Rahul Gandhi is marching the total length of India. I joined him to search out out why

How does an opposition politician preserve the initiative in India, a mountainous and populous country with an an increasing selection of authoritarian ruling occasion and yell? Rahul Gandhi has a solution, and it involves a pair of brogues.

Bharat Jodo Yatra, a “crawl bringing India together”, is the title of a long march that Gandhi, a famend member of the Indian Nationwide Congress occasion, has been main from the country’s southernmost tropical tip to its icy north. He has covered about 1,900 miles (3,000km) so far, walking 12-15 miles every day, with a total bunch of others drawn from his occasion, as effectively as civil society individuals and celebrities. Hundreds line the route wherever the march passes to retract a see of the effectively-known politician and to reveal relief. Since any person is allowed to affix, I positive to tag along for two days.

My crawl began as soon as I alighted at Sawai Madhopur practice place in Rajasthan. A young doctor, some of the yatris (marchers), had technique to town to secure medicines wished on the camp, nevertheless was stranded. As we chatted in the vehicle, he acknowledged he was deeply unnerved about the route the country was taking and wished badly to be fragment of something obvious. This was the gist of what many people acknowledged to me. No lofty ideological statements, nevertheless easy motivations corresponding to: “We can carry out better than despise.”

Why march? There might be the historical resonance – Mahatma Gandhi famously marched towards British rule in 1930; marching is fragment of the repertoire of Indian politics. But as Rahul Gandhi has argued, the reliable motive is that the streets are the single arena left for India’s opposition. That is, in an India the place the Modi executive has weaponised the police, courts, tax and other enforcement institutions to hound any critic; the place gigantic companies compete to affix the elite ranks of Modi’s billionaire cronies; and the place the mainstream media have change into a put up-truth foghorn for presidency, marching en masse is the single manner to create seen the truth that many disagree with the ruinous route by which the executive is taking India.

Predictably, the yatra has no longer been given consideration by numerous the mainstream media and heaps of Indians far from its route, together with in the world diaspora, carry out no longer even know it’s far occurring.

On every day foundation began at 6am. In Rajasthan, in December, this meant it was pitch darkish and bitterly cool. As we huddled in our shawls and jackets, our our bodies warmed with the chants and slogans that began as soon as we trigger off. The predominant predominant destroy came at 10.30am at “camp”: here, a total bunch of mattresses, quilts and pillows had been laid out for the yatris to leisure, with lunch served at an adjoining marquee at 12.

The total operation was take care of the militia campaign of a huge, non-violent military. The bolt resumed again about 3pm, ending on the day’s carry out point marked by a mountainous helium balloon that you just might place a kilometre away. Girls folk walked in crisp saris, males in the identical dresses day after day – the form of languages, backgrounds and temperaments was thoughts-boggling. It was a mini-India that appeared as if it would be on the march. All people knows this India exists, nevertheless no longer regularly win to trip it first hand, with out warning.

On the second day, I walked alongside Gandhi. As in earlier encounters, I chanced on him to be courteous and cerebral, enthusiastic for a backward and forward conversation. We debated the usefulness of western political view in furthering our figuring out of Indian politics. It was likely to wretchedness him and disagree in a manner that you just might’t with most Indian politicians – underneath no circumstances with Narendra Modi, who refuses to preserve even with press conferences. With Modi, Indian electorate are given the shock and dread system of lavish stage-managed events. In distinction, the scrutinize of Rahul Gandhi, unkempt beard and trainers, walking along surrounded by peculiar other folks makes for a compelling political image.

It’s miles comely, alternatively, that the Congress occasion’s failure these days to employ sufficient elections is moreover blamed on Gandhi. He has been accused of being an component-time politician, a reluctant and ineffective president of the occasion, dubbed “pappu” (a nickname for a young, naive boy) by his opponents. (Rahul is the son of former high minister Rajiv Gandhi and grandson of former high minister Indira Gandhi.)

In opposition, the occasion organisation had change into an increasing selection of moribund, its individuals demoralised. But the yatra, occasion workers mutter, has long past some manner in addressing this. It has given the despicable and file a sense of reason, having organised this astronomical roadshow, and suggests that the “pappu” mark no longer fits. The Congress misplaced the Gujarat elections (in Modi’s home yell) one day of the yatra nevertheless this did no longer seem to dampen spirits. The laborious work of a success hearts and minds remains to be accomplished.

The final time a yatra caught the creativeness, it was the BJP’s LK Advani’s Rath Yatra atop a modified Toyota SUV in the early 1990s. Traversing the country, the procession left violence in its wake and led sooner or later to the destruction of the 16th-century Babri mosque by Hindu mobs.

The original Indian executive’s ideology is constructed on its legacy. The yatris I walked with as a replacement held up the image of an different India, one of compassion and cohesion. The inquire of is which route the Indian inhabitants will employ to get rid of?

• Dr Mukulika Banerjee is a professor on the London Faculty of Economics