The ‘Bharat Jodo’ Yatra, which has completed three months, has entered Madhya Pradesh for a week on November 20. This Yatra is an important and special event of our period. While avoiding it, it would be better to look at it from three angles on the lines of Pythagoras’s famous theorem: all three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles.
Badal Saroj
As a citizen of the democratic, secular republic “Bharat That is India”, our times are complicated; This time is the time of suffocation. For any civilized and democratic society, the most important thing is openness, frank debate, disagreement and resistance. Society in India and the world has moved forward on the basis of these, moves forward. In recent times, especially Since 2014, it has almost disappeared. There is a flow of one-sided chatter. Far from free dialogue, speaking and writing have been almost banned undeclaredly. George Orwell’s Big Brother wearing a khaki neckerchief is sitting with a stick on every media, education, university, temple. He can say anything, he can say anything, his words cannot be reviewed. In this country God can be questioned, but whatever this Big Brother says, no questions can be asked about it. Supremacy has been established on every medium of information and communication. Now we have to talk only about Amavas, we have to appreciate it. The full moon is far away – lighting a candle or a lamp is also a crime; is treason.
This attack is all-consuming, all-dimensional; The target is not only the present. It is prohibited. That’s why this issue is not just about winning and losing elections. It is also a time of typhus, on the lines of ‘Doobre ke do Ashaad’. There is panic – there is haste to establish a fascist regime, there is irritation. There is a feeling of giving. The discretion of evaluation is disappearing in totality. In such a situation, like many other efforts, this “Jodo Bharat” Yatra is an attempt to break this sponsored and deliberately created silence. That is why it is an important and special event of our period. Is.
Looking at it from another angle as a journalist and editor, some questions also come to the fore. Certainly, this has created uneasiness and anxiety among the rulers and their remote holders. They are apprehensive of its possible impact. Media coverage of this is being used to play the part of the common king. A narrative is being created through it and this yatra is being trapped in that hoax. The yatra was supposed to start as a yatra of individuals, social organisations, civil society, concerned about India’s well-being, united and striving for its betterment. The media made it a party-specific yatra from day one. Gave it and from the third-fourth day onwards turned it into the journey of one person – Rahul Gandhi. He is a firm player in the business of marketing individuals. He knows how to turn apologists into heroes, murderers into peacekeepers and heroes into villains.
In such a situation, the organizers should have insisted on ensuring this comprehensiveness, but with some good intentions, they got provoked and played according to what Shakuni wanted and reduced this journey to a one-man journey. The propaganda system of this campaign also ignored the widespread participation. The projection and space that should have been given to the issues instead of the individual, was not given to the so-called main stream media, not even the propaganda system of the organizers themselves. Granted. It is forgotten that now – since 2014 – the fight has not only changed in form but also in essence; The methods that will have to be adopted to counter it will be new, not yet tried methods, will be different and inclusive both in form and substance.
As a political activist, the first thing is the direction. Starting from Kanyakumari on September 7, 2022, this yatra has been launched against price rise, unemployment, political centralization and especially against the politics of “fear, bigotry” and “hate”. The campaign was told to fight. Good point. But what is the alternative? Is changing the government an option? Let’s change it – what will happen after this? The rivers in whose grip the whole society and country is today, can they be avoided only by the straws of sentimentality and sentimentality? Obviously not; It is not enough to curse the darkness, to destroy them, light has to be given; Alternative policies also have to be brought in. Changes are made in policies, not in individuals or parties. Alternative policies only create that criticality, which creates immense energy. Where they can be implemented in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh etc. An example has to be presented as well. In 2017, after the farmers were fired upon in Mandsaur, the march of farmers’ organizations awakened the farmers of the country and made them stand at the border of Delhi for thirteen and a half months in just two-and-a-half years. That she had come out with an alternative. Prior to this visit, the visits of the All India Kisan Sabha from all four corners of the country had brought these policies into the consciousness of the farmers of the country. ? The answer is to clearly formulate this journey now.
The second thing is the identification of the real enemy and the proportion of time spent accordingly. Where is the wolf that pounces on the unity, sovereignty, brotherhood of the country and pounces on every aspect of the life of the majority of the people? Hoots and hoots will be in the same proportion. Where breakage is more, linking will start from there. Route of journey does not match it. 18 days in Kerala, 0 in Gujarat, 3-4 days in UP, 1 week in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra Or less than a week!! What is this ratio? Same is the condition of Andhra, Telangana, Assam, Maharashtra. The problem is in the head, the ointment is being applied to the feet. From where it has been permanently driven out, the coals are booming in Kerala.
The third thing is priority. The route from Kanyakumari to Kashmir was also chosen by Chandrashekhar in 1983. But there is a qualitative difference between 1983 and 2022. Today everything is at stake in Kashmir, which is the foundation stone of “Bharat that is India”. What is happening in Kashmir, if it is not stopped from happening, then tomorrow it will happen in the whole country. If only you would have looked at Gandhi. Where did he start after coming to India in 1915 – from Champaran. During the unrest at the time of independence Where were they – in Noakhali and Kolkata. The most difficult beginnings are the strongest beginnings. There is a common saying that the bull is caught by the horns and not by the tail. Similarly, secularism has to be called secularism. It seems to take you up, but in reality it does not take you anywhere.
Only those journeys are successful, which choose their destination properly and determine the route accordingly. Till now it does not seem that there is any definite destination of this journey, there is any map of the way to reach it.
(The writer Badal Saroj is editor of ‘Lokjatan’ and joint secretary of All India Kisan Sabha. Contact: 9425006716)