© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
Tags:
Journalism of Courage
The constitution of the Congress has nine conditions that “every Member will have to fulfill”. The second on the list is, “He/She is a habitual wearer of certified Khadi”. Ninety years after the Congress at its 1934 Bombay Session first made the wearing of khadi a necessary criterion for elective membership, the party is moving on.
Rahul Gandhi, often accused of applying one size fits all to problems, has a new motif for the Congress: a white T-shirt.
The presumptive Congress leader who has since his first Bharat Jodo Yatra more than two years ago made the white T-shirt his calling card, pairing it with khaki trousers – and sporting it sans any woollens even at the height of Delhi winter – announced the launch of a ‘White T Shirt Movement’, “for justice and equitable future for all”, on Sunday.
As per a leader, the idea is simple: “Everyone, rich or poor, can associate with a T-shirt. When Mahatma Gandhi spoke about swaraj, he introduced charkha, khadi and topi as key symbols. We need a symbol too to popularise Rahul’s ‘nyay’ brand of politics. White, of course, symbolises peace and harmony.”
https://twitter.com/INCIndia/status/1880933489182392589
Says the campaign’s website: “White T-shirts mark the beginning of a powerful new movement, a platform for youth to unite workers across sectors whose labour shapes our lives. If you oppose growing wealth inequality, stand for economic fairness for all, demand social justice, reject religious discrimination, and believe in peace and stability, put your white T-shirt on and join the movement for change.”
Another Congress leader said: “We had much back and forth on the symbol for the campaign… We felt that a white T-shirt is the best symbol… a common man’s dress. And there already is brand recognition associated with Rahul.”
The first outreach as part of the movement is set to be with gig workers, with Rahul pushing for a national law for their security. Big cities such as Delhi-NCR have around 15 lakh gig workers each, estimates the party, with their number sizeable in smaller towns and cities as well. The Congress manifesto for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections promised a law to specify and protect the rights of gig workers and unorganised workers.
The movement’s website says such workers struggle with mental health issues such as anxiety and stress, and physical pain, due to their challenging and unpredictable work conditions. “The current Government’s leanings toward crony capitalism have left companies largely unregulated, allowing them to sidestep accountability even in clear cases of exploitation, such as unjust ‘ID-blocking’ and unexplained wage deductions,” says the website, adding that “political mobilization is essential to stop exploitation and to channel workers’ collective power toward meaningful change”.
Another element of the White T-shirt campaign is a volunteer enrolment programme called “kaam ke bande (those who toil)”. The party calls it “a first-of-its-kind political apprenticeship programme for young people to reach out, organize, and mobilize platform workers in metro and tier-2 cities, bringing ethical politics into the mainstream”.
The idea is to enrol 500 youngsters in the 18-25 age group who “will be chosen based on their understanding of issues faced by platform workers”. The volunteers, who are yet to be registered, would not receive any remuneration.
A leader said that while considering a symbol for their movement they drew from the White Shirt Movement in Singapore and the Yellow Vests movement in France.
The Singapore movement is linked to Lee Kuan Yew, its first prime minister credited with changing the fortunes of the island nation, wearing a white shirt and white trousers at his swearing-in way back in the 1950s, later holding it up as a symbol of his determination to keep the government clean and non corrupt.
The Yellow Vests movement was a populist, grassroots political movement for economic justice in France in October 2018.
