By Justice Markandey Katju–
(Justice Markandey Katju is a former Judge, Supreme Court of India, and former Chairman, Press Council of India. The views expressed are his own)
The Congress party has announced that Rahul Gandhi will undertake a ‘Bharat Nyaya Yatra’ (The Indian Justice March) from Manipur to Mumbai from January 14 to March 20, 2024, and will cover a distance of 3860 miles (6200 km), passing through 14 states and 85 districts.
This yatra is planned with an eye on the upcoming general elections. Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra (Unite India March) from Kanyakumari to Srinagar from September 7, 2022 to January 30, 2023, covered approximately 2500 miles (4000 km) and passed through 12 states.
His speeches in America about about starting a ‘Mohabbat Ki Dukaan’ (An Outlet of Love) in a ‘Nafrat Ka Bazaar’ (A Market of Hatred) were a flop show and a gimmick, despite all the fanfare and publicity, as they were followed by the defeat of the Congress in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh (though it won in Karnataka and Telangana).
The aim of the Congress party and Rahul Gandhi in all this is to get the large Muslim vote bank, for without that, it has a bleak future. Congress, which was in power for several decades after Independence, feels like a fish out of water without power, and its corresponding loaves of office.
For a long time, Muslims were Congress voters, but after demolition of the Babri Masjid in December 1992, Muslims left the Congress in UP, the largest state in India, and crossed over to Samajwadi Party (SP), and in Bihar to Lalu Yadav’s RJD. Now the Congress is desperate to get them back.
The problem for the Congress is that other non-BJP parties also want Muslim votes; SP in UP and RJD in Bihar, for instance. Seat sharing in the INDIA alliance of opposition parties will not be easy. Also, when a party goes to the polls it must have something positive to offer to the people.
The BJP has Hindutva to offer (for what it’s worth). But the Congress has nothing to offer, except harping on secularism, which is only a euphemism for a desire to get Muslim votes.
The Bharat Nyaya Yatra has proclaimed its objective as ‘aarthik nyaya’ (economic justice) and ‘rajnaitik nyaya’ (political justice), which really means nothing. Everybody in India know that Indian politicians have no genuine desire to give Indians economic justice, but only seek their votes by making all kinds of tall promises to the people, when in fact all they seek is power and pelf.
Gandhi has no clue how to solve India’s huge economic problems, so all his talk of ‘aarthik nyaya’ is claptrap and hot air. In India, politics runs largely on the basis of caste and religious vote banks, and when most voters go to vote they forget economic issues like poverty, unemployment, price rise, etc, and only see the candidate’s caste or religion (or the caste or religion his party claims to represent).
The skilfully manipulated media hype over the consecration of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya on January 22, and its inauguration on January 24 will certainly benefit the BJP, apart from the religious polarization in recent years, in the coming elections.
I am afraid the Bharat Nyaya Yatra will be as much a stunt and a gimmick as the Bharat Jodo Yatra.
