Greetings,
This week, I have four articles to share with you.
In a column syndicated in 88 newspapers around the world, I argue: India’s Long Infatuation with Russia Must End. Russia’s war in Ukraine has created new geopolitical fault lines, and while India has long relied on Russia for military equipment and diplomatic support, we must review our options in light of this changed global order. As Russia grows ever more reliant on China, Chinese influence and ambition is only likely to grow. That scenario threatens regional peace and Indian interests, and it is time for India to review its strategic options.
In Britain’s Prospect magazine, I ask: After the Queen, can the Commonwealth survive? The conclusion of the decades-long decolonisation process that followed the end of the British empire, coupled with Britain’s economic decline in recent years, has meant that the Commonwealth’s role in world affairs has become ever more diminished. Now, with the death of the sovereign whose authority underpinned the whole enterprise, the Commonwealth risks a future of increasing irrelevance.
In ‘Bharat Jodo’ and ‘Congress Jodo’ as opportunities, published in The Hindu, I examine two developments that have again brought the Congress to the forefront of public discourse. The Bharat Jodo Yatra, a march from Kanniyakumari to Kashmir led by Rahul Gandhi, is a bold move: it has helped disseminate the Congress’ message among common citizens, making clear its forceful support for secular and inclusive politics. The internal election to the position of party president is also imminent: I offer my thoughts on possible ways for the new president to reform the party and regain its latent power.
Finally, in Manorama, I write to mark Onam, true celebration of humanity. I was blessed to witness a breath-taking Onam celebration last week in my constituency of Thiruvananthapuram, where residents are celebrating with a vengeance, having missed out on the last two years’ festivities because of Covid. It was a reminder of the incredible diversity that Kerala and India exemplify, and a wonderful example of our power to unite despite our differences.
1. India’s Long Infatuation with Russia Must End; Project Syndicate; September 12, 2022.
With few friends, Russia knows that it has little choice but to stick with China – a stance that will likely be on display when Putin meets with Xi at this month’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit. Against this backdrop, India must urgently review its geopolitical options. It must recognize that it has never needed Russia less.
2. After the Queen, can the Commonwealth survive?; Prospect; September 17, 2022.
As head of the Commonwealth, the British monarch symbolises continuity amid transformation. At one time this was a useful role, alleviating the stresses that would inevitably have accompanied the transition from the iniquities of empire to a more equal post-colonial relationship. But with decolonisation largely complete, the need for such a symbol is increasingly questionable: the monarchy is more a reminder of past colonial wrongs than contemporary positives.
3. ‘Bharat Jodo’ and ‘Congress Jodo’ as opportunities; The Hindu; September 13, 2022.
The current level of interest in the Indian National Congress party is attributable to two events: the start of the Bharat Jodo Yatra, in which Rahul Gandhi is leading marchers for 150 days from Kanniyakumari to Kashmir in a bid to “unite India”, and the announcement of elections to the Presidency of the party over a period of four weeks, culminating on October 19. Both developments promise to shift media commentary away from the habitual hand-wringing over the party’s failure to improve its electoral vote share since 2014 and its repeated loss of State Assembly elections in recent years. They were much needed.
4. Onam, true celebration of humanity; Manorama; September 16, 2022.
To witness the official inaugural of the Onam festivities in Thiruvananthapuram last week, and their conclusion on Monday, was to celebrate the triumph of the human spirit. After four Onams of misery – two years of severe flooding in 2018 and 2019, followed by two years of Covid restrictions and lockdowns in 2020 and 2021 – this year marked the first occasion for unbridled joy and celebration.
The complete text of each article is below. As always, if these are getting too much, feel free to unsubscribe below.
With warm regards,
Shashi Tharoor
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India’s Long Infatuation with Russia Must End,
September 12, 2022,
Project Syndicate.
During a parliamentary debate in April, I expressed my concerns about India’s relationship with Russia. My words were met with grim-faced silence. But the events of the last five months have only strengthened my case.
