Faith, courage and discipline: Conversations with participants in the Bharat Jodo Yatra

Away from the surging crowds and the fast-moving group around Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, the 3,500-km Bharat Jodo Yatra from Kanyakumari to Jammu and Kashmir has a different pace and feel to it . The security ring, the media vans, the exuberant crowds, the police holding the rope to keep people from crowding in too close all produce their own charge of energy and adrenaline. There is a sense of purpose, of urgency. The noise level is high: people calling out to Rahul Gandhi, drums and bands and performances.

A couple of kilometres ahead, it is much quieter. And this is where my friend and I chose to walk a few days ago when we rejoined the Yatra in Rajasthan’s Bhadoti for two days. In October, we had walked with the Yatra in Karnataka, also for two days. (Read an account of that experience here.) It was Day 98 of the march.

There was burst of activity in the morning as various groups started off for the day, settling into a brisk-paced walk. The chill of the early morning air condensed our breath into clouds of vapour. Volunteers, holding aloft the national flag and singing a prayer, led the day’s walk. They walked in lines, in perfect rhythm, each taking turns to hold the national flag. After the prayer, they sang other songs, their voices floating over communities that were coming alive to greet the marchers and the new day.

Another group of walkers was made up of members of civil society, who walked holding a banner “Hum sab Bharat Jodo Yatra ke saath” (All of us are with the Bharat Jodo Yatra). They sang songs too, of protest and of solidarity. These were interspersed with cries of “Nafrat Chodo, Bharat Jodo” (Give up hate, and unite India), among others.

Bands played in some villages. One had a dance performance on stage at 6 in the morning. We passed though hamlets and villages where people lined the roads in welcome and in curiosity. Some showered rose petals on us and as we walked. I felt like a fraud as I was participating for only for two days.

We walked with these groups, and also by ourselves, catching up with some Yatris and being overtaken by others. Some were Bharat Yatris we had met in Karnataka in October and they greeted us like old friends. (These are Yatris, mostly from the Congress party, who had been chosen after a rigorous selection process to walk the length of the country.) We walked together for a while and they shared their views on the recent state election results from Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh; on the challenges facing the Congress; and how they need to organise themselves better.

One said that the party must be very sure what it stands for and not waver from it, even if it costs them electorally in the near future. A long-term vision and plan are necessary, she said.

There were many other people in the yatra too, unknown and unrecognised. They were not the Bharat Yatris, but had joined the Yatra anyway, either to walk the entire country, or for some time. Who were they, and what makes them walk for days in this Yatra?

Birendra Bhagoriya from Hissar (Mr Flag Man in my mind) is one of the people walking the length of the country. Walking with the civil society members, he holds the national flag on a tall staff, and makes it a point to shake the hand of every child who is “left out”. He has fought for the rights of farmers and Dalits for years.

Mohit Pahadiya is from Bharatpur in Rajasthan and has been walking with the Yatra since the time it entered the state. He intends to walk with Yatra as long as he is allowed to. He is a member of the Youth Congress and was involved in organising food and transport for stranded migrant workers during the first Covid lockdown of 2019.

Why are you walking, I asked. I want to help fight against the religious and caste-based differences being promoted in the country he said. And to teach myself to be patient and tolerant and accommodating. Pahadiya is 26.

Also 26 is Renuka Malviya from Ujjain. She had been walking since November 23 from Bodarli in Burhanpur district in Madhya Pradesh, when the Yatra entered that state. She intended to walk only for two days, but kept extending her journey. When the Yatra crossed into Rajasthan, she continued. So here she was on the December 14, having walked for 22 days already, and still walking. (As I wrote this on Christmas Day, she had just returned to Ujjain from Delhi, and intended to return to the Yatra on January 3.)

Malviya is a lawyer by profession and helps Dalit women seek legal redress for their problems, starting with filing FIRs in the police station. She said she was walking because the condition of Dalits continues to be very bad. Walking in the Yatra, she draws strength from meeting other individuals and groups who are fighting a similar cause. It also enabled her to establish contact with a larger group of people who she could turn to for help in her work. In Madhya Pradesh. she walked alone but now walked with the group of civil society Yatris.

Petite and bespectacled, Hoimee Dey had traveled from Kolkata to join the Yatra. She is a manager in an small firm, and had asked for leave to join the Bharat Jodo Yatra. When leave was refused, she resigned and came to Rajasthan to join the Yatra.

“I will get a job when I return but such an opportunity will not come again,” she said. “I do not like what is happening in the country, and the hate being spread; so I had to join and protest.” She intended to walk till Srinagar if she is allowed to, and walked with volunteers of the Congress Seva Dal.

Neelotpal is a student in a law college in Jaipur. Already interested in Gandhian thought, the Yatra attracted him because it was a different kind of andolan or agitation: one that required equal participation from everyone involved. “Everyone is walking,” he said, “from Rahulji to the chief ministers and Yogendraji [activist Yogendra Yadav] and all of us. There is no hierarchy of some traveling in comfort.”

He said that he liked the fact that pertinent issues were being raised, and that there was critique of ideology without personal attacks on anyone. “For me personally, it was exertion for a cause, and as I told my friend, putting my money where my mouth is,” he said. “Walking two weeks in not very comfortable conditions required a certain level of discipline.”

For Neelotpal, one of the best things about the Yatra was meeting many Gandhians who work without self-interest. He walked with the Yatra through Rajasthan and Haryana and returned home after walking for 14 days.

Walking alone between two villages with the road stretching before me in between fields of mustard, I saw I had another 5 km to go before the morning halt. I was alone. There were no other people around apart from the Yatris strung out along the road. I wondered what it takes to do this day after day after day for over a hundred days? Certainly it must take an enormous amount of faith, courage and discipline.

Ramani Atkuri is a public health physician who has worked extensively with rural and tribal communities in Central India.