On the 7th of September, the Congress party started one of their most ambitious campaigns till date. Led by their former chief and MP Rahul Gandhi, the party launched its mega plan to have workers walk from Kanyakumari, the southernmost tip of the country to Srinagar in the North, covering 3500 km in 12 states over 150 days. The message was simple- to expose the BJP government's divisive policy with the countering slogan of - Bharat Jodo or Uniting India. Till now they're only in the second state, but already it's generating a lot of attention- from whether their accommodations and clothes are modest enough to the people that are meeting them along the way. The key question to consider is-will it hurt the Modi government at all?
The idea of padyatra as a form of political express really started with Mahatma Gandhi in 1930. Bapu launched the Dandi March as part of his larger civil disobedience movement against the British. As our history books have taught us, Gandhi asked why the British had banned Indians from locally producing salt, forcing them instead to buy the imported variety that was heavily taxed and expensive. It was an issue that was festering for years, and when Gandhi decided to walk from his Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad to the coast in Dandi to make the salt, it set the ball rolling on a greater movement against the British.
Political researcher and columnist Asim Ali joined Sunetra to explain how the crowds that the Mahatma drew with his walk and mingling with masses, inspired all the other padyatras that followed. He also explained some of the intrinsic factors that the Dandi March had which contributed to its success. ``Gandhi showed that for this sort of political mobilisation to succeed - message and medium need to be in sync. You need two things-one, you need a big message and two, you need a reason as to why you’re choosing this medium as opposed to others,'' said Ali.
The next big padyatra was the one by Janata Party leader Chandrashekhar in 1983 to campaign against the Indira Gandhi government. He too started from Kanyakumari but he took a much longer route, covering more than 4000 kilometres, gathering crowds along the way. The impact wasn't very obvious because other factors like Indira Gandhi's assassination soon overtook events, but it's still remembered as the last, most ambitious on-foot campaign, and even Prime Minister Modi paid tributes to his efforts recently.
The efforts of BJP veteran LK Advani are very strongly embedded in our memory but the key question is what is the end gain out of such large-scale efforts. ``The yatra that Advani Ji undertook and the huge response it received from people, it should have opened the eyes of Congres and others that this is an issue that is at the very heart of Hindu aspirations,'' said his former aide and activist Sudheendra Kulkarni.
Listen to First Voice, Last Word to understand how the Bharat Jodo measures up to these earlier efforts.
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