The debate was on the Ukraine war. While deploring India’s reluctance to call a Russian shovel a spade, I acknowledged that India has historically depended on the Kremlin for defense supplies and spare parts, and appreciated Russia’s long-standing support on vital issues like Kashmir and border tensions with China and Pakistan. But the Ukraine war and Western sanctions had weakened Russia considerably, I noted. The ban on semiconductor chips, for example, had significantly eroded its ability to produce advanced electronics and defense goods that form the basis of India’s dependence.
Worse still, I argued, the war had highlighted and reinforced Russia’s reliance on China as its principal global partner – a relationship that would intensify as Russia grew weaker. India could then scarcely depend on the Kremlin to counter Chinese aggression, exemplified by the People’s Liberation Army’s territorial encroachments and killing of 20 Indian soldiers in June 2020.
My Russian (and Russophile) friends pooh-poohed my fears privately, expressing confidence that Russia was doing far better than the Western media had led the world to believe. India’s purchases of discounted oil and fertilizer have increased significantly since the war began – though a 30% discount on oil prices that have gone up 70% because of the war can hardly be considered a bargain. More important, China and Russia do indeed seem to be deepening their ties, which augurs ill for India’s relationships with both countries.
Russia invaded Ukraine just a few weeks after Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping announced their “no limits” partnership. And since the war began, both countries have repeatedly affirmed their geopolitical concordance.
Last month, Putin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, denounced the United States for permitting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to visit Taiwan. “This is not a line aimed at supporting freedom and democracy,” he declared. “This is pure provocation. It’s necessary to call such steps what they really are.”
A week later, China returned the favor. In an interview with the Russian state news agency TASS, China’s ambassador to Russia, Zhang Hanhui, called the US “the initiator and main instigator of the Ukrainian crisis.” Echoing another favorite Kremlin line, Zhang also stated that America’s “ultimate goal” is to “exhaust and crush Russia with a protracted war and the cudgel of sanctions.”
While this sort of reciprocity points to a growing awareness of shared geopolitical interests, it cannot obscure the fundamental imbalance in the bilateral relationship. Straining under the weight of Western sanctions, Russia depends heavily on China, not least as an export market and a source of vital supplies. Chinese imports from Russia have increased by more than 56% since the war began, and China is the only country that can provide Russians with consumer goods that once came from Europe and the US. Moreover, according to Alexander Gabuev, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Chinese renminbi could well become “the de facto reserve currency for Russia, even without being fully convertible.”
Xi, who will soon be confirmed as China’s paramount leader for an unprecedented third term, is well aware of this imbalance and is reaping massive rewards from it. In backing Russia diplomatically, he demonstrates his refusal to be cowed by the West. At the same time, he is benefiting from China’s increasing dominance over Russian markets and the renminbi’s enhanced status. And it doesn’t hurt that Chinese companies – which have been reeling from regulatory crackdowns since late 2020 – can turn a tidy profit from their sales to Russia.
The Kremlin is in no position to complain about Chinese price-gouging, let alone alienate China by failing to support its stance on key issues like Taiwan. As Gabuev put it, “Russia is turning into a giant Eurasian Iran: fairly isolated, with a smaller and more technologically backward economy thanks to its hostilities to the West.” With few friends, Russia knows that it has little choice but to stick with China – a stance that will likely be on display when Putin meets with Xi at this month’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit.
Against this backdrop, India must urgently review its geopolitical options. It must recognize that it has never needed Russia less. Its dependence on Russian military supplies – for which it pays top dollar – has fallen from 75% in 2006-10 to below 50% in 2016-20 to an estimated 45% today. This reflects India’s efforts to diversify its defense purchases, with the US, France, and Israel becoming key suppliers. Furthermore, US support means that India no longer needs Russia’s veto power to keep Kashmir off the agenda at the United Nations Security Council.
