against hate.
“People who create violence, like (Narendra) Modi ji, (Amit) Shah ji, Ajit Doval and those from the RSS, will never understand this pain. I do. I understand the pain that children of soldiers who were killed in Pulwama feel. I understand because I went through that pain. When people of Kashmir die, I understand the pain in their hearts. I understand what one goes through when that phone call comes,” Rahul Gandhi said, referring to the emotions he felt when he received phone calls about the assassinations of his grandmother Indira Gandhi and father Rajiv Gandhi, both former prime ministers.
The yatra as ‘penance’
Over the span of 135 days of the Bharat Jodo Yatra, the yatris spent 116 days walking through 12 states and two Union territories with breaks in between.
Despite many in Congress as well as its strategists suggesting a bus tour to save resources and cover more places, Rahul Gandhi insisted on a padayatra — a walkathon.
Having referred to the yatra as a “penance”, Rahul Gandhi, in his address on Monday, recalled humbling experiences during the long trek across the country.
The success of the yatra itself, however, depends on the yardstick one would apply to assess it.
If success would mean that Bharat Jodo Yatra achieved its primary goal of walking the length of the country from Kanniyakumari to Kashmir, it has — and hence is a success.
If success means to compel mainstream media to talk about the Congress and the issues its leaders want to raise, the Bharat Jodo Yatra achieved that.
If the purpose was to go beyond conventional platforms to get the Congress’ voice across to the people directly, the yatra seems to have achieved that goal as well.
Especially when Congress insists that neither the media nor Parliament has allowed Opposition voices to be heard under the current BJP regime.
RSS & BJP are attacking the institutional framework of our country.
What you see in different parts of the country is the result of this assault.
When we talk in Parliament, they don’t let us speak; being a member of Loksabha means nothing today.
: @RahulGandhi Ji pic.twitter.com/E8VWkpvTP1
— Congress (@INCIndia) January 29, 2023
If the intent of the yatra was to change the public perception about Rahul Gandhi, the party has been able to achieve that to a great extent. Rahul Gandhi himself, perhaps for the first time and in as many words, stated that crores of rupees have been spent over the years to defame him.
Those who joined Bharat Jodo Yatra, or watched it from afar, saw a Rahul Gandhi who walked despite blisters and an aching knee — listening to people’s woes, walking by their side, holding their hands, sharing kisses, hugs and chocolates, carrying children in his arms, tying his mother’s shoelace, and being playful with his younger sister Priyanka Gandhi.
Altering public perception
In his interaction with various groups in every leg of the Bharat Jodo Yatra, in his freewheeling interviews to youtubers, he laid bare the human side to the politician that he was. He also addressed over a dozen press conferences and made repeated references to the politics of hate, crony capitalism, unemployment and price rise throughout the yatra.
The Bharat Jodo Yatra was a successful exercise in public perception management for Rahul Gandhi and Congress as a whole.
With a media team focused on creating content and capturing the most moving moments of raw emotion — whether it was between people and Rahul Gandhi during the walk or between members of the Gandhi family — the PR team of the Congress aced a game that the BJP has been a master of so far.
The Congress, however, insists that Bharat Jodo Yatra was not a political exercise.
What yatra did not achieve
Given the amount of resources, time and energy spent on the yatra, lack of political maneuverings is more of a squandered opportunity. Especially when Congress is attempting to pitch itself as the fulcrum of a united Opposition against the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and has competition from parties like Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) and K Chandrashekar Rao’s BRS.
From meeting JD(S) supremo and former prime minister HD Deve Gowda when in Karnataka to going to Uttar Pradesh in person when Samajwadi Party supremo Malayam Singh Yadav passed away, Rahul Gandhi’s posturing could have helped Congress’ perception battle. No such efforts were made.
But the fact remains that while 21 “like-minded” parties were invited to be part of the concluding ceremony of Bharat Jodo Yatra, less than 10 parties extended solidarity.
Bharat Jodo Yatra and the crowds it mobilised perhaps have not managed to instill confidence in Opposition parties that the Congress is still the only potent option to lead fight against the BJP.
If the yatra’s intent was to convince citizens to see Rahul Gandhi as an alternative to Narendra Modi, it may have been unsuccessful.
The yatra may have altered public perception of Rahul Gandhi, but the conversation is nowhere close to ‘”Rahul Gandhi versus Narendra Modi” as a duel of equals. Narendra Modi still remains the most popular leader in the country.
The enhanced bickering in Kerala Congress and the rout the Congress faced in the Munugode bypoll, a public display of a divided house in Telangana Congress — all barely weeks after Bharat Jodo Yatra crossed those respective states — were shining examples of how the yatra did little to bridge the gap within its own ranks.
While the party insisted that the yatra enthused cadres and grassroots-level workers, it did little to address infighting within the party, opening up the Congress to criticism by the BJP that it should work on uniting the party first before talking of uniting the country.
Despite dozens of controversies, from Rahul Gandhi’s T-Shirts to his beard, his meeting with a controversial Catholic priest, to the way he performed aarti, Bharat Jodo Yatra continued with a steely resolve.
The thousands of common citizens joining the walk, the participation of activists, artists, economists, academics, bureaucrats, judges, writers, sportspersons and civil society movement leaders came as a huge endorsement.
If anything, Bharat Jodo Yatra is only the first, much-needed step in the Congress’ revival plans for itself as a party internally and as the primary Opposition in the country.
From maintaining the momentum it has built up to utilising the goodwill it has earned from multiple political and non-political quarters, the Congress’ work towards sustaining its mass movement has only now begun.
