Er P L Khushu
Rahul Gandhi, the Crown Prince of Congress party is on a new mission mystically called as ‘Bharta-Jodo’. What is there for ‘Bharat’ which needs to be ‘Jodo’, in other words to be connected. A hypocritical proposition without any dimension. Yes, the dimension can be to send the Rahul Gandhi on a political excursion, by the congress party, so that he knows India fully, before he dreams to become the Prime Minister of India, a dream of an orthodox slumber. Suspecting further erosion of the congress party, as most of its stalwarts have already deserted this age old national party, this T shirt Yatra may be an attempt to stop the ‘ Quit Congress’ movement which is rusting the basic roots of this grand old political party of India. Congress is reduced now to a party of just a few persons who are mostly unknown to the masses of India except the mother, son and sister trio. This Yatra is at its last leg, when presently it is moving on the roads and streets of Jammu and Kashmir. Rahul Gandhi has done more harm to his congress party, than adding credence to this political party, when he admired his welcome in Jammu and Kashmir at the hands of the political leaders of National Conference and PDP and the like, who are the sympathizers of the separatists movements in Kashmir, as also the sympathizers of Pakistan in Kashmir and have never allowed peace to prevail in Jammu and Kashmir for their vote bank politics. They have always been talking about going for talks with Pakistan over Kashmir. While having reached almost a conclusive phase the Bharat Jodo Yatra has been suspended for the rest of the day on Friday last, after the Congress alleged a ‘serious’ lapse in security in Jammu and Kashmir. Rahul Gandhi and the Yatris participating in the Yatra were denied security cover in Banihal, as alleged by several party leaders. In a press conference, Gandhi said he had to cancel his walk for the day because police arrangements unfortunately ‘completely collapsed’. Police personnel who were supposed to manage the crowd were nowhere to be seen, he said. ‘It’s the Jammu and Kashmir administration’s responsibility to provide security. The state administration has squarely dismissed these allegations calling upon the organizers of this Yatra to manage the Yatra as per security schedules discussed between the organizers of this Yatra and the state police. Kashmir valley in particular is very much vulnerable to any mishap in regard to the security scenarios of such public appearances, as such the organizers of this episodic Yatra should be responsible and reasonable enough to follow a tight schedule as per the settled schedules of security norms in this regard. Probably Rahul Gandhi who considers himself as the prince inherent of the age old congress party, should discipline himself to follow the norms of the security regulations prescribed for such events. As per media reports the state police had provided him sufficient security both from the state police as also from the other security forces available with the government. A lie spoken ten times is taken as a truth a famous saying. Rahul Gandhi is an expert in this field.
Before the alleged breach took place, National Conference leader Omar Abdullah, who is also a prince of another dynasty political party of Kashmir, joined the Bharat Jodo Yatra in Banihal, saying that Rahul Gandhi-led march is not being carried out for the image makeover of the Congress leader, but rather to change the situation and atmosphere of the country. Where Rahul Gandhi and his coterie of political accompanies around him failed to promote his cause of this Yatra, Omar Abdullah took the charge of the congress leadership to explain for Rahul Gandhi as to what was his mission of this Yatra. What a wonderful tale of two princes coming to the rescue of each other. He is reported to have said that the mission of this Yatra is to unite India, which is otherwise disunited presently. Unfortunate for him to have said it. Does he know that who is responsible for Kashmir Todo for Kashmiri Pandits. Before talking for the whole country to unite it, let him try to unite Kashmir for the genocide ridden Kashmiri Pandits, who are living in exile in their own country, when such dynasty based political leaders are living princely lives in cozy houses of Kashmir, least bothering about the aboriginal residents of Kashmir the Pandits of Kashmir, when they are living in exile somewhere else other than that of their own place of births for the alleged sins of the dynasty based political parties of Kashmir supported and abetted by the erstwhile rulers of congress from Delhi.
Omar Abdullah used this occasion to plead and advocate for the large population of the Muslims of India when he has not been given mandate of leadership by any Muslim body or organization of India to speak for them. The Muslims living in the various parts of India are the true nationals of India when they have always stood for the unity and the sovereignty of India as a whole. Such an attempt on the part of Omar Abdullah to color this Yatra with a communal tinge is nothing but to break Bharat ( India), when such dynasty based political leaders have already done enough to break Kashmir ( Kashmir – Todo) for their vote bank politics to remain in power perpetually. The new elections are now on the cards for the union territory of J & K and with the changed scenario of political base in Jammu and Kashmir, all such dynasty based political parties are feeling nervous enough to see their end in these elections. One cannot forgive these dynasty based political parties for the sins of the 1987 elections which were brutally rigged by them with the covert support of the congress rulers from Delhi to remain in power by hook or by crook. This gave birth to the present terrorism in the state of Jammu and Kashmir which is now a union territory, when Ladakh has been separated from it. This is ‘Kashmir-Todo’ by these people to the utter dismay and devastation of the people of Jammu and Kashmir in which the Kashmiri Pandits became the ducks for the guns of the terror imported across the border from Pakistan, when these political leaders remained as silent spectators for almost 33 years of terrorism in Kashmir now. Omar Abdullah remained the chief Minister of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir for a full term. What did he do for rehabilitating the Kashmiri Pandits back to Kashmir? This is what is ‘Kashmir – Todo’ for the Kashmiri Pandits by this political party.
