'Decoding the alternative vision offered by the Bharat Jodo Yatra The yatra has provided Indians reasons to rethink their traditions of sociality in constitutional terms, away from the mere questions of who governs us.'
Sukla Sen
From: Razi Raziuddin <raz...@hotmail.com>
Date: Tue, Jan 10, 2023, 21:40
Opinion: Decoding the alternative political vision offered by the Bharat Jodo Yatra
The yatra has provided Indians reasons to rethink their traditions of sociality in constitutional terms, away from the mere questions of who governs us.
The
Bharat Jodo Yatra at Yamuna Vihar in East Delhi on January 3. | PTI
The Congress’s Bharat Jodo Yatra seeks to move Indian politics away from being a game of election numbers and nudge it into a more nuanced, deliberative space – a space that aims to recapture core values of citizenship such as social solidarity, collective identity and a sense of plural collegiality.
The 3,500-km yatra from Kanyakumari to Jammu and Kashmir may be regarded as both a pilgrimage and an invitation to participants to reinvent themselves as they encounter people who are unlike them. If democracy demands a politics of theatre, as sociologist Shiv Visvanathan notes, then the yatra seems to be the spectacle designed to enthral the nation. However, what remains to be seen is what kind of actions it will spark and what collective memories it will catalyse.
It is clear that India is in dire need of an alternative politics that will inject meaning into our shared existence. The Constitutional standards of liberty, equality and fraternity are increasingly being subverted by majoritarian politics. The ideal of the secular is being hollowed out. Majoritarianism has created a political framework that seeks to exclude ethical considerations.
What role do minorities play in Indian democracy? How can we safeguard their interests in the absence of proper political representation in the state machinery? Will religious minorities survive the continuous onslaught on their identities? Is there a way out of this mess? The yatra led by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi seems to be pushing India to ask these questions.
The yatra has so far drawn a wide variety of ideas into its fold. It has drawn participants from many walks of life – retired bureaucrats and government functionaries, civil society activists, media personnel, army veterans, politicians, and, above all, enthusiastic ordinary Indians. It has featured multiple life-forms in motion – all bubbling up with joy and blooming.
Despite the deliberate attempt by mainstream media houses and many political elites to claim that it is just another random event, Gandhi’s mohabbat ki dukaan, or shop of love, has captivated India.
If the purpose of the yatra was to boost Rahul Gandhi’s image, that aim seems to have been served. Whether the Congress can capitalise on this goodwill for the 2024 national elections remains to be seen.
But the Bharat Jodo Yatra has a greater imagination – to retrieve the soul of the nation, as one leader argued. Hence, the march must open vistas for minority participation in the public discourse and the plural traditions that define our nationhood.
The yatra has provided Indians reasons to rethink their traditions of sociality in constitutional terms, away from the mere questions of who governs us. It has also reminded us that politics does not end with the elections: it lives in the hearts and minds of citizens, who engage in the everyday politics of nationhood.
As the new year begins, it is high time that we give space to an alternative politics – the politics of the citizenry. We must ensure that the politics of the electorate must live, but not at the cost of the politics of the citizenry. This is the only way India’s marginalised communities will find the courage to reassert their constitutional right to participate fully in the process of shaping our nationhood.
Nizamuddin Ahmad Siddiqui is Assistant Professor at Jindal Global Law School, OP Jindal Global University, Sonipat.
Also read:
Faith, courage and discipline: Conversations with participants in the Bharat Jodo Yatra
Pilgrims and a glimmer of hope: Why the Bharat Jodo Yatra excites the writer in Shashi Deshpande
Walking for truth: Snapshots from a day with the Bharat Jodo Yatra
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/1/9/in-market-of-hate-a-congress-leaders-march-to-unite-india?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=emailREPORTER'S NOTEBOOK
In ‘market of hate’, a Congress leader’s march to ‘unite India’
Experts say the march led by Rahul Gandhi is an effort to revive the electoral fortunes of a party that dominated Indian politics for decades.
Rahul Gandhi addressing supporters in Haryana state's Karnal city [Courtesy: All India Congress Committee]
Gandhi
also raised issues such as inflation and joblessness during the march [Courtesy: All India Congress Committee]
“The kind of response we are seeing is extremely heart-warming,” said Kamal Nath, a former central minister and chief minister of Madhya Pradesh state.
“I have never seen such affection and faith in the eyes of the people in my long political career as I saw during the Madhya Pradesh leg of Rahul Gandhi’s yatra,” he told Al Jazeera.
In Karnal, Satyendra Chaudhry, a farmer, compared the march to the famous Salt March led by India’s independence icon Mahatma Gandhi in 1930.
“This yatra will be a gamechanger,” he told Al Jazeera. People who joined the yatra in Haryana praised Gandhi for raising issues facing common people.
“He is raising the real issues – communal harmony, unemployment and price rise are the issues concerning us,” Yash Shrivastava, who came from Uttar Pradesh to participate in the yatra, told Al Jazeera.
Communal harmony has been a cause of concern since Modi took office in 2014. His government’s legislative agenda, such as the controversial citizenship register, critics say, has targeted Muslims while Hindu far-right groups have increased attacks on minorities, particularly Muslims.
Will this walk achieve its stated objective? We don’t have any parameters to judge.
If we judge by the people’s response, the march can be called successful. But will this translate into votes in the 2024 general elections?
Experts say the party needs to strengthen its organisational weakness to win elections. A senior Congress leader told Al Jazeera the party needs to strike alliances with key regional parties to pose a formidable challenge to Modi.
‘Just a road show’