Fresh from the successful conclusion of his Bharat Jodo Yatra, former Congress president Rahul Gandhi struck an emotional note on Sunday as he narrated his experiences during the walkathon to the AICC delegates gathered at the party's plenary session in Raipur.
He spoke about the motif of home being an important element of the yatra. He shared an anecdote from the time he was six years old and had asked his mother a question about home. “I was small. It was 1977. Elections had taken place. I knew nothing about elections. One day, in our home, the atmosphere was strange. I went to my mother and asked her, 'what happened?' She said, 'we are leaving this house'. Till then, I used to think that it was our house. I asked her why we had to leave. She told me it was not our own house and that the government owned it and we had to go. I asked her where we were going. She said she did not know.”
He remarked that now he is 52-years-old, but he still does not have a house of his own. “I live in 12, Tughlak Lane.. But that is not home for me.”
Rahul said that in the initial days of the yatra, as he pondered over his role and responsibility in the endeavour, he came up with the idea that the empty space that was ensured around him by the security people would be his mobile home where the people would come and meet him for the four months that the march would go on.
“This home would move with us from six in the morning to seven in the evening. And I told everyone that whoever comes into this home, rich or poor, elderly, young or a child, or belonging to any religion or state, from within India or outside or an animal, he or she should feel like they are entering my home,” Rahul said.
“The moment this was done, the nature of the yatra changed like magic. People came and talked about so many things other than politics. And there is so much that they said that I will not be able to communicate to you,” he said.
He narrated the incident about a woman who joined him one morning in the yatra and left him shocked when she told him that she was a victim of domestic violence. “As soon as I held her hand, I knew something was wrong. I held her hand as I would have held Priyanka's hand. I thought to myself why I was giving the love that belonged to my sister to her. She said, 'Rahul ji, bhaiya, I have to come to meet you'. I asked her what was it that was bothering her. She said her husband beats her. I asked her when it had happened. She said just now. She said she had run away from her home to meet me. I said the police should be called. She said please don't call the police,” he recalled.
He said when he held hands and hugged people, after a point that became enough for him to come to know where they came from. Also, he said the yatra in the initial days itself demolished his arrogance with regard to his fitness levels, with an old knee injury received in football game resurfacing.
He said the theme of home took on a whole new meaning when the yatra reached Jammu and Kashmir since centuries ago his family had migrated from there.
Recalling an incident during the yatra's sojourn through Jammu and Kashmir, he said, “A boy came up to me and walked with me. He said he wanted to ask a question, which was why the rest of India rejoices when the people of Kashmir are hurt. I said that was a wrong notion. I told him that crores of people did not feel like this and stood with them in their pain as against thousands who may rejoice. He said 'Rahul ji, you have made me very happy today.”
In an apparent hit back at BJP leaders for saying that the yatra could pass through Jammu and Kashmir only because of the initiatives taken by the Modi government, Rahul sought to draw a distinction between the BJP leaders unfurling the tricolour in Kashmir and the hoisting of the flag during the yatra.
“When we entered the valley, we saw that while the police had said there would be 2,000 people there, around 40,000 had turned up. The moment the police saw there were more than 40,000 people, they dropped the rope that was thrown around us for security and vanished. At that time, I saw around me that in India's most terrorist-infested district, the tricolour was fluttering everywhere,” Rahul said.
“The Kashmiri youth were holding the tricolour. The CRPF people said they had never seen something like this before,” he said.
Rahul said he had heard Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying in Parliament that he too had hoisted the national flag in Lal Chowk in Srinagar. “Narendra Modi ji had along with 15-20 people belonging to the BJP hoisted the flag in Lal Chowk. During the Bharat Jodo Yatra, lakhs of Kashmiri youth had unfurled the tricolour. The prime minister does not understand the difference... The youth of Jammu and Kashmir took the flag out of a feeling from their hearts. We did not tell them to take the flag. Why did thousands of youth hold aloft the tricolour? The Kashmiri youth said, 'Rahul ji, we are walking with you holding the tiranga because you have trusted us. You have opened your heart to us. We will open our heart to you,” he said.
Rahul described his party as a “party of tapasvis and not pujaris” and said that the four-month-long yatra had infused new life in the Congress party and its workers. He said Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge should plan more 'tapasyas' like the Bharat Jodo Yatra, and he was ready to join it and give his blood and sweat to the endeavour.