At some time during 2022, in India, a 50-plus-year old man began walking. He was supremely fit, very handsome and charismatic, fair-skinned, and carried a big name. He was marching seemingly without a clear purpose, across the length and breadth of the country. He grew a beard as he walked, and he had some people walk behind him. The country at large ignored him.
It was Aamir Khan as protagonist Lal Singh Chaddha in the eponymously titled movie, which India rejected, purportedly based on the Hindutva supporter’s call for a boycott.
At another time during 2022, in India, a 50-plus-year old man began walking. He was supremely fit, very handsome and charismatic, fair-skinned, and carried a big name. He was marching with a clear purpose, across the length and breadth of the country. He grew a beard as he walked, and he had millions of people walk alongside him, with him. The media at large ignored him but the country took notice deeply.
It was Rahul Gandhi on his Bharat Jodo Yatra, which India embraced, despite the heckling of Hindutva supporters.
It would be hard to understand why Lal Singh Chaddha had to walk alone, and why the effort flopped, or why the Bharat Jodo Yatra found resonance with millions of people, and why it has been a success.
Is it a success for Rahul Gandhi? No longer can anyone ridicule or dismiss him, but is it enough? Will it work for the Congress and help it revive enough to take on the might of Prime Minister’s Narendra Modi's election machine that is the BJP?
When compared with long political journeys on the road, it is best viewed as the answer of the Congress, and Rahul Gandhi, to Lal Krishna Advani’s 1989 Rath Yatra, which sowed the seeds for transforming the country’s polity. It took time to succeed and the BJP won an absolute majority 25 years later.
Maybe, Rahul Gandhi has sown enough seeds too. And sooner or later, maybe he will win.
