The task is, no doubt, enormous. What's needed is nothing less than rebuilding and radical remoulding of the Congress Party. Without being too rash. Much easier said than actually done.
The, rather slim, ray of hope, however, lies in that Rahul Gandhi himself appears to have transformed a lot over the last eighteen years or so. All said and done, the Congress remains and, for now, would remain a personality driven organisation. The one at the helm--de jure or de facto--would count a hell lot. It just cannot be otherwise. And what happens to the Yatra when it enters the hostile territories is also hugely crucial. All said and done, the Yatra has, for now, been able to stir up hopes. And it's, most likely, the last hope. <<There is something about Rahul Gandhi’s carefree physical proximity with the crowds in Tamil Nadu that sends visceral pain through my body, bringing to the fore every shred of protective maternal instinct that can be summoned. Memories of his father’s assassination three decades ago are etched in blood and guilt; and, to watch him smile, wave and walk in the open with childlike trust is enormously disarming. It is no exaggeration to say that he is putting his life on the line. I [Meena Kandasamy] join the 3500 km long Kanyakumari to Kashmir padayatra – march – on the first day. It is easy to be momentarily carried away by the chaotic energy that marks the beginning, but the occasion merits sombre reflection. Firstly: Congress is at its weakest; the party has become cannibalistic, racing towards self-annihilation. Secondly, we are at a historical juncture where this pulverised Congress has the onus of leading and uniting the rest of the opposition in India because any third-front logic will only benefit the ruling BJP. Now it looks like if there is no united opposition, Modi might well be elected for a third term in 2024. Every ill dividing India will be further amplified: religious hatred, caste violence, patriarchal culture, deprivation and unemployment, the exploitation of the working class and the clampdown on the freedom of expression. The social and the political are intertwined; things cannot be changed on the ground unless the leadership is changed, and the leadership itself cannot be changed unless there is a change of attitude on the ground. The Bharat Jodo Yatra appears to address both these concerns. The Congress is facing its worst-ever existential crisis. Plagued by desertions, defections, resignations, factional rebellions (G-23) and second-rung leaders mouthing BJP lines, the old adage is proved true: When the ship sinks, the rats jump. In these last seven years, a sizeable chunk of Congress politicians, elected to represent people have shown that they are bereft of any ideology by switching sides and bringing down their own democratically elected governments at the behest of the BJP. The heterogeneity that I briefly witness within the Congress is baffling. Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold. ... This march has been tied to Rahul’s future and the future of the Congress party but in many ways, it will also affect the future of this country. Even as it would be a miracle for the Congress to forge unity within its ranks, and then go on to lead the disparate, opportunist and half-hearted opposition in the nation to pull off a victory in 2024, it must also be borne in mind that the RSS-BJP are not an organisation that is going to be defeated through the ballot box alone. The cultural and institutional legacy of Hindutva fascism has managed to penetrate and embed itself. ... In 2024, even if the BJP-RSS are defeated, they may not shy away from using extra-parliamentary means to capture power and trample upon democracy at will. They have militias and mass organisations at their disposal and ready for deployment. Rahul Gandhi at the beginning of this march correctly denounced the BJP-RSS for taking over the institutions of the state and the structure of the state. To face up to this onerous task, it will need more than an abstract call for unity; the Congress will be required to build a movement that can unite people on clear goals. ... I was incredibly lucky to be allowed to sit and observe three closed-door consultations which representatives of people’s movements (Dalits and anti-caste activists, working women’s groups, and environmentalists) held with Rahul Gandhi. The range of issues raised is thorough and breathtaking, and we are only on day one of the rally. What emerges from these discussions is that people, by investing their faith in the Congress are also pressuring it to make policy decisions on how it handles crucial questions: inflation, unemployment, climate crisis, nuclear power, protecting the environment, caste census, reservation in the private sector, education policy, the participation of women in the public sphere, labour codes. ... Even as Rahul Gandhi is walking across the country, news has come in that the Bhupesh Bhagel-led Congress government in Chhattisgarh has banned the CPI padayatra from Silger to Sukma. The young, Adivasi people’s democratic right to assert their unified opposition to militarisation and corporatisation is as inviolable as Rahul Gandhi’s right to spread his message of national unity. The exceptional enthusiasm and the love pouring out for the Bharat Jodo Yatra on the streets of Tamil Nadu and Kerala will build up real momentum and substantiate the message of change, but the true test for Rahul Gandhi awaits him when he enters hostile terrain as he marches northwards. During one of these closed-door interactions, Rahul Gandhi responds to someone, “Why does everybody in this country believe that the solution to everything has to come from the past?” If the task is to imagine a new future for India, is Rahul Gandhi willing to go the extra mile? It is indeed positive that this rally brings into the public discourse issues which the BJP does not want the people to talk about. Unemployment among the youth stands at 42%, inflation is at an all-time high, education is becoming out of bounds, there is a complete collapse of labour protection, the corporatisation of agriculture is leading to penurisation or destitution of the farmer, there is stagnation of social development. However, this will not be an exercise in intellectual honesty if the Congress does not scrutinise its own political record on these same issues when it had the mandate and the power to transform them. Is the Congress willing to own up to its troubled legacy and work towards breaking free from it? Instead, any complacence on the part of the Congress, which is already pushed into a corner, will ensure that a march of this scale will end up being a mere facade, an image-building exercise.>> (Excerpted from: < https://thewire.in/politics/bharat-jodo-yatra-right-track-congress-house-order >.) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/greenyouth/CACEsOZg3mMF0%3DWMwMsF8fL5UrSq7-tvYY16Yc8zD_iiksEpb-A%40mail.gmail.com.