While speaking for the cause of the Muslims of India on this occasion of the Yatra just a day back, did he muster any courage to speak for the Kashmiri Pandits on this occasion for their woes and turmoil’s of genocide and mass massacre due to the terrorism in Kashmir. This is what is ‘Kashmir – Todo’ for the Pandits of Kashmir. It is true about the other crown prince of the congress party Rahul Gandhi. Has he ever shown any concern about the plight of Kashmir Pandits during his entire course of this so called Yatra, which is now entering into the final phase of ‘Kashmir – Todo’ Yatra. There should no regrets about such conducts of such people, as birds of the same feather always flock together. It is the amalgam of both the dynastic rulers of Kashmir and the congress party who are responsible for the present distress and agony of the KPs. Birds of the same feather flock together, is what Rahul Gandhi is conveying through this self-styled T-shirt voyage through the orchids of India. India the ‘Bharat’, is fully consolidated and united with the angelic leadership of Prime Minister Modi. All those, amongst the political clans of dual interests, who had in the past divided India in the name of cast, religion and region, for their vote bank politics are the attendees and voyagers in this so called Gandhi Yatra. Self seekers and self employed political leaders of the day compare this excursion voyage with the similar synonymous Yatras of the great son of the soil the Mahatma Gandhi of the pre independence times of India. It is big sin to do so. The great Mahatma was a selfless leader of the masses of India, who had attained bigger heights in his political voyage to get India liberated from the clutches of the British. His spiritual attainments as a leader of the Indian masses had risen to very big heights, when he would mostly move naked, having abandoned all the passion of materialistic pursuits and interests of life. What a contrast and diffusion? Rahul Gandhi has launched the 3,500 kilometers nationwide so called Bharat Jodo Yatra from Kanyakumari to Kashmir. Rahul Gandhi’s advisors seem to have convinced him that a much publicized nationwide foot march Pad-Yatra, is the best way to elevate him and his march to the same level as the Dandi march, undertaken by M K Gandhi, almost a century back. A maniac thought, while comparing the ‘Dandi-March’ with this ‘ Yatra’. A wishful day dreaming by the sycophants around Rahul Gandhi and his coterie of sycophants. Such like propositions by the kitchen cabinet of Gandhi’s is almost like performing the last rites of the congress party, which is its own architect of its present doom. Congress has almost shrunk. A symbolic ‘Yatra’ across the contours of India should have been led by some other matured congress leader, other than Rahul Gandhi, from the residual lot of the congress men who are still clinched to this dynasty dominated political party of India. Rahul Gandhi is ridiculing his political ridicule to the mock and the jocular clapping of the Indians across the country. God save the king, the king is dead, a famous proverb fits in here. Congress is facing a countrywide identity crisis with the party not having come up with enough numbers to even qualify as an opposition party in the polls. They are reduced to just almost fifties in the parliament. Six years after the party’s electoral rout pushed it into a continuing downward spiral, 23 senior leaders of the Congress, including five former Chief Ministers, many Congress Working Committee members, sitting MPs, and several former Union Ministers, have, in an unprecedented pushback, sent a letter to party chief calling for sweeping changes, from top to bottom. Narendra Modi tsunami dismantled the entire opposition barring a couple of states where regional satraps still rule the roost. Gulam Nabi Azad a veteran congress leader and giant Muslim face of congress party has been shown the door with humiliations. By the second decade of the 21st century, the resurgent BJP led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee and then with the people amelioration akin policies of Narendra Damodardas Modi, has altered India’s political landscape. They dismissed the English-speaking lot as Macaulay’s children and replaced the external view of country for adhesive growth, with an internal gaze founded on ‘Sabka-Sath’, Sabka-Vikas’, Sabka-Vishwas’ and now ‘Sabka-Priyas’. It has been done on the ground, for the people of India, when it is visible today by its acceptance by the people though the force of ballot. Why should Rahul Gandhi shy away from unfurling the national flag from the historic Lal-Chowk of Srinagar, when great leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru, Sheikh Abdullah, G M Sadiq, Indra Gandhi, have done so to show that Kashmir is an integral part of India. To the entire dismay of his T-Shirt Yatra, he is hoisting the Indian Flag at the Congress office in Srinagar and that too not on 26 January but some other date of his expected arrival in Kashmir. Is he doing so to follow the separatist’s ideology and the movement of the dynastic political leaders of Kashmir who are more inclined to these separatists’ leaders rather than to the ideology of ‘Bharat’ in Kashmir? So this so called T-Shirt ‘Yatra’ by Rahul Gandhi is ‘Kashmir-Todo’ Yatra for him and his political party. The 1991 Ekta Yatra was led by BJP President Murli Manohar Joshi and was intended to signal that BJP supported national unity and opposed separatist movements in Kashmir. It commenced on 11 December 1991 in Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu, coinciding with the birth anniversary of Subramania Bharti and the ‘Balidan Diwas’ of Guru Tegh Bahadur. The Yatra visited 14 states. Other notable participants included Narendra Modi, the present Prime Minister of India, who helped organize the rally, and Anandiben Patel. The motorcade of hundreds of vehicles was stopped at Patnitop beyond Jammu on 25 January 1992. But Dr Murli Manohar Joshi made it to hoist the Indian Flag at Srinagar’s Lal Chowk in a military aircraft to unfurl the national flag on January 26. This is nationalism and a national priority.
(The author is a Chartered Consultant Civil Engineer, passionately attached and devoted to his motherland Jammu & Kashmir).