Post By Shuklq Sen

#BharatJodoYatra NDTV Offers An Insightful Glimpse into Its Innards https://www.ndtv.com/video/shows/truth-vs-hype/truth-vs-hype-anatomy-of-rahul-gandhi-s-bharat-jodo-yatra-665587 the video report presented by Sreenivasan Jain, one of the rare figures in the mainstream electronic media who is strikingly competent, remarkably balanced and not known to be compromised: Incidentally, his father was a very well-known and respected Gandhian economist: LC Jain. His mother, Devaki Jain, is an eminent Gandhian-feminist economist.While he's, quite justifiably, known as a TV journalist who has done a number of (courageous) investigative report, I, for one, remember him for his 'The Myth of Big Retail' (at < http://www.sacw.net/article2859.html >) penned by him when the issue of the FDI in retail was being passionately and acrimoniously debated.

This video report must be the first by any mainstream media outlet -- more than two months since the launch.

Here are a few more insightful glimpses, of course put out, more recently, by the Yatra organisers themselves:
 https://twitter.com/Rahul_ForPM/status/1591441562726465536
https://twitter.com/ActivistSandeep/status/1591322901822976000
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10229420264316206&id=1387786704
https://youtu.be/zqsF-k7j_B>.
https://twitter.com/sushant_says/status/1591447523348336640
https://twitter.com/SupriyaShrinate/status/1591122060537126914
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IBabntUwSZI

The numbers joining the Yatra or cheering it on are, no doubt, quite impressive. From the very beginning. And, appearing to be swelling even further as the Yatra progresses. But, more than the numbers, it's the spirit that's most heartening. The extent of both has, reportedly, surprised even the organisers of the Yatra.
It's probably during a chitchat with Dilip D'Souza -- a journalist-activist from Mumbai -- Rahul Gandhi had, very rightly, observed that the element of spontaneity is even more important than organised mobilisation. In the event, there appears to be no dearth of spontaneity either. People are joining in from all corners -- physically and metaphorically.

Apart from all these, the Yatra is offering and trying to evolve a new idiom for mass mobilisation. What's essentially a protest march is shot with a carnivalesque mood.
That, for so many, must be quite baffling. Even Rahul Gandhi is presenting a very radically different model of a public "leader" -- warm, intimate and humane -- so starkly different from the gross, distant and macho 56".

But, to be sure, the fight on hand is too difficult. "India" is virtually racing towards the abyss. The Yatra is, as yet, only a (growing) ray of hope.

Entrenching Impunity, Peddling Justice for Rape: A Case for Feminist Civil Liberties | Vrinda Grover   https://youtu.be/7Oc2XROMa7o?t=224
On the police and extrajudicial action in cases of rape and other forms of sexual violence against women. Manthan on 26 June 2022.

The Narmada Andolan in the Words of Adivasi Leaders | The India Forum https://www.theindiaforum.in/article/narmada-andolan-words-adivasi-leaders Kalpana Sharma  Main points... The Narmada Bachao Andolan is important not just because it mobilised people, including Adivasis, across the three states affected by the dam, but also because it successfully articulated the link between development projects and their social and environmental costs. This was at a time when gigantism was virtually unquestioned. Big was beautiful, not just in India but around the world.

It was in the 1980s that the movement against the dam began to build up. Before the Narmada Bachao Andolan came into existence, several resistance groups had emerged. For instance, in Maharashtra, the Narmada Dharangrast Samiti (NDS) represented 33 villages facing submergence, while in Madhya Pradesh, the Narmada Ghati Navnirman Samiti (NGNS) stood with the victims. It was only in September 1989, at a massive rally held in Harsud, Madhya Pradesh that all these groups came together with a call to halt “destructive development” and named themselves the Narmada Bachao Andolan.

Another dramatic and significant landmark of the movement was the Sangharsh Yatra of December 1990–January 1991, where more than 5,000 people walked for 22 days to reach the Gujarat border at Ferkuva.

The project was eventually completed even though adequate rehabilitation of the displaced has still not been done to this day. In the case of the Narmada Bachao Andolan, although there are “activists” today who continue to work amongst the displaced, much has changed. Perhaps some of this is inevitable as movements turn into non-governmental organisations.

As Kevalsingh reflects with some sadness, “A mobile is never going to build a movement. If we have to build the Andolan once again, we have to go amongst the people. We have to understand their issues; we have to find tasks at the local level that people can take up.”