Bharat Jodo Yatra: On the walk

A first-person account of the Bharat Jodo Yatra.

Rahul Gandhi during the Bharat Jodo Yatra in Chitradurga district, Karnataka, October 12. Here were the walkers, showing the world that there are still people motivated not by religious structures, not by past glories, not by hatreds in different directions. | Photo Credit: PTI

A sceptical friend asked: “Bharat jodne ka kya plan hai Congress ke paas?” (What plan does the Congress have to repair India?)

Not a bad question to ask, especially since I had been with the ongoing Bharat Jodo Yatra for a couple of days. It got me musing, reflecting, reminiscing. Before I answer her question, here’s a flavour of the yatra.

I got the first taste of its spirit even before we joined. Early on Sunday, October 9, we stationed ourselves two kilometres ahead of where the walkers were starting off from that morning—Kibbanahalli Cross in Tumkur district of Karnataka. Someone had told us that the best place to walk was just in front of the main body: still among plenty of walkers, but not engulfed by them, where everyone would be jostling for space.

So we waited for the procession to arrive. I strolled around, taking photos of posters and buntings.

Out of the blue, someone on a truck yelled at me, “Majige!” When I showed incomprehension, he said, “Buttermilk,” and thrust a small green packet at me. He was unloading several sacks of buttermilk for the walkers and must have decided that I needed one too.

Spirit of bonhomie

There was a coconut stall nearby. Out of the blue again, a police van stopped and several plainclothesmen leapt out, asking the coconut-seller to give one each to all of them. With a large machete, he began slicing one. Suddenly perturbed, the cops grabbed the knife and examined it closely: what if the vendor had nefarious intent? But persuaded somehow that he wouldn’t use the machete to leap into the yatra and start hacking the walkers, they handed it back and he continued with the coconuts.

This man was the first yatri to start walking, a good 200m in front of everyone else, carrying a flag. He stopped to greet kids on the side of the road. Sunday October 9, Chikkanayakanahalli. | Photo Credit: Dilip D’Souza

Things got more serious quickly. We were engulfed in a tide anyway, jostling for space on the road. Those pictures of Rahul Gandhi, walking briskly with hardly anyone or anything ahead of him? That’s achieved by a police cordon around him that stretches for a good 50 metre in front—an actual long rope carried by dozens of cops. They walk on the edge of the tarred surface. To keep the cordon intact, they summarily push nobodies like me out of the way. So I fell in among plenty more like me, and then further behind because I had no stomach for jostling.

Yet here’s the thing. Not one person I met complained about the jostling. Nor about the hours of walking, not strolling. Nothing.

Take Chandy from Kerala. He’s one of the 150+ yatris—men and women who will do the whole journey from Kanyakumari to Kashmir. The first time I met him, he and two women walking with him did a jig right there on the road, laughing in delight. Then I kept bumping into him—sometimes he caught up with me, sometimes I caught up with him, once or twice we walked side-by-side for a spell. If he didn’t do the jig again, he was in the same good spirits every time. But get this: he was barefoot. Though “is” might be a better word since he plans to do the whole trek of several thousand kilometres barefoot. While I’m no longer in the yatra, I’m confident he’s trekking along on his bare feet.

“How’s the walking this morning?” I asked him on Monday (October 10), when I came up from behind and he was hobbling slightly. It had rained overnight, and Chandy said: “All fine, except the rain has woken up all the grains of granite. So instead of lying down sensibly, they are poking upwards into my feet.” And on he hobbled. I walked ahead to catch up with a companion. An hour later, Chandy overtook us.

Clear like the blue sky

Take Vanitha from Bengaluru. She came alongside once when I was just ahead of the cordon, walking behind the press truck. In an almost booming tone, she demanded, “So what brings you here?” Given her apparent sternness, I replied almost meekly, but soon realised it was just her way of speaking. In the same booming tone, she told me she had worked as a gynaecologist for many years but then gave it up and joined politics. Specifically, the Congress. When this yatra was announced, she knew: “I had to join. I had to walk. This country needs this now.” I wanted her to flesh that thought out, but was pre-empted by another booming demand: “Have you come alone?” I shook my head and pointed to my sister-in-law Ramani, striding along a few feet away. “She’s a doctor too,” I said. Vanitha promptly lost interest in me, moving over to shake hands with Ramani. “I’m a doctor too,” I heard her say, and then they moved steadily ahead, chatting animatedly about whatever doctors chat about while on a Bharat Jodo Yatra.

This was another group of dancers. When the Yatra took a tea break on Monday morning, these men broke into their dance to entertain the crowds waiting to resume walking. October 10, Kenkere. | Photo Credit: Dilip D’Souza

Take Anil from Delhi. A Congress worker, he’s been assigned a specific task. He strides in front of the yatra, walkie-talkie in hand, barking out instructions to sundry vehicles to pre-empt accidents and smoothen the yatra’s progress. At one point he noticed the two slow-moving press trucks getting a little too close for comfort. I know because I was walking between them at the time, just starting to wonder if I was going to be squeezed.

“What’s going on?” he shouted, practically in my ear. “You want to kiss each other?” (It sounded far juicier in the original Hindi, not the least because of his barking.) Seeing several of us break into smiles, he turned to me and said: “See, I’m going to walk like this every day till Kashmir. It gets boring if I don’t find ways to make it fun!”

Then something ahead of us caught his eye. “Hey, Fortuner!” he yelled. “Yes, you fat Toyota Fortuner! Move up ahead, at once!” (It sounded far funnier in the original Hindi.)

Just three examples from among the many walkers. In them, like in most of the rest, there was a nearly visible determination and purposiveness. To me that almost explained the “why” of their walking. That is, here they were, showing the world that there are still people motivated not by religious structures, not by past glories, not by hatreds in different directions. No, these were ordinary folks doing something extraordinary purely because they think that the effort might shake a nation out of the miasma of division, mistrust, cynicism, sophistry and violence. Some might disagree about the contours of that miasma, sure. Some might disagree with the notion that the yatra will actually produce a shaking, certainly. But what’s hard to disagree with is the simple, yet clear like the blue sky, sense of purpose in the folks participating in the yatra.

And then there are those who were not walking at all—the crowds we passed everywhere: smiling, waving, wanting to shake hands, cheering. Babies in arms, adults in their most colourful clothes, kids squealing in delight as I photographed their sandals, women who looked close to 90... There’s plenty to be said for perspective that time and distance allow, but right there and then, it was hard not to think that the yatra was reaching out to touch Indians in unexpected ways. As another usually sceptical friend commented, “Surprisingly, it seems to be making headway in the right direction!”

And all this is even before there is a mention of Rahul Gandhi. Yet as central as he is to the yatra, there’s also a sense that in the end, its real message is larger than him. It’s about hope and optimism in the India our remarkable Constitution promises.

So yes, what’s the Congress’s “Bharat jodne ka plan”?

As I saw it during the yatra: First, stand up to those who would break this country. Second, listen sincerely to people speaking about their concerns: education, health, women’s issues, jobs, inflation, whatever. Third, lay out the Congress’s own plans to address such concerns. Its own vision for the country.

My impression is that the Congress is doing pretty well on this yatra with the first two. The third needs more substance. To many of us, the Congress is a party struggling with its reason to exist, its relevance, its political decline over many years. That decline is a worry for anyone like me, who values democracy. But at least it is trying—suggesting that its members are not complacent, apathetic or dispirited.

As a plan, I’ll take that. For me, that was the exhilarating, uplifting thing about the yatra.

Dilip D’Souza is a writer who lives in Mumbai.