India must also recognize the need to cooperate with others to constrain China’s overweening ambitions. Given its gradual transformation into a satellite state of a rising Chinese imperium, Russia is an increasingly implausible partner in any such effort. The need for India to establish and shore up its own partnerships is magnified by the risk of a hostile China-Pakistan axis on its borders. Russia will be ambivalent, at best, about such an axis; at worst, it will be complicit. The Russia of the foreseeable future, severely weakened by its Ukrainian misadventure, is not a Russia on which India can rely.
The war in Ukraine has created new geopolitical fault lines, forcing countries to make difficult strategic choices. India must do the same.
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After the Queen, can the Commonwealth survive?,
September 17, 2022,
Prospect.
Nowhere beyond the UK should the passing of Queen Elizabeth have had a more direct impact than in the 56 Commonwealth nations. The late Queen ascended the throne in 1952 when Britain was still a globe-straddling imperium, even though India, Pakistan and Ceylon—now Sri Lanka—had already won independence. By the end of her reign the sun had indeed set on the empire, leaving Britain with a handful of remote islands as the only remnants of an “imperial family” that she had vowed, in her 21st birthday speech, to serve faithfully all her life.
Despite her role as figurehead—first of the empire and subsequently of the Commonwealth, a partly successful attempt at preserving the shreds of post-colonial British influence—Queen Elizabeth had very little to do with the decolonial transformation, other than being forced to adjust to it. Her reign was largely ceremonial: she was expected to exist, not to rule. This she did with uncommon grace, her conduct on the throne marked by selfless serenity, a total self-abnegation and devotion to the public trappings of her position. But she took no decisions, made no policies and, in the end, took no responsibility for any developments that affected the wellbeing of her “subjects” in the former empire.
The evolution of Britain’s imperial domains into a somewhat looser union can be traced back to 1926, when Britain and her dominions (also referred to in those days as the “White Commonwealth”—Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa) agreed that they would be “united by a common allegiance to the Crown,” while proclaiming their equality of status as independent nations. The Statute of Westminster formalised this relationship in 1931 with the founding of the British Commonwealth of Nations. When newly independent India chose in 1949 to be a republic but to stay in the Commonwealth, its first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, argued that in an increasingly globalised world the network represented by the British Commonwealth of Nations served a useful purpose. The other member nations, welcoming his logic, issued the London Declaration of 1949, allowing India, Pakistan, and Ceylon to join “as free and equal members.” Since then, the Commonwealth of Nations—the adjective “British” is less and less often used—has admitted other independent nations that, like India, decline to swear allegiance to the crown. Today the Commonwealth also includes Mozambique and Rwanda, which were never colonised by the British.
But the Commonwealth has been of greatest use to the British themselves, for without it they would have lost an empire and been searching for a role. As George Orwell famously warned, if Britain were “to throw the empire overboard,” it would “reduce England to a cold and unimportant little island where we should all have to work very hard and live mainly on herrings and potatoes.”
For some years now the Commonwealth has led a somewhat desultory existence, its business largely unreported in the media, a far cry from the heady days of Sir Shridath “Sonny” Ramphal, Secretary-General of the Commonwealth from 1975-1990, whose every pronouncement on world affairs was guaranteed to hog the headlines. There was some hope of a Commonwealth revival when Boris Johnson’s Brexit campaign tom-tommed the idea of replacing the European Union with the Commonwealth, clumsily referred to by his acolytes as “Empire 2.0.” As I wrote in April 2018: “There can be no Empire 2.0: Empire 1.0 was too disastrous to be replicated. But there can be a New Commonwealth. The UK must seize the moment.” So far it has singularly failed to do so.
Britain has long touted the Commonwealth as a constructive and vital force in the world, but its work has rarely lived up to that billing. The organisation is marked by rather limited funding for its poorer members, unambitious collective projects and no Commonwealth free trade agreement (preferential tariffs for Commonwealth nations having fallen by the wayside when Britain joined the European Common Market half a century ago). The post-Brexit decline of London as a financial powerhouse and staging-post for businesses seeking an entry into Europe has also reduced its relevance. All the Commonwealth offers, it seems, is a common meeting place for its leaders to issue grand sounding declarations with no practical impact. So where does it go from here?
