Rahul Gandhi’s walkathon ignites ray of hope in Kashmir Valley

Days before the 1947 Partition, Mahatma Gandhi, while in Kashmir, said he saw a “ray of hope” in the Valley that was to remain with the truncated India. As Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra (BJY) walks towards Srinagar, where it is set to conclude on January 30 (the day of the Mahatma’s martyrdom), those words by Gandhiji have begun to reverberate again in the restive Valley, albeit in a different context.

The Mahatma’s observation was a compliment to the people of Kashmir, who, despite the horrors of partition, had ensured communal harmony in the Valley even as mayhem swept parts of the country. The stated goal of Rahul’s walkathon – uniting a country torn apart by communal hatred and socioeconomic inequity – shares some similarity with the “ray of hope” the Mahatma spoke of.

Ray of hope after axing of Article 370

Yet, it isn’t as much the yatra’s message but what Kashmiris hope may follow the 3,570-km Kanyakumari-to-Srinagar yatra that has set the Valley, stunned into silence since the abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019, abuzz with expectations.

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The axing of Article 370 had left Jammu and Kashmir, diminished from a full-fledged state to a Union Territory, in political limbo. The Election Commission’s assertion that its process of updating electoral rolls for the UT is nearly complete has raised hopes of an end to this stalemate. 

Some believe elections to a reconstituted J&K assembly may take place in the first half of this year, allowing people to finally elect a government; a right practically suspended in the wake of the abrogation. Besides, the Lok Sabha polls are just over a year away; irrespective of the assembly elections taking place or not, Kashmiris believe they will still vote for their MPs.

Understandably, any political development in the Valley is viewed with great interest. It is in this context that the BJY, despite Rahul’s repeated assertions of not being driven by electoral ambitions, has kindled a ray of hope in Kashmir. 

The yatra’s endorsement by the entire brass of Kashmir’s political satraps – the father-son duo of Dr. Farooq Abdullah and Omar Abdullah of the National Conference, Mehbooba Mufti of the People’s Democratic Party and even the CPI(M)’s MY Tarigami – has filled the Muslim-dominated Valley with anticipation of a political alignment to take on the BJP and its socio-political crusade for Hindutva dominance.

Farooq blesses Rahul, Priyanka

On January 3, as the BJY resumed after a nine-day break from Delhi’s Kashmiri Gate, Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi were joined briefly by Farooq Abdullah, a three-term Chief Minister of the erstwhile state of J&K and the current chair of the People’s Alliance for Gupkar Declaration (a conglomerate of the NC, PDP and CPI-M). 

The warm embrace in which Farooq held Rahul and Priyanka as he arrived at the yatra has already made many pundits marvel at this public display of bonhomie between the Gandhi siblings and the NC patriarch, whose first chief ministerial term ended through a midnight coup of sorts engineered by Congress machinations.

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Abdullah and his son Omar, also a former Chief Minister, will have declared their intent to join the yatra when it enters Kashmir. Mehbooba Mufti has promised to be there too as has Tarigami, whose CPI(M) has kept a safe distance from the BJY despite a personal rapport its General Secretary Sitaram Yechury shares with the Gandhis. The Abdullahs, Mufti and Tarigami are leading lights of the Gupkar Alliance, a formation the Congress has been wary of joining due to its own calculations.

It is in this backdrop that the coming together of the Gupkar Alliance leadership for a yatra led by Rahul portends a new ray of hope for the Kashmiri people. What adds another significant dimension is that the Congress efforts to get other A-listers from the fragmented opposition ranks – Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, Samajwadi Party’s Akhilesh Yadav, Bahujan Samaj Party’s Mayawati, RLD’s Jayant Chaudhary and even allies such as NCP supremo Sharad Pawar, JMM’s Hemant Soren and RJD’s Lalu or Tejashwi Yadav – to walk a few yards with Rahul have all come a cropper, indicating that the dream of forging a pan-India opposition unity against the BJP-led NDA coalition remains elusive.

Political churnings in Kashmir

The Congress had been listless in the Valley. It was further jolted last year by the exit of its most prominent face in J&K, former Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, who walked away to form his Democratic Azad Party and took away a chunk of Congress leaders. The enthusiastic support Rahul’s yatra is getting from people in general and the Gupkar Alliance leadership in particular has also come as a major morale booster for a highly dispirited Congress rank and file in J&K.

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That this seemingly imminent political realignment coincides with growing fissures in Azad’s DAP even before it could get registered by the Election Commission as a political party is an added bonus for the Congress. 

Congress insiders say a number of DAP leaders, who had followed Azad, are expected to return to their parent party either when the yatra reaches J&K or even before it. A beginning of this ghar wapsi has been made with former J&K Deputy Chief Minister Tara Chand, until recently a confidant of Azad, indicating he might return to the Congress soon after his expulsion from the DAP.

The more optimistic among Kashmir’s political observers hope that the yatra has the potential of striking a political masterstroke of sorts. Rahul is scheduled to hoist the national tricolour at Srinagar’s historic Lal Chowk on January 30 to mark the conclusion of the Bharat Jodo Yatra.

Those desperately searching for a ray of hope in this long march for the country’s unity wish that Congress backroom managers can pull off a seemingly impossible miracle of getting a chunk of opposition chieftains, or at least those whose parties are already in alliance with the Congress, to be at Lal Chowk when Rahul hoists the tricolour — and send a clear message of opposition unity against Narendra Modi’s BJP.

This may still be a dream too far-fetched but that’s the nature of hope.

(The writer is a senior journalist and former Delhi Bureau Chief of the ‘Greater Kashmir’ newspaper.)

(The Federal seeks to present views and opinions from all sides of the spectrum. The information, ideas or opinions in the articles are of the author and do not reflect the views of The Federal)