Walking with Rahul: For a politics of grace, compassion, togetherness T M Krishna, Dec 17 2022 https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/walking-with-rahul-for-a-politics-of-grace-compassion-togetherness-1172734.html Liberal intellectuals, who have been critical of the Congress and its dependence on its ‘first family’, have been asking for the collapse of the Congress’s present framework. But that does not mean one needs to trivialise what is a genuine exercise in nation-building. Their ignoring the Yatra is as unacceptable as the BJP-dominated media keeping it out of the news.
Rahul’s demeanour and accessibility has certainly contributed to the warmth that is overflowing in the Yatra. Despite the many pulls and pushes from people, he not only remained calm, but more importantly listened to every single person he came across respectfully. A person of the Islamic faith tried breaking through the cordon. When the security stopped him forcefully, his cap fell off. Rahul asked that he be let through and helped to find and retrieve that symbol of his faith.
My conversations with Rahul were centred around the need to give societal agency back to the people. That we need to be driving cultural change that rejects passivity and the subjugation of the mind and cultivates harmonious and sensitive co-existence. It was evident that he has realised that cultural transformation is at the core of inculcating democratic values.
But I wonder if the Congress is ready to accept this new form of politics initiated by Rahul. A politics that is not trapped purely in electoral gains and challenges hierarchies within its leadership. Will an empowered younger generation and a vocal Congress worker be able to push back the ‘old guard’?
Even in larger society, this Yatra may not result in immediate results. But the nature of the discourse that it has triggered is in itself a paradigm shift.