The Rahul Gandhi yatra rolls on. Of course, he is taking a short break (another trip to Europe?) for the Christmas holiday season. Christmas is a season of giving. In that spirit, we have decided to select the winners of the Yatra Oscars – the “journalist” or “intellectual” that came up with the most abject sycophancy of the yatra.
If you have been following the news, it should be clear that the Stalinist left ecosystem has thrown its weight behind the yatra to ensure its “success”. Its loyal propagandists ranging from T M Krishna to Swara Baskar have joined the yatra providing photo-ops as well as soundbites. And often written glowing tributes in articles and Op-Eds. This gives tough competition to the “fearless independent journalists” that have started a new habit – speaking truth to power, since 2014.
The reasons for the left’s decision to go with Rahul Gandhi with 2024 in mind are not that hard to figure out. I have elaborated on that earlier too. By now it must be clear Indians are not going to vote for Stalinist Maoist ideologies that have delivered nothing but murders and rapist savagery globally as well as in India.
The other option, pursued by “Gandhians with guns” – is also going nowhere. That leaves only one option for the fringe left – enable dynastic loot and live off-the-table scrap with wet dreams that one day may be done away with.
As if that’s not enough, Yugpurush has been such a disappointment. He wants power for himself. And doesn’t seem to believe in handing over the remote control to Politburo. That might change in the future if he too concludes power may elude him in his lifetime if he doesn’t surrender to the left.
For Congress and Rahul Gandhi, it makes a lot of sense too. The left propaganda infrastructure built up at enormous cost (mainly to us taxpayers) over decades can be a valuable force multiplier. So what if the Marxists killed thousands Congress cadre in Bengal as the party itself used to claim? These are just cannon fodder and well worth closing one eye if damaad can return to his winning ways and upgrade his Harley Davidson soon.
Anyway, coming back to the Yatra itself, if you have been following the fearless, independent media you should be familiar with the hagiography and sickening sycophancy unleashed by the family’s propaganda ecosystem. “Journalists” as well as “intellectuals” have been stampeding each other to sing the praise of Yatra as well as its (dear) leader.
Let us check out a few of the contestants to see if we can pick a winner.
Let us start on the right note with T M Krishna. To those not familiar, he is a Carnatic musician that often writes for Hindu & other papers. He has been given Magsaysay award perhaps on a pre-paid basis for services to be rendered in future. This genius once said people in Tamilnadu like Modi because he is “fair-skinned”. That’s why he decided to go with the dark-skinned Rahul. Moreover, Krishna has a way with words that fringe right should learn. Instead of saying “I would like to see RSS workers killed” being a leftist intellectual he would say, “he is not saddened by their killing”.
Krishna must have spent a few nanoseconds worrying if joining the yatra “strip us of our political independence” – no that’s not a joke! Anyway, he concluded he should join. He followed that up with an article for Deccan Herald. Here, he mentions to Rahul helping a Muslim man find his cap – a “symbol of his faith” lost in the pushing and shoving! The rest of the article is just empty verbiage that perhaps chatGPT can come up with in 20 seconds or less.
Rajmohan Gandhi, writing for NDTV (who else?!) seems impressed with Krishna’s choice of words. He seems to have heard calls to “eliminate” India’s Muslims, who number about 200 million. But perhaps his ears have tuned out the noise of ‘Sar Tan Se Juda’, because they are far too frequent. Rajmohan seems to think even asking Rahul to ensure unity in the KA unit of the party is too much. Setting such a low bar for a man that wants to be a PM of India?!
Of course, the usual hagiography follows – “By any reckoning, the Bharat Jodo Yatra is turning out to be a landmark in the story of Rahul Gandhi, whose warm personal connect with an endless wave of citizens has been as impressive as his physical stamina on the long march”.
He concludes by seeming to imply Rahul has done enough by just walking a few miles and it is now up to “others” to do their job – place him on the throne.
Let us move on to academics now. Shruti Kapila who often writes for The Print has written about the yatra too. She sees it as a “therapy for the stressed nation” and she goes on to compare with Mahtma Gandhi!. Poor man must be turning in his grave. Let us ignore the rest of the article as it is about Savarkar.
Coming to “journalists”, can we forget Vir Singhvi of Radia fame? His article for Print on the yatra is a classic and a good study in sycophancy and hagiography for any aspirant to study. He seems relieved that finally India can relate to Rahul. Poor guy doesn’t seem to realise if you ignore the sycophancy part of it, the fact that stands out is that no one in India could relate to Rahul until now!
The rest of the article puts in a strong entry for first prize in our competition – “walking 3570km entirely on foot”, “His speeches have been widely appreciated and on one celebrated occasion, a crowd sat through a rainstorm to hear him speak “. He even seems to think “yatra has worked to galvanise pro-Congress sentiment” even as he declares the yatra is not about politics.
Sagarika Ghose’s article doesn’t want to use the time tested “come of age” phrase that has become a joke now. So she goes for “more focussed now” praise. Pity the courtiers forced to search the dictionary for newer ways to say the same thing! She says the “Pappu image is buried in the big numbers turning out”. Of course, no mention of who brought them and how many trucks and at what cost etc. that would be mentioned if it were Modi’s. She seems impressed Rahul is becoming the