Flowing grey beard, different robes, wraps, and tikas for different occasions, awkward aartis, frequent musings about the spirituality of this land, and the profound proclamation that the Rahul Gandhi we knew is gone… implying that a new avatar has taken his place…
That, plus walking and running in sneakers, performing pushups and mixing political psycho-babble with martial arts, rubbing hands and shoulders literally with starlets…
Whoever is writing the script of Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra is a consummate fan of Hollywood’s Forrest Gump and Bollywood’s Guide, so much so that he or she has married the two movies and rolled them into one event.
But the desired outcome of Bharat Jodo Yatra, one hopes, goes beyond entertainment to some hard political gains. For a party and personality so often accused of being anti-Hindu and anti-Hindutva, the baroque temple run is obviously to establish him as a practising and devout Hindu.
After the general election rout of 2014, the AK Antony committee had rightly attributed it to the perception of Congress as a pro-Muslim, anti-Hindu party. But Rahul Gandhi refused to take that advice seriously despite the subsequent string of electoral defeats. Finally, he is trying.
During the Bharat Jodo Yatra, he has paid his obeisance to every religious stopover on his way. From the Chamundeshwari Temple atop Chamundi Hills to the doorstep of Mahakal in Ujjain, from the Sri Ganga Temple in Andhra’s Adoni to the Omkareshwar Shiv temple in MP, he has stopped at each place for elaborate photo ops. He visited Sri Narayana Guru’s Sivagiri Mutt in Kerala. He will certainly ring the bells of many more temples during the rest of his political tour.
But will that change his or the party’s image? Has the Congress and Rahul Gandhi started understanding the civilisation and its silently resilient torchbearers, the Hindus? Here is why it is unlikely.
Look at the celebs and actresses supporting Rahul Gandhi or joining him in the Bharat Jodo Yatra. Pooja Bhatt, for one, is long known for her anti-Hindutva utterances. Her brother, Rahul Bhatt, had actually helped (perhaps unwittingly) David Headley do recce for 26/11 Mumbai attacks.
Hollywood actor John Cusack backed Rahul Gandhi on Twitter. Cusack has made separatist noises on Kashmir, and claims to be a close friend of rabidly anti-India global mercenary Arundhati Roy.
The latest addition is Swara Bhasker. She overcompensates her sagging film career by desperately trying to grab limelight with anti-Hindutva noises, while attacking India’s defence forces, whitewashing Islamist violence, misrepresenting and protesting against laws like the Citizenship Amendment Act which protect the persecuted.
Most Hindus today are well aware of the agenda of these personalities.
Also, while the Bharat Jodo Yatra is on, Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee working president Satish Jarkiholi says that the term Hindu did not originate in India. He declared it was of Persian origin, used in countries like Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. “If you understand its original meaning, you will be ashamed of yourself. The original meaning of the term is very dirty and insulting,” Jarkiholi said.
Rahul Gandhi neither uttered a word to condemn the statement, nor moved a finger to act against his party leader.
Congress leader Hema Deshmukh, the mayor of Rajnandgaon in Chhattisgarh, went a step further in actually hitting Hindus where it hurts. She attended a mass conversion event, the video of which has gone viral. An oath against Hindu deities was taken at the function: “I will never follow Gauri, Ganpati or any other Hindu Gods and Goddesses and will never worship them. I will never believe that they were the incarnation of God.”
Again, Rahul Gandhi stayed tone deaf while sporting tilak for the cameras.
Even the charade of optics keeps slipping. While women faced death and torture in Iran and Afghanistan protesting against hijab and burqa, Rahul Gandhi proudly marched on Kerala streets with a little child in hijab. The regressive symbolism, the oppression meted out to girls in the Islamic world, did not occur to him once.
Rahul Gandhi can have a thousand photo ops, but it will not make him more of a Hindu in the eyes of Indians until it comes from an honest place within him. Right now, he is being disingenuous. From every evidence, the anti-Hindu software of the Congress party has not changed even by a byte.
Rahul Gandhi’s circus won’t fool Hindus. But it may anger quite a few Muslims. Already there are Muslim voices on social media expressing discomfort and even disgust about his overtly saffron optics. They would not want to see one of their last political hopes against Narendra Modi trying to be a wannabe Modi himself.
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