Since a majority of the members of the Commonwealth, following India’s example, do not swear fealty to the British monarch, the Queen, and now King Charles III, enjoy a somewhat curious position within it. The British monarch has no constitutional role and is not automatically the head of the Commonwealth; that position, rather than being hereditary like the monarchy itself, is appointed by member nations. However, the issue is academic since in 2018 the organisation announced that the then Prince Charles would succeed his mother as head. This has not prevented rumblings that a future head should come from elsewhere.
The Queen’s role as head of the Commonwealth was principally to keep Britain’s global image alive, to embody the past glory of empire and to transform the Commonwealth by monarchical alchemy into the flagship institution of Britain’s worldwide soft power. She travelled to nearly all the Commonwealth nations, some more than once, often attended the biennial Commonwealth summits, and by the importance she attached to it in her itinerary and in her speeches, showcased the monarchy’s role as its key unifying force.
That unity has come under severe strain in recent years as ex-colonies have become more concerned with the injustices of imperial rule. Demands for reparations and apologies dogged a recent tour of the Caribbean Commonwealth by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, requiring the Duke, now Prince of Wales, to express his “profound sorrow” for the “appalling atrocity of slavery.” Since most of the looting, pillage, plunder and oppression inflicted by the British Empire was conducted in the name of the monarchy, it is hard to escape a sense of royal complicity with these crimes and the undeniable fact is that the royal family profited greatly from the imperial connection embodied by the Commonwealth. The somewhat chastened Duke admitted that his Commonwealth tour “has brought into even sharper focus questions about the past and the future.”
In some respects, the Queen could have it both ways: she was able to live off the proceeds of conquest and plunder, but because monarchs did not actually order any of these things, she did not have to apologise for them. As Queen she was only a symbol. “A symbol of what?” was a question whose answers varied according to who was giving them: a symbol of the glories of the British Empire; of the grandeur of the monarchy; of the finest hopes and loyalties of her subjects; and also of the iniquities and injustices perpetrated by her country, its soldiers and administrators, by her ancestors in far-off lands they had no business being in. When you symbolise everything, you are either responsible for everything or for nothing. Queen Elizabeth, as a monarch, floated above the fray. Benefiting from it, she was complicit in it; but as a non-participant, she could not be blamed for its worst horrors.
As head of the Commonwealth, the British monarch symbolises continuity amid transformation. At one time this was a useful role, alleviating the stresses that would inevitably have accompanied the transition from the iniquities of empire to a more equal post-colonial relationship. But with decolonisation largely complete, the need for such a symbol is increasingly questionable: the monarchy is more a reminder of past colonial wrongs than contemporary positives. Commonwealth citizens are more apt to be critical of the entire enterprise than ever before. “Even by the highest standards of benevolent thuggery, which the empire ably epitomised,” wrote the Indian critic Shivaji Dasgupta at the time of the August Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, “this noble befriending of the shamelessly looted was priceless chutzpah.” Dasgupta argued that “this old timers’ consortium is plainly irrelevant in matters of global impact.”
The result, inevitably, is that most of the independent states in the Commonwealth are largely apathetic about their links to the British crown, and the 14 that still have the monarch as head of state will dwindle. (Jamaica and five other Caribbean countries plan to follow Barbados and abandon their fealty to the British monarch. Though republicanism has so far been held at bay in the former “White Commonwealth” (barring South Africa), Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese, even while expressing “respect and affection” for the late Queen, felt obliged to add that his country’s relationship with Britain “is no longer what it was at the dawn of [the Queen’s] reign.” In a nod to the ruling Labor Party’s own inherent Republicanism, Albanese pointedly remarked: “No longer parent and young upstart, we stand as equals.”
