New Delhi: The Bharat Jodo Yatra was conceived during the Covid pandemic, when Rahul Gandhi began thinking about bringing together people he felt were increasingly disillusioned with the political situation in the country, Sonia Gandhi writes in her memoir Belonging: A Journey of Love.
Sonia writes that Rahul would spend hours walking in the garden. She initially thought he was trying to keep fit and overcome the knee pain he had suffered for years. One evening, however, he told her that he had been sensing a mood of despondency among people and wanted them to know that hundreds of thousands of others shared their feelings.
“The many scattered protests against the Bharatiya Janata Party’s policies had to be welded into a force,” Sonia recalls Rahul telling her.
Rahul repeatedly told his mother that things would change. “Just wait, Ma, things will change,” he told her.
Sonia writes that Rahul was preparing for what she describes as a major initiative — a 3,800-kilometre walk through 12 states, over almost 150 days, from India’s southernmost tip to its northernmost. He would call it the Bharat Jodo Yatra, or the Unite India March.
Turning the idea into a nationwide march was a major logistical challenge. Sonia writes that thousands of Congress workers came forward to help with the preparations. She also places the march in the tradition of the padayatra, a journey on foot undertaken to connect with people and galvanise them.
Rahul set off from Kanyakumari in September 2022 with 100 volunteers. Sonia recalls being apprehensive about his safety despite the presence of state and central police forces. She worried about whether his knee would hold up over the journey and writes that, as crowds began to swell, his security personnel struggled to keep up with the press of people around him.
She joined the Yatra in Karnataka in October, when Rahul and she spent a few days at Kabini Wildlife Park during a break in the march. Sitting by the river, she heard him speak about the affection people had shown him and what he was learning from them.
“Sitting by the river with him, I heard about his experience of the Yatra—the love people had given him, what he in turn was learning from them, how it enabled him to carry on with the march despite his painful knee.”
Sonia writes that the march gave Rahul an opportunity to listen to people directly as they spoke about their anxieties, fears and hopes. It was this engagement, she felt, that allowed him to create space for his own voice after years of political criticism.
The Yatra concluded in Srinagar in January 2023. Sonia recalls a security scare during its final leg, when Rahul’s security personnel disappeared amid a large crowd, forcing her to make frantic calls. The march was held up for a day until security arrangements were restored.
(Edited by Nardeep Singh Dahiya)
Also Read: Sonia Gandhi spent 30 yrs proving that she belongs. What proof is enough?