In ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra: Reclaiming India’s Soul’, a multitude of contributors map the Bharat Jodo Yatra, led by Congress leader and Member of Parliament, Rahul Gandhi.
The Bharat Jodo Yatra is a 4,000 kilometer march that converges the ideas of ‘padyatra’ and ‘satyagraha’, as yatris take on the Herculean task of walking from Kanyakumari, India’s southernmost tip to Kashmir, India’s north. While doing so it tries to dig into India’s vastness and embrace its diversities.
The book highlights the various meanings this yatra holds for various people and taps at the underlying social, economic, political and cultural connotations of the yatra.
Published by Harper Collins India, ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra: Reclaiming India’s Soul’ edited by Pushparaj Deshpande and Ruchira Chaturvedi was released on 29 March on SoftCover, ThePrint’s online venue to launch non-fiction books.
In this book, contributing authors – Rahul Gandhi, Mukulika Banerjee, Ganesh N. Devy, Mallikarjun Kharge, Salman Khurshid, Kanhaiya Kumar, Mehbooba Mufti, Sanjay Raut, Supriya Sule, and Anshul Trivedi, among others bring in varying perspectives to the yatra and what reclaiming India’s soul means to them. The book is a clarion call to patriots to reclaim the collective humanity and identity they hold as Indians.
The 372-pager book is brought together and edited by Pushparaj Deshpande and Ruchira Chaturvedi.
Pushparaj Deshpande is the director of the Samruddha Bharat Foundation. His vast experience includes writings in numerous national dailies and collaborations with legislators, the Rajya Sabha TV, the Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies and the Indian National. Despande previously edited the Rethinking India series, the Reshaping India volumes, and co-editor of The Great Indian Manthan: State, Statecraft and the Republic.Congress. He was one of the many that walked in the Bharat Jodo Yatra.
Ruchira Chaturvedi, the national convenor of Social Media and Digital Communications, Indian National Congress, has been credited with being a Konrad Adenauer School for Young Politicians fellow, an American Council of Young Political Leaders delegate, and a LAMP fellow. She walked in the Bharat Jodo Yatra and was instrumental in coordinating its social media activities.
Also read: Found myself in tears, sitting alone in metal container—Rahul Gandhi during Bharat Jodo Yatra