Rahul’s ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ will set off from Kanyakumari on September 7. Rahul seems to have drawn inspiration from the ‘Time’ magazine, which headlined Prime Minister Narendra Modi ‘Divider-in-Chief’. The title stuck and faded, to be remembered now and then, if and when the occasion arose.

‘Jodo’ is Hindi for ‘unify’. The Modi years, beginning May 26, 2014, sharpened the divides in India, both ideological, and communal. The line separating rightwing and leftwing became more starkly etched. Sixty years of Congress, and Congress-backed rule, could not divide India, but with Modi at the helm, India unravelled, and India came unstuck, and India was divided.

Now, eight years on, this effort to unify India, the ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’, and the haste to get it on the road. The yatra is political; and primarily aimed to serve the Gandhi family’s interests. The party’s interests served will be a bonus. But, at its most basic and fundamental, the ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ will not unify the religiously divided Indians.

Not making a clean slate of Partition cannot be repaired by a yatra. But if the aim is to get both Muslim and Hindu to vote Congress, then it makes sense and might even work. The two major religions of India cannot bridge the gap that separates them; least because Rahul Gandhi sets off on a ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’.

Rahul Gandhi’s ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ parallels Narendra Modi’s avid wooing of the Pasmanda Muslims. That’s Modi’s idea of unifying India, Modi’s ‘Bharat Jodo’ route. But neither of them are going to succeed. The Ganga-Jamuna tehzeeb has been muddied beyond repair in Modi’s India. By 2024, suspicions will be in too bad a shape to ebb.

The point is, the ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ of the Congress will go to waste if Rahul Gandhi fails to get the Muslims to once again aggressively vote for the grand old party, not just in Kerala and Karnataka but in all the states the Congress has a presence. Things Hindu-Muslim have come to such a pass that the ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ must unify the majority of Muslims behind Rahul Gandhi. However, it’s hard to believe people will fall for ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ and vote Congress.

Second, after religion, there’s ideology! People are divided along ideological lines. Ever since 2024, people have been wearing ideology on their sleeves. And except for politicians, nobody else changes from being left-liberal to be right-conservative, and vice versa, just because there’s a Congress ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ on its way to “your town”.

And just so that it’s understood, the ideological demarcation matches the religious/communal separation. The left-liberal had long ago appropriated ‘secular’, and the rightwing were automatically apportioned and given the hard option to choose between ‘communal’ and ‘secular’ with ‘secular’ already taken!

The division now is so stark that no ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ will make a difference for the "deplorables". Talk of unifying today’s Bharat requires a complete overhaul of the human mind. That said, Bharat is divided by income as much as it is by religion /language /caste/ sub-castes. To add to these, Rahul Gandhi also talks of the love/hate divide that separates “Indian” from “Indian”. Rahul implicates and indicts Modi with the charge of “spreading hate” even as he brands himself as a harbinger of love. Unfortunately, Rahul’s ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ will not make an ounce of difference to love/hate. Cynicism has sunk too deep in the Indian psyche to recognize the difference. Many would rate Rahul Gandhi as too idealistic to be true.

That being said, like Narendra Modi has, and AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal seems to be able to commandeer, Rahul Gandhi’s ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ should get saturation media coverage, from Kanyakumari to Kashmir, the entire 3676 km distance, to unify India with his ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’. (IPA Service)