Britain’s reduced economic clout has a great deal to do with the diminished significance of the Commonwealth. The UK is a much less significant player than, for example, China, which has invested more than £685 billion across 42 Commonwealth member states since 2005. In its bid to expand its global influence, China has been systematically targeting poorer Commonwealth states, fully aware that Britain cannot compete. In turn, many have toed the Chinese line on issues like Beijing’s crackdown in Hong Kong. Pakistan, the biggest recipient of UK Overseas Development Assistance, has received far more overall from the Chinese, notably a £60 billion investment under the massive Belt and Road infrastructure initiative; Chinese aid amounts to more than a fifth of Pakistan’s GDP since 2005, and the country now buys 70 per cent of its arms from Beijing. The situation is similar with Sri Lanka. Arguing the relevance of the Commonwealth to these nations has become a futile exercise. Even India, which takes a much more benign attitude to the Commonwealth and provided its secretary-general before the incumbent, is turning tepid: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will skip the Queen’s funeral, sending the country’s ceremonial president instead.
It is hard to see this pattern changing. Unless Britain develops the political will—and devotes the economic resources—to provide a revived thrust to the Commonwealth, its future seems imperilled. Between largely superfluous summitry, trivial development assistance and modest effectiveness on the ground, the Commonwealth looks doomed to increasing irrelevance.
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‘Bharat Jodo’ and ‘Congress Jodo’ as opportunities,
September 13, 2022,
The Hindu.
The current level of interest in the Indian National Congress party is attributable to two events: the start of the Bharat Jodo Yatra, in which Rahul Gandhi is leading marchers for 150 days from Kanniyakumari to Kashmir in a bid to “unite India”, and the announcement of elections to the Presidency of the party over a period of four weeks, culminating on October 19.
Both developments promise to shift media commentary away from the habitual hand-wringing over the party’s failure to improve its electoral vote share since 2014 and its repeated loss of State Assembly elections in recent years. They were much needed. It is true that the Congress has bounced back from similar setbacks in the past — electorally, after defeats in 1977 and 1989, politically after a trough between 1996 and 2004, and even after the tragic assassinations of Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, in 1984 and 1991 (both of which were immediately followed by general election victories for the Congress). But the crisis of seemingly aimless drift that followed the resignation of Rahul Gandhi as President after the election loss of 2019 has dragged on for more than three years, and here, finally, are two measures to arrest it.
In many ways the Congress party is engaged in an existential struggle, to defend the idea of India enshrined in the Constitution. The Bharat Jodo Yatra is a hugely important contribution to this ongoing effort; the ongoing march, and interactions with common citizens along the way, could help define and shape the message. But the struggle for India’s soul will not cease after the yatra ends. While the Congress is working with everyone, including other parties (it was the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, M.K. Stalin, who launched the yatra by symbolically handing over the national flag to Rahul Gandhi), non-political individuals and civil society groups, any such major activity undertaken by a political party, undoubtedly, has a political message. And that message is that the Congress is the party that can unite India and stop the process of dividing Indians on the basis of religion, caste and language — a process that is being zealously promoted by the ruling party.
The success of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in foregrounding Hindutva as its leitmotiv, while appropriating for itself the populist welfarism that had been the hallmark of previous Congress governments, makes it all the more urgent for the Congress to define and shape its message. To my mind, that can only be one of “Inclusive India” — an India that works for all, irrespective of religion, region, language or caste, as opposed to the “Hindi, Hindu, Hindustan” cry of the Sangh Parivar. As for welfare, there are two arguments the Congress can put forward: first, that its welfare projects were based on an understanding of Indians as rights-bearing citizens entitled to these benefits, whereas the BJP government sees them only as beneficiaries who are supposed to be “grateful” to the Prime Minister and his party for bestowing his (albeit taxpayer-funded) largesse upon them. And second, that while both United Progressive Alliance and the National Democratic Alliance opened bank accounts, made welfare payments and ran development programmes, the Congress not only devised most of these schemes first but oversaw them through competent Ministers and administrators, of whom the party still has an abundance. The BJP has merely taken them over and renamed them. They have been a name-changing government, not a game-changing government.
