Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Jan 30: The former Congress president Rahul Gandhi-led five months long “Bharat Jodo Yatra” culminated on Monday in Srinagar with a show of Opposition strength with leaders of several national and regional parties braving heavy snowfall and bone-chilling cold to share the stage with the leaders of the Grand Old Party.
The Congress rally was held at the Sher-e-Kashmir Cricket Stadium amid tight security and heavy snowfall. Besides Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, the Wayanad Lok Sabha MP was also joined by leaders from the DMK, the JMM, the BSP, the NC, the PDP, the CPI, the RSP, the VCK and the IUML.
Addressing the rally to mark the Kanyakumari to Kashmir yatra, CPI leader D. Raja urged all secular parties of the country to unite. “We all fought together for the independence of the country and liberated the country from British Raj. All secular parties must come together to liberate the country from BJP Raj,” he said.
Former Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir and National Confrence (NC) leader Omar Abdullah asked former Congress president Rahul Gandhi to undertake another yatra from west to east of the country. “On this last function of the yatra, I congratulate Gandhi on behalf of myself, my father and my party. This yatra has been successful. This yatra has shown that there are people in the country who like the BJP but there are also those who like the other idea which is of brotherhood,” he said. “I request Rahul Gandhi to undertake a yatra from west to east. I would like to walk with him,” Mr. Abdullah added. He said the Yatra has rekindled the ray of hope in the whole of the country.
Echoing the sentiment, the PDP president Mehbooba Mufti also said the country saw a ray of hope in Mr. Gandhi. RSP leader Premchandran declared his party’s solidarity with the Congress leader. “A historic movement was undertaken. Rahul Gandhi has proved that he is the right leader to fight against these divisive forces,” he said.
During the course of the yatra, Mr. Rahul Gandhi addressed 12 public meetings, over 100 corner meetings, 13 press conferences. He had over 275 planned walking interactions and more than 100 sitting interactions.
Earlier in the day, Mr. Gandhi hoisted the national flag at the ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ camp site at in Panthachowk. With the rally, the curtains have come down on the yatra that traversed a dozen states and two Union territories in nearly five months after its launch on September 7 last year in Kanyakumari.
Speaking at the rally, Rahul Gandhi said the aim of his Bharat Jodo Yatra was to save the liberal and secular ethos of the country which, he claimed, was facing an assault from the BJP and the RSS. “I have not done this [Yatra] for myself or for the Congress but for the people of the country. Our aim is to stand against the ideology that wants to destroy the foundation of this country,” he said. He was wearing a traditional Kashmiri pheran to mark the occasion.
The rally went ahead despite heavy snowfall in the city. Mr. Gandhi said the RSS and the BJP were targeting the liberal and secular ethos of the country by inciting violence.
“When I was walking, the security people told me I can walk anywhere in India, even in Jammu, but the last four days in Kashmir, ‘you should drive in a car’… A few days before I reached Kashmir, the administration told me, perhaps to scare me, that if I walk, then a grenade can be lobbed upon me,” he said.
“I thought over it and then decided that I am walking to my home and with my people (in J-K). I thought, why not give those who hate me a chance to change the colour of my white shirt, let them make it red,” Mr Gandhi, who spoke at the venue without an umbrella over his head amidst heavy snowfall, said. He said he was not afraid as learnt from his family and Mahatma Gandhi to live life sans fear.
“What happened was what I had thought about. The people of Jammu and Kashmir did not give me hand grenades, they opened their hearts and gave me love, embraced me. I felt immense happiness that they all owned me up. Children and elderly welcomed alike me with their love and tears,” he said.
Recalling the moments when he was informed about the assassination of his grandmother and father — former Prime Ministers Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi — over phone calls, the former Congress president said the inciters of violence will never understand that pain.
“Those who incite violence — like Modiji, Amit Shahji, the BJP and the RSS — will never understand this pain. The family of an Army man will understand, the family of the CRPF personnel who were killed in Pulwama will understand, Kashmiris will understand that pain when one gets that call. “The aim of the yatra is to end the phone calls announcing the deaths of loved ones — be it a soldier, a CRPF jawan or any Kashmiri,” he added.
Mr. Gandhi challenged the BJP top brass to undertake a yatra like his in Jammu and Kashmir, saying they will never do it as they are scared. “I can guarantee you that no BJP leader can walk like this in Jammu and Kashmir. They will not do it, not because they won’t be allowed to but because they are scared,” he said.
The Gandhi family scion said ‘Kashmiriyat’ was his home. “When I was walking to Kashmir, I thought, this is the same route through which, years ago, my relatives came from Kashmir to Allahabad. I felt that I was returning to my home. Since I was a child, I have lived in government accommodations, I do not have a house.
“I have never accepted these structures as my home. Wherever I live, it is a building, not a home. For me, a home is a thinking, it is a way of life,” he said.
“What you call Kashmiriyat, I call that thinking my home. What is Kashmiriyat? It is Shiv ji’s thinking. Its deep meaning is ‘Shoonyata’ (selflessness). It means attacking yourself, your ego, your thinking. In Islam, it means ‘Fanaa’ (destruction of the self)… This is Kashmiriyat. This thinking prevails in other states as well. Gandhiji talked about Vaishno Janto.. ‘Shoonyata’ is known as ‘Vaishno Janto’ in Gujarat,” he added.
Mr Gandhi said the same message was spread in Assam, Karnataka, Kerala and Maharashtra as well.
“In J-K, we call it Kashmiriyat. It means uniting each other, not attacking others, but self. My family home in Allahabad is near the bank of River Ganga. When my family went there from Kashmir, they spread the thinking of Kashmiriyat in Uttar Pradesh. It is known as the Ganga-Jamuna Tehzeeb,” he said.
At the event, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said, “Bharat Jodo Yatra was not for winning elections but against hate.” Congress general secretary (organisation) K C Venugopal said, “…certainly there will be a second leg of the Bharat Jodo Yatra. We are yet to decide how it should be carried out. The final design has not come but there will surely be a second leg, in which Rahul Gandhi will be involved.”
Former chief ministers of Jammu and Kashmir Mehbooba Mufti and Omar Abdullah said they see a ray of hope in Rahul Gandhi. Both Mufti and Abdullah had joined Gandhi in his walk during the Jammu and Kashmir leg of the Yatra.
“I welcome Rahul ji and others. Rahul ji said he has come to Kashmir to his home. Rahul ji, this is your home. I hope that whatever has been taken from Jammu and Kashmir and this country, by (Nathuram) Godse’s ideology, will be returned by a Gandhi, and not just to J-K, but to the whole country,” Mufti, the chief of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), said at the rally to mark the culmination of the Bharat Jodo Yatra.
With 4,084 km covered over 135 days, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has surpassed the distance covered by the Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy during his padyatra over more than one-and-a-half years, from 2017 to 2019. The YSRCP leader had walked 3,648 km, and swept to power by an unprecedented majority in the state in the elections that followed. It was till now considered the longest distance covered on foot by a politician in the country.
Jagan Reddy had started his ‘Praja Sankalpa Yatra’ from his late father Dr Y S Rajashekara Reddy’s native village Idupalapaya on November 6, 2017, and concluded it at Ichchapuram in Srikakulam district near the Odisha border on January 9, 2019, with breaks in the middle.
