Padyatra is fine but harness the power of Mahatma’s music

Yet that wound cannot be healed without clearly understanding the cause and remedy.

- SWAMINATHAN S ANKLESARIA AIYAR

Dear Rahul Gandhi,

Your Bharat Jodo (unify India) padyatra has started well. India is a badly divided nation that needs healing. 

You believe the hard secularism of Jawaharlal Nehru has become an electoral liability, saddling your party with an anti-Hindu image. So, you have switched to what critics like me call soft Hindutva. You have promoted your image as a Shiva worshipper, temple visitor, and wearer of the Brahminical sacred thread. You no longer fight electoral battles with secular guns blazing.

Alas, soft Hindutva has flopped. Instead of gaining votes, it has given you the image of a party lacking serious convictions. The BJP is riding high, and regional parties have reduced you to third position or worse in many other states. This has stoked constant defections and revolts.

You need a strong new message. Bharat Jodo is a good slogan, but soft Hindutva has only strengthened the BJP’s idea of India, at your cost. The solution is to return to the message of Mahatma Gandhi, whose birth anniversary is nigh.

Gandhiji was the best example of being highly religious, yet totally secular. He was assassinated by Nathuram Godse for being a Muslim appeaser. But the people were fully with Gandhiji, who proved that a good Hindu should be secular as a matter of duty, and that being anti-Muslim was bad Hinduism.