Turning to the party presidential election, it is an internal exercise, but it also represents an opportunity to stimulate widespread public interest in the Congress and to galvanise its party workers. Now that the Gandhi family has chosen to step aside from the election, the prospect of a number of candidates putting forward their visions for the party and the nation, and submitting themselves to a democratic vote, is stimulating. It also points to the fact that no other Indian political party has a comparable process to determine its future leadership, and by adhering to its Constitution, the Congress can set a standard that may finally drag other parties into the sunlight of internal democracy.
The key challenge remains that whoever is elected, the Congress will have to find a way to appeal beyond the 19% of the electorate that voted for the party in both 2014 and 2019 and may be considered the hard-core “true believers” in the party. The party has to find a way to appeal to those who did not vote for it in those two elections and drifted away to the BJP, most of whom did so for reasons other than Hindutva. This would require a leader who looks beyond history to speak to the aspirations of young India — one who firmly believes the party can set the country on the route to a better society, one that is ready to take on the opportunities offered by the world of the 21st century.
If the new president is purely an organisational person, while he or she may be able to lead the workers and strengthen the foundations of the party, they may be unable to galvanise wider interest and bring in the support of more voters to the party. If the president is a charismatic figure but has poor organisational skills, while he or she may be personally appealing to the national electorate, they are unlikely to find a fully supportive party machinery to help translate their charisma and natural appeal into electoral results. The challenge for the Congress is both to articulate a positive and aspirational vision for the nation and to fix the organisational and structural deficiencies that have impeded its recent efforts.
The answer lies in a combination of effective leadership and organisational reform, to reduce the “High Command” culture in the party, decentralise authority and truly empower the grassroots office-bearers of the party. There is no reason, for instance, that District Congress chiefs must be approved by the party president in New Delhi, nor for a Pradesh Congress head to be answerable to a general secretary breathing down his neck from the national capital. Re-imagining the organisation and delegating powers to State leaders will not only free the new leader from the onerous burdens of over-administration but also help create the strong State leadership that in past eras undergirded the Congress’s national appeal.
In the context of a presidential election, a fresh leader, who has not been jaded by being entrenched within the current system for too long, could emerge who could do both — energise a party that certainly needs it and at the same time, appeal to more voters than the Congress managed to during the last few elections. A democratic contest will bring vibrancy at all levels by prompting a healthy and constructive discussion on reforms — around proposals like the decentralisation of power and authority, giving State units a free hand in the appointment of office-bearers and district presidents, and repairing the breakdown of consultative mechanisms within the Congress through a democratic and collective decision-making process at the national level (which would involve reviving the Parliamentary Board provided for in the party Constitution as well as elections to the Congress Working Committee).
It can be done, and the Congress can do it. The people of India, despairing of the BJP’s overweening dominance and increasingly divisive governance, need us to perform both “Bharat Jodo”and “Congress Jodo”. The yatra and the upcoming election are both opportunities we must decisively seize, in the national interest. India deserves no less.
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Onam, true celebration of humanity,
September 16, 2022,
Manorama.
To witness the official inaugural of the Onam festivities in Thiruvananthapuram last week, and their conclusion on Monday, was to celebrate the triumph of the human spirit. After four Onams of misery – two years of severe flooding in 2018 and 2019, followed by two years of Covid restrictions and lockdowns in 2020 and 2021 – this year marked the first occasion for unbridled joy and celebration. The city of Thiruvananthapuram was festooned with lights. Superstar Dulquer Salmaan, who attended the inaugural, remarked that he had been told to look out for the lights when he came to town, and they had lived up in vivid colour to his and his friends’ expectations.
The crowds at Thiruvananthapuram‘s Nishagandhi auditorium that day were overflowing in every direction. I have witnessed multiple events there, from the International Film Festival of Kerala to literary and musical extravaganzas, but I have never seen so many people crowding into the auditorium as on this occasion. Tourism Minister Mohammed Riyas spoke of how tourism had picked up with a vengeance as Covid ebbs, and was being called “revenge tourism”, people avenging themselves on years of denials; he suggested this was, for the people of Kerala, a “revenge Onam”. The estimated ten lakh people who lined the route of the floats participating in the “khoshayatra” that concluded the festivities confirmed how much this “revenge Onam” meant to them.
It was all the more appropriate, since Onam represents the best of the Kerala ethos – a festival which rises above the divisions of religion, caste, language and creed assiduously promoted by some in our country‘s politics. Onam is the time when all celebrate their common humanity and their shared Malayaliness, and all of us in the state capital did the same, exchanging gifts, enjoying colourful dances, music and laughter.
Onam is a festival of unity; it is what marks out the Kerala spirit from anywhere else. I remember once, when I was a minister in the External Affairs ministry, meeting the honorary Indian Consul-General in Gambia, a tiny sliver of a country on both sides of the river Gambia in West Africa. The total population of Gambia is only 24,00,000, about the same as my Thiruvananthapuram constituency, so I jokingly remarked that surely he didn’t have too many Malayalis there. He replied that they were only three families of Keralites amongst some 20 odd Indians in that country. In that case, you could not be getting too much botheration to celebrate Onam, I suggested. On the contrary, he said: these three Malayali families are two Christians and a Muslim, but they will not allow us to let Onam to go by without a celebration at the consulate, to which all the other Indian families are invited. I was delighted to learn that, in this tiny outpost in Gambia, the spirit of inclusiveness, of sharing and of mutual affirmation across communities –which is the best of what Kerala is all about — flourishes. As long as we have that spirit, no one will ever be able to change our character, whatever be the undesirable trends we see elsewhere in India.
This year, I was not, unfortunately, able to fully enjoy the wonderful closing ceremony of the official Onam festivities, which took place on Monday. After a brief appearance at the inauguration, I had to move on. For once there was something even more important – the Bharat Jodo Yatra, which was marching through my constituency, Thiruvananthapuram, that afternoon. The Yatra is a massive, 150 day undertaking led by Rahul Gandhi that will walk from Kanyakumari to Kashmir with the clarion call to “unite India.”
Why does India need uniting, 75 years after we established a nation that enshrined our diversity and democracy in freedom? In many ways we are engaged in an existential struggle, to defend the idea of India enshrined in the Constitution. The Bharat Jodo Yatra is one important contribution to this ongoing effort. While we are working with everyone, including other parties, non-political individuals and civil society groups, any such major activity undertaken by a political party undoubtedly has a political message. And that message is that we are the party that can unite India and stop the process of dividing us on the basis of religion, caste and language that is being promoted by the ruling party.
This battle is a continuing one. We have lost a few skirmishes, notably in 2014 and 2019, but the Bharat Jodo Yatra marks the beginning of an effective reply. As long as it goes on, we will hope to raise people’s awareness, stir their consciences and galvanise public support. The sight of thousands of people thronging the streets of Parassala at 6.30 on a Sunday morning was proof enough of the interest this Yatra has generated among the ordinary people of southern Kerala. The same was repeated at the conclusion of each day’s Yatra in the delirious crowds that gathered to hear Rahul Gandhi speak at Nemom and Kazhakuttam on Sunday and Monday nights. Their enthusiasm will sustain the marchers on their arduous trek through the country.
The march will affirm with each step that India should never surrender to majoritarianism and other divisive forces. In his speeches Rahul Gandhi said that Kerala’s spirit of co-existence, harmony and co-operation is the very spirit theYatra seeks to affirm across the rest of India. That is no small ambition, but it is most worthwhile. It is clear that the struggle for India’s soul will not cease after the Yatra ends.
