Goodwill only for Rahul; Congress needs to build on it: Tushar Gandhi

On November 18, Tushar Gandhi, great-grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, joined the ongoing Bharat Jodo Yatra (BJY) at Shegaon in Maharashtra. The Congress party’s social media handles were quick to circulate photographs of Tushar walking with Rahul, alongside archival pictures of their illustrious great-grandfathers — Gandhiji and Jawaharlal Nehru, respectively — to emphasise the importance of the moment.

In an exclusive interview with The Federal, the 62-year-old Tushar spoke about why he chose to join the yatra, his impressions of Rahul and the ups and downs — real and imaginary — that have marked the equations between the descendants of the two most iconic leaders of India’s freedom struggle. Edited excerpts:

I believe there was a special reason that drove you to join the Bharat Jodo Yatra at Shegaon…

I had been thinking of joining the yatra and had been following its progress ever since it was announced. When I got to know that the yatra will be passing through Shegaon, it excited me because Shegaon happens to be my birth station. I was born in a train that had halted at the Shegaon station. In fact, when I told Rahul that I was born at the Shegaon station, he was very amused. He wondered if my mother had any assistance during my birth and if there was a doctor present and I told him that there was nothing. 

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He also asked me if, because of the circumstances surrounding my birth, I was a compulsive traveller. I told him I wasn’t but that I did have an affinity for travel and he said —  ‘No, circumstances of birth do influence a person’s later life’.

The avowed message of the BJY is unity. You have spent most of your life in Maharashtra which, in many ways, has been a state where divisions of language, region and religion began dominating politics much before they did at a pan-India level. So, in the context of Maharashtra, how do you view the yatra?

Political polarisation on the issues of language, religion and so on has certainly been influential in Maharashtra for a much longer time than in most other parts of the country and, unfortunately, it has also been utilised rather successfully by various parties.

The message that the yatra brings is thus of immense significance for Maharashtra, and of course now for the rest of the country too, because language chauvinism, regional chauvinism, religious chauvinism was all politicised in Maharashtra much earlier; even before the infamous Gujarat laboratory. It is absolutely essential for this message of unity to be spread.

You joined the yatra just a day after Rahul and the Congress got embroiled in the Savarkar controversy. Suddenly, after over 60 days of an uncontroversial yatra, the focus is now on what Rahul said about Savarkar…

Look, from the time this yatra began, the response it has received from the public has left the ruling combine totally flummoxed. They have been trying unsuccessfully to find ways to divert attention from the message Rahul is trying to spread.

This one comment in Maharashtra has given his rivals a chance to fan the embers because Savarkar, whether we like it or not, is a major polarising figure in the state.

What Rahul said, of course, was not wrong because there is ample documentary and historical evidence to prove his statement. The reaction from the ruling combine is largely triggered by panic. I would, in fact, appreciate Rahul because after he made that statement, he didn’t get drawn into this slanging match that the BJP clearly wants so badly; he simply went back to reiterating the message of amity, love and unity.

The backlash on the Savarkar issue hasn’t just been from the BJP but also from Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena faction, which is presently an ally of the Congress…

I feel we must acknowledge that Uddhav is in a desperate place at the moment. If he doesn’t respond ferociously against the criticism of Savarkar, he will be pushed in an uncomfortable corner by his cousin, the (Eknath) Shinde faction of the Sena and the BJP because of the way the BJP and Shiv Sena have historically projected Savarkar.

Uddhav really has no option but to respond in the way he has but then, I think at the same time, Uddhav also needs to realise that he has to strengthen the bonds he has made recently and which have proven to be successful in changing the way most Maharashtrians —  beyond just Shiv Sena supporters — view him now. At some point, he will have to accept and respect the opinion that may not really be congruent with what he has so far believed in.

But then the Shiv Sena does represent a certain ideology in Maharashtra which isn’t one of secularism and unity. Does it irk you in any way that the Congress, on one hand, wants to spread the message of unity and communal harmony while on the other it has an ally in Uddhav’s Sena that clearly stands for a different ideology?

Honestly, when the alliance between the Sena and the Congress took shape, I was very perturbed and I was very vocally critical of it, too. But then when I observed Uddhav as CM, particularly the work he did during the COVID pandemic while he was himself undergoing a health crisis, I was filled with inspiration because I could see him making a real effort to carry everyone together which was very unlike how many, including me, perceived him up until that time. I saw a lot of hope in him and some time back I took the initiative of going to meet him.

At that time too, the Savarkar issue had come up in some context. When I met Uddhav, he did tell me that it would be very difficult for him to not react against any criticism of Savarkar.

I recall asking him — ‘Why can’t you put a stop to this by simply saying everyone has a right to an opinion and we do not agree with what the Congress is saying but we will work with them in the larger interest of Maharashtra, for political and social stability?’

And how did he react to your suggestion?

Well, I think the politics of Maharashtra doesn’t allow him to be flexible on this one issue. I can fully understand the response that he and his party have given to Rahul’s comments.

Since 2014, we have seen an intensive campaign by the Hindu right to rewrite the history of India’s freedom struggle and the political developments that took place immediately after Independence…

As far as distortion of history is concerned, yes, I have been very vocal against it and so have many others. This hasn’t stopped the BJP from carrying on spreading the lies about Bapu, Pandit Nehru or other leaders of the freedom movement.

On my Twitter feed, every second day I am accused by this right-wing ecosystem of selling my name and conscience to the Nehru-Gandhi family but frankly, these accusations make no difference to me. Everything that happened during that period is a matter of historical record and it has all been documented with great precision. So, for anyone who is really interested in finding out what really happened, there is no dearth of material evidence.

Part of this campaign is also the narrative that the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty took complete control of the Congress by sidelining Sardar Patel and other stalwarts, as also their kin. How have the equations between Gandhi’s descendants and those of Nehru been over the years?

When someone talks about the Nehru-Gandhi family as a dynasty that took over the Congress, they ignore the fact that Indira Gandhi had become a major support system not just in Panditji’s personal life but also his political life even before 1947.

After 1947, her involvement with the Congress continued to grow and she worked alongside, not above, the contemporaries of Nehru. There were many of Nehru’s contemporaries who saw her as his political heir but despite this, when Nehru died, Indira did not become the PM by default.

One also needs to really understand that in the case of the families of Bapu and Patel, there was a break from politics in the immediate generation that followed.

With Patel, after his demise, it was Nehru who ensured that Maniba (Maniben Patel, the Sardar’s daughter) got elected to the Lok Sabha and when she lost the Lok Sabha polls (in 1962), she was elected to the Rajya Sabha as a Congress candidate.

In Bapu’s case, none of his four sons had any interest in pursuing politics. It was never like any of them wanted to get into politics and Nehru or Indira slammed the door on them.

After this break, there were stray attempts by descendants of Bapu to get into politics – like Ramdas Gandhi’s daughter Sumitra Gandhi Kulkarni became a Rajya Sabha MP, or when Rajmohan Gandhi contested a Lok Sabha election from VP Singh’s party, or when I contested an election in 1998.

There was definitely a break in ties between members of the two families during Indira’s time because of the Emergency and later, for a time, when Rajmohan Gandhi contested the election against Rajiv Gandhi in 1989 in the aftermath of the Bofors scam.

Yet, it was never the case that Nehru or his descendants particularly went all out to target Bapu’s descendants or descendants of other Congress leaders from the freedom struggle. Even during the Emergency, we mustn’t forget that members of Nehru’s own family who criticised Indira too were put in jail.

If Rajmohan Gandhi chose to contest against Rajiv Gandhi as a Janata Dal candidate, which I agree was a very bitter contest because of Bofors and the Asli Gandhi vs. Nakli Gandhi narrative, it was his choice.

When I contested from Bombay North West in 1998, I was actually a Samajwadi Party candidate backed by the Congress. Subsequently, I don’t think, there has ever been an instance when Sonia, Rahul or Priyanka have ever shown anything but respect and affection towards me or other members of Bapu’s family. And mind you, I haven’t always been very charitable towards the Congress as I have been critical of the party when criticism was justified.

You spent some time with Rahul Gandhi during the yatra. What were your impressions of him?

I first came in contact with Rahul around 2014 and then we communicated occasionally but I can’t claim any proximity to him or to know him very well. At the yatra, I walked with him for about 14 km and, despite the other claims on his attention from the many, many people who were walking along, we did have our own conversations.

I had always felt that the campaign against him by his political rivals was malicious and he did not deserve the kind of obnoxious attacks that were repeatedly made at him. There were certainly circumstances that, to an extent, went into justifying the image that was created of him because in the initial years he was a very hesitant and reticent leader who perhaps felt no need to respond to every attack that was made on his personality, politics or character.

The Rahul I met at the yatra was a much changed man. He has matured as a political figure. He displays his feelings more easily, he has become much more at ease in the company of people. You can tell that his affection and concern is genuine; he isn’t faking it like most politicians do. And you can see that the people who come to him do so not out of a sense of celebrity but because they genuinely appreciate what he has set out to do.

I vividly recall how, while I was walking with him in the yatra, a group of women and young girls was trying to get Rahul’s attention. Finally, the man leading the group managed to get through to Rahul and informed him that he leads a movement against manual scavenging in Maharashtra.

The women and girls in the group were wives and daughters of manual scavengers who had died while cleaning sewers. Rahul immediately told his security detail to let the group through to him.

The women broke down when they met Rahul and he embraced each one of them, wiped their tears and listened to them patiently. He didn’t have any ready solution to offer that could lessen their plight but they were still overwhelmed by his compassion. It was very heartening to see this version of Rahul.

Do you think the yatra, as an instrument of the Congress’s revival, will have any real political or electoral impact?

Expecting that this one yatra will bring out a major change is expecting too much but I do see it as an initiative for healing the wounds and scars that have been inflicted on our country, particularly in recent years. I think people at large are also finally realising that this predominance of hate across the country is affecting all of us at some level and a stop needs to be put to it. So, to an extent, I think the yatra is a welcome and much-needed initiative.

Politically, if the Congress doesn’t take advantage of the goodwill that Rahul has earned through this yatra, then there is really no hope for its electoral revival. The Congress must realise that the goodwill on display through the yatra is for Rahul and Rahul alone at this point; it hasn’t yet translated into goodwill for the party. The party still needs to do a lot more. The yatra has given the Congress a base to work with; how the party builds on this base through follow-up action will now determine the scale of its electoral revival.