As Rahul Gandhi embarks on the second leg of his Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, the BJP is busy preparing for the Ram Janambhoomi inauguration ceremony at Ayodhya. As one will recall, the Ayodhya temple is the culmination of another yatra, one that took place over three decades ago. It was the 1990 Rath Yatra undertaken by LK Advani accompanied by other BJP leaders, including current Prime Minister Narendra Modi. that gave a fillip to the temple movement. It is this movement that has finally led to the Supreme Court go ahead to the construction of a Ram temple in at his Janmabhoomi, in Ayodhya.
It was the Ram Rath yatra that also kickstarted the BJP’s electoral rise, giving its ideology an identifiable cause. The temple movement caught the imagination of the right wing that identified with the BJP and voted it as the single largest party in 1996 election. The rest is history, but the Modi government could not reach 303 without the building blocks of 85 seats in 1989 to 120 in 1991 (immediately after the rath yatra) to 161 in 1996 when the first BJP government took office, albiet for only 13 days. The reason why Advani’s yatra succeeded is that he managed to catch the public’s imagination with an identifiable and an emotive cause.
While Rahul Gandhi’s spree of yatras have yet to be tested by a General Election, the assembly polls have thrown a mixed bag; with a win in Karnataka & Telangana but defeats in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. What his yatra lacks however is a cause that is both accessible and emotive. Talking about Bharat Jodo and Nyay are great markers to convey that your instincts are in the right place but too esoteric to whip up a public sway in your favour. The message of unity versus communal targeting, of social and economic justice works only if you attach tangible solutions to it. Otherwise it becomes armchair rhetoric. Also the messenger has to become the message. LK Advani’s team of yatris fired up the public because the optics were all there, they walked their talk. Does the Congress party via its First Yatri convey that it is the harbinger of any of the above? And more to the point, what will it do to ensure the same?
Political analysts have forever been pointing out – specially in the last decade – that the Congress needs a strong narrative to counter the rise of the BJP under Narendra Modi. It is not enough to say that the Congress is anti Modi; the negative has also to be countered by a positive. The Congress has for long fashioning itself as the natural party of governance, given the fact that it has been in power longer than any other party in India. But, as recent elections have shown, good governance and a strong economic blueprint are not enough to win elections. The public needs something emotive, a cause that it can identify with. That is what Hindutva and the temple movement have done for the BJP. What can the Congress offer?
The problem is two fold, both of identifying a message and of communicating it. The BJP will blow the 2024 bugle on 22nd January from Ayodhya. The Congress is still deciding whether it should attend the event or not? It is again falling into the reactionary trap, reacting to the BJP rather than setting the agenda. Given that the Ram Janambhoomi Temple is a powerful optic to take on, but this is a time when Rahul Gandhi is also hitting the streets. He does get some traction with the public but instead of just some Instagram-able moments can he bring back something more longer lasting for the Congress? For that he will have to be more than just Rahul Gandhi he will have to be the Congress Party’s Communicator in Chief, reaching out to the public with a Congress ki Guarantee.
But first the Congress will have to figure out what that is. And it is running out of time.
Priya Sahgal