Dhaneswar Bordoloi, a 46-year-old farmer, was amongst 500-odd individuals who had lined up on the outskirts of Morigaon city to see and listen to Rahul Gandhi on January 22.
“We couldn’t see him as he didn’t come down from the bus,” mentioned Bordoloi, echoing the frustration of others who had gathered at Baghara, 10 km from Morigaon city.
The Congress chief was travelling by way of Assam as part of the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra – a successor to the political outreach programme final yr which noticed Gandhi stroll from Kanyakumari, on the southern tip of India, to Srinagar. This spherical of the yatra, nevertheless, has seen Gandhi principally travelling in a bus, with a number of public conferences thrown in.
“The Congress doesn’t have a lot assist right here however we had been trying ahead to assembly him,” Bordoloi mentioned. “Ultimately, we didn’t even know what message the celebration was making an attempt to convey.”
The farmer watched the bus go previous him, with Gandhi waving on the crowds.
Solely hours in the past, the Morigaon district administration had denied the Congress entourage permission to carry any public conferences, claiming it might create a regulation and order scenario.
Within the eight days that the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra travelled by way of BJP-ruled Assam, it bumped into a number of obstacles. The Assam authorities denied Gandhi permission to carry public conferences, to enter the capital metropolis – and even barred him from visiting a monastery.
At many factors within the travels, the yatra got here head to head with offended Hindutva supporters. On January 21, Assam Congress chief Bhupen Borah was injured as BJP employees allegedly attacked him within the state’s Sonitpur district.
The yatra’s Assam leg ended with a primary data report towards Gandhi and Congress leaders for “wanton acts of violence, provocation, injury to public property and assault on police personnel”.
“It was like the complete may of the state of Assam was delivered to bear on the Congress,” a analysis scholar at Gauhati College advised Scroll. The scholar was part of a gaggle of college college students who had been pressured to fulfill Gandhi at a resort in Jorabat, a city on the Assam-Meghalaya border, when he was not allowed to enter Guwahati.
Whereas Rahul Gandhi’s run-ins with the police and sharp assaults on Himanta Biswa Sarma because the “most corrupt chief minister” stored him within the headlines – in distinction to the nationwide media’s lack of consideration and curiosity within the yatra final yr – analysts are nonetheless sceptical about whether or not the yatra will assist the Congress’s fortunes in Assam.
“Rahul’s go to didn’t create an consciousness concerning the misrule of the BJP among the many lots,” mentioned Guwahati-based veteran journalist Lalit Gogoi. “The widespread folks went to see Rahul out of affection, not as a result of they had been offended on the BJP.”
The ambition
When the Congress picked a route by way of Assam, as a part of the Rahul Gandhi-led Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, it hoped to provide the celebration a leg-up in Center and Higher Assam – areas the place it has misplaced affect within the final a few years.
The yatra entered Assam on January 18 by way of Haluwating in Sivasagar district and handed by way of Jorhat, Majuli, Lakhimpur and Dhemaji, earlier than it travelled to decrease Assam districts. The Higher Assam districts, dwelling to ethnic Assamese communities, are thought of because the heartland of Assamese politics.
“The state of the [party] organisation could be very unhealthy in Higher Assam districts,” a Congress chief from Higher Assam advised Scroll. “The Congress has at all times talked about defending Assamese tradition and identification and this was an try to reconnect with the Assamese folks.”
Within the final two Meeting elections in 2016 and 2021, the BJP had swept Higher Assam, North Assam, the hill districts and the constituencies surrounding Guwahati. The Congress did properly in Muslim-majority areas of Decrease Assam and some seats in Mangaldoi and Nagaon districts.
The celebration has been struggling to shake off allegations that it doesn’t characterize the pursuits of the ethnic Assamese communities. Chief minister Sarma has dismissed the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra as a programme directed at Muslims. “This isn’t ‘Nyay Yatra, it’s ‘Miya Yatra’. Wherever there are Muslims, they go to these locations,” Sarma had mentioned.
‘Miya’ is a disparaging time period used for the Bengali-origin Muslim group in Assam, who are sometimes vilified as unlawful immigrants and Bangladeshis.
The bottom actuality
Rahul Gandhi’s intent to go to the Batadrava Than, a monastery based by the Vaishnavite saint-scholar Mahapurush Srimanta Sankardeva (1449-1568) – on the day Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Ram Temple in Ayodhya – was meant to ship a message that the celebration was keen to interact with symbols of Assamese tradition and identification.
This was additionally vital because the Bharatiya Janata Occasion-led authorities had come to energy in Assam in 2016 by making guarantees to guard the monasteries or Satras – from alleged encroachment from Bengali-origin Muslims – with the slogan of safeguarding jati (group or identification), maati (land) and bheti (fireside).
However when Scroll visited Than, not even 50 folks had gathered to welcome Rahul Gandhi even though the legislator of Batadrava, Sibamoni Bora, and the Member of Parliament from Kaliabor, Gaurav Gogoi, are from the celebration.
“Most individuals had been busy with the Ram temple inauguration,” mentioned a 45-year-old villager of Batadrava. “The ladies are additionally out, to gather types for a authorities beneficiary scheme.”
The federal government was distributing types for a brand new scheme for rural girls entrepreneurs.
“The BJP authorities has additionally executed lots for the Batadrava Than,” the villager mentioned, referring to the eviction of Muslim folks from the federal government land close to the monastery and the continued over Rs 100 crore beautification venture for its improvement.
“Folks might not need to upset the chief minister who has been personally taking care of the venture,” he mentioned.
Ultimately, Gandhi couldn’t attain anyplace close to the Than, as he was stopped by police officers 16 km from the monastery.
“If Rahul Gandhi had made it there on January 22, he might have appealed to the folks of Assam to reject the aggressive type of Hinduism that we’re seeing throughout us at present within the identify of Sankardev and his egalitarian philosophy,” mentioned Mridugunjan Deka, a senior analysis fellow of political science at Gauhati College. “However the episode despatched a message that the BJP was the true and solely consultant of Hindus.”
Not sufficient solutions
As Scroll traveled with the yatra between Nagaon and Barpeta, it discovered a good diploma of curiosity about Rahul Gandhi – and sympathy for him due to the Assam authorities’s heavy-handed response to the yatra.
“We discovered Sarma’s remarks on this being a Miya yatra offensive,” mentioned A Kalita, a 47-year-old Guwahati resident. “We now have been impressed by Gandhi as he has raised the problems of the poor, of the value of rice. We felt unhealthy that the CM is attacking him and utilizing such communal remarks.”
It isn’t clear, nevertheless, if that sympathy can translate to votes. “The Congress is making an attempt to attach with the Assamese folks,” agreed Biplop Sarma, a hospital supervisor in Guwahati, who hails from Higher Assam’s Jorhat. “However it’s a half-hearted try thus far.”
The BJP, Biplop mentioned, had a stronger political message and “had delivered on their guarantees.” “However the Assam Congress has many issues, from management to the organisation.”
Deka, the analysis scholar, identified that the Nyay Yatra had failed to point out how the Congress can reply the politics of welfare schemes in Assam, one of many BJP’s essential ballot planks.
“Many individuals within the villages concern that if the BJP had been to lose, the direct profit transfers will cease.”
He added: “Within the every day lives of widespread folks, threats to secular constitutional ideas and democratic establishments imply little straight. How does one articulate these considerations in a approach that captures the creativeness of the lots? I don’t suppose the Nyay Yatra has been profitable in answering that.”