Opinion Express View | Image of khaki shorts ablaze only ends up singeing the Congress

There is a contradiction of ideas and ideology in the tweet issued by the Indian National Congress. The image of a pair of khaki shorts burning — part of the earlier uniform of the RSS and still symbolically associated with the Sangh — even as the logo and text publicise the Bharat Jodo Yatra is disturbing. The text of the post reads: “To free the country from shackles of hate and undo the damage done by BJP-RSS. Step by step, we will reach our goal.” Ostensibly, Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra, his 150-day-long march from Kanyakumari to Kashmir, invokes the political idioms of inclusiveness, coming together, and healing what it claims are divides deepened by the BJP’s dominance. However, the tweet crudely showcases a symbolism of violence and eradication, an attempt to tap into and exacerbate precisely the kind of polarisation “Bharat Jodo” claims to stand against.

Soon after it was posted, the tweet received a strong response from the BJP and RSS. “(The Congress) want(s) to connect people to hatred. They have harboured hatred for us for a long time now,” said senior RSS leader Manmohan Vaidya. The BJP, too, attacked the move, with former Union minister Prakash Javadekar calling the tweet an “attack on the foundation of Indian democracy” and many other party leaders ramping up the anti-Congress rhetoric. For its part, the Congress seems to be bracing for a battle to be conducted on social media and via tit-for-tat press conferences. Jairam Ramesh said: “Those who stoke the fires of hatred, bigotry and prejudice, must be prepared to take some things back in the same coin.”

Advertisement

That coinage is the problem. The Congress has made it clear that it sees the RSS and Hindutva politics as its primary ideological foe. Given the political hegemony of the BJP, this is understandable. Social media rewards the fringe and the more shocking an expression, the more traction it’s likely to get. Yet, by pushing an image that frames violence, the party sends out a fraught message. Is the Bharat Jodo Yatra, as Rahul Gandhi has indicated, really a way to frame an alternative to what he calls a politics of “hatred, bigotry and prejudice”? What message does the Congress communicate by demonising the RSS to the point that its trademark apparel is shown as being set ablaze? Not so long ago, it was the same Rahul Gandhi walking up to the Prime Minister in Parliament to give him a hug and deliver a lecture on the power of love. Is politics to be defined by the war of tweets between “Congress-mukt” and “RSS-mukt”? As the yatra proceeds from Kerala and Tamil Nadu to states where Congress has lost popular support, it must decide what kind of argument and rhetoric it needs to gain public trust back, expand its shrunken footprint. Is there a more effective way to communicate its message of an alternative than symbolic violence? That image may have helped the Congress “trend” on Twitter for a while — but it has singed it, too.