Valson Thampu

Rahul’s ‘Bharat jodo yatra’ encapsulates a timely concern; the urgent need to reinforce the tottering foundations of India as unity-in-diversity. But it is doubtful if he has conceptualized, or prepared for his mission adequately.

The need to connect directly to ‘We, the people’ arises because of the ground reality of alienation and disunity. The BJP, as Rahul sees it, wants to divide India communally in order to rule it. It is a familiar colonial strategy: something that led to the vivisection of the Indian sub-continent. Now, a wider tragedy, Rahul fears, threatens to befall India. India’s rich composite culture is being unraveled for electoral gains. Rahul is entitled to his concerns. But if he wants them to be adopted by the people at large, he needs to communicate with them better, and more creatively.

Yatra of the political genus is very much in the Gandhian mode. The Mahatma was not only a traveler-discoverer of India, but also an effective communicator. In his case, journeying and communicating with the people were one. Communication was a way of life with him. As a mass leader in modern history he is unrivaled in how much and how well he communicated with the people. He communicated because he was clear and passionate about the mission of his life. He conceived that mission spiritually: to liberate a long-suppressed people and to empower then to build together their national destiny. Small wonder, they attached their soul to every word Gandhi uttered and every move he made. Gandhi embodied the unity of India.

This means that Gandhi’s vision was organic. To him, the unity of the people was the bedrock of India’s freedom. He posited Hindu-Muslim unity as its paradigm. Hindus and Muslim were like the two eyes of Bharat Mata. Swami Vivekananda envisaged the integration of the Vedantic soul and Islamic body as the ideal to be attained through the liberation of India.

The organic mode is distinguished by the self-transcendence of constituent members, as against their self-absorption. As regards the human body, it is when a particular organ or limb is compromised that the person concerned becomes conscious of it to the neglect of all else. This exclusivity is pathological. When all members of a body are functioning in a healthy fashion, one is unconscious of them and stays focused on the task at hand. This is the essence of unity-in-diversity. It is inadequately interpreted as respect for diversity. The emphasis must be on unity. But ‘unity’ for what? Unity for the sake of the vitality of the whole. Where there is no self-transcending purpose, ‘unity’ becomes ornamental. Ornamental unity is a self-contradiction; for unity is nothing, if not dynamic and purposive.

To understand this better, recall the familiar event of Gandhi breaking away, now and then, from historic discussions to feed his goat. Nothing was insignificant in his vision of life. It was this vision that lent spiritual resonances to his yatra. It was not that Gandhi undertook a yatra, but that his life was a yatra from the self to people. Posturing indiscriminate geniality is a poor substitute for this. It could even prove counterproductive via over-exposure.

In the spiritual mode of understanding a nation and its destiny, it is imperative that every constituent member or community is affirmed, integrated and enabled. Think, again, of the human body, which comprises trillions of cells. Each cell has to be at its best for the body to be robust. The wholeness of the body and the vitality of every cell imply each other. This vision, by the way, underlies the idea that church is the ‘body’ of Jesus Christ. No congregation that neglects the development and integration of every one of its members qualifies to be the body of Christ.

Hindutva too is, ironically, a yatra; though a yatra cast in a different mode. It is a quest for the homogenized uniformity of India, which assumes that diversity and a culture of tolerance weaken the manliness of a nation. The irony at the root of Hindutva is that its cultural vision is borrowed from European nationalism; not from the spiritual-philosophical vision of Hinduism. My own discomfort with Hindutva is that it is anything but Hindu. I have no problem in accepting that everyone living within the geographic limits of India is Hindu by culture. My problem is in understanding Hinduism through the imported spectacles of Hindutva cultural nationalism.

Rahul Gandhi is evidently uncomfortable with this part of the Congress legacy. It underlies his keenness to de-clutter the party of the un-inspiring baggage of old guards. He inherited a party of which very many senior leaders are indifferent to his concerns and goals. To many of them politics is a domain of personal entitlements. They are indifferent to national interests. ‘National integration’ disappeared from the lingo of the Congress party. I was a member of the National Integration Council for two terms during UPA I and II. The air of indifference that enveloped the agendas and meetings of the NIC was soul-stifling. So, there is some relevance to the jibe that Rahul needs to hold his party together before he can unite India.

There is a message in all this for minority communities. It is vital for their survival to safeguard the secular-democratic character of India. Commitment to religious and cultural plurality is crucial for that agenda. That commitment must be adhered to beyond the remit of petty profits and fleeting advantages. Driving a wedge between Muslims and Christians is the key Hindutva strategy, especially in Kerala. It might seem clever to play in this game alongside. But, by doing so, we validate the logic for formatting India as a Hindutva Rashtra. Within the ideological prejudices inalienable from the Hindutva vision, there is no distinction between Muslims and Christians regarding their eligibility for citizenship. It takes willful blindness to assume that the Hindutva agenda will be pursued brutally only to the extent of hurting Muslims, but not to the point of pinching Christians. As the poet said, ‘Today me/Tomorrow, thee.’