Hundred Days of Yatra

The yatra is a desperate measure for a desperate situation. Will it change anything for the better for Congress? Its true gauge will be the party’s future electoral performance 

CONGRESS leader Rahul Gandhi has completed hundreds days of yatra. On December 24 he entered Delhi where he addressed the rally at Red Fort which garnered some reasonable attention on social media. A video snippet of his speech where he accuses media of spreading hatred and harping on “Hindu-Muslim” issues went viral. Gandhi rightly lamented that the yatra was largely ignored by the media. This despite the fact that it has generated an unexpected groundswell and made visible a constituency that no longer seemed to exist.

Contrary to this, the  Delhi-centered Anna-Hazare-led India Against Corruption campaign in 2013 had received a 24×7 coverage. It turned out to be a watershed development that became a major factor in bringing the BJP to power. However, for all the distance covered by Gandhi’s yatra and the massive participation by the people, it hasn’t generated the level of mass engagement which could pose an electoral threat to the BJP. Or so it appears. One can always blame the lack of media coverage,  the inherent inadequacies of the yatra or its message  Reverse could also be true: it could very well be that the yatra might have re-invigorated the Congress base or seeded a new politics that might in near future challenge the BJP.

Politics can be both a drawn process and a dramatic event. And yatra, in a sense, can be both. As far as the yatra’s value as an event, it doesn’t seem to have made the desired impact.  But as a process, the yatra may have succeeded in changing the atmospherics a bit, albeit not conspicuously so. For now, however,  the yatra seems to have breathed some fresh life into an otherwise dying party. It has been drawing reasonably good crowds. But mobilization of crowds doesn’t guarantee a good electoral performance.

Another apparent shortcoming of the yatra so far has been its messaging.  There is no powerful idea, a resonant slogan or an alternative political vision that has come to the fore. Gandhi, so far in his political career, has left his political articulation generally vague. It seems his commitment to secularism is more of an everyday talking point than backed by conviction like the Hindutva movement.

But Gandhi himself seems to have come some way. There is definitely a makeover in progress and it is not just about his appearance.  His speeches now carry more conviction. He has paid more attention to the framing of his arguments enabling him to generate a bigger ideological contestation than he did earlier – albeit, he has still a long way to go to match prime minister Narendra Modi’s overarching persona. But Gandhi is certainly becoming more visible and grabbing more public attention because of yatra. He is, no doubt, attracting crowds but he is not yet in a position to whip up a political  wave, in part, due to lack of media support.

Is there a chance in the near to medium future that Gandhi will truly arrive on the political scene? He might very well do. Congress needs this to happen sooner.  The party is in need of a deep surgery. It can only survive if it has a charismatic new leader who can not only corner the ruling party on day to day governance but also aggressively peddle a credible alternative vision of India on a sustainable basis. As things stand, it doesn’t appear probable. And given the current state of Congress, it may not happen at all. So, a Congress-mukt Bharat seems a distinct possibility as has been the BJP goal. More so, at a time when the AAP is fast stepping into the breach left behind by the retreating Congress.

Arvind Kejriwal’s party has emerged as a major political force in the country with its landslide triumph in Punjab. Though the AAP has still a long way to go before it could be seen as a credible rival to the BJP, the party seems to offer a sort of new politics that has been effective against that of the BJP. And in Kejriwal, the party has a leader who is shaping up to be a match for PM Modi’s extraordinary rhetorical skills.

Politics, of course,  is not only about great rhetorical skills. It has to have substance too: For example, a party’s social, economic and ideological agenda and its credibility to execute these on the ground make all the difference. And the BJP is strongest on all these fronts. More so, in its ideological agenda: Hindutva has now widest acceptance across the country.  No other party’s ideology comes even close, least of all that of Congress whose secular credentials now carry little conviction even within the party itself.

The AAP has left this area conspicuously ambivalent. But as apparent from the actions of Kejriwal in recent years, the party has made not so subtle  nods to Hindu religion and majoritarianism to protect and expand its base.  And it has succeeded in this, even making now inroads into Gujarat.

This has created a do or die situation for Congress. The yatra is a desperate measure for a desperate situation. Will it change anything for the better for the beleaguered party? Its true gauge will be the party’s future electoral performance.

• Views expressed in the article are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent the editorial stance of Kashmir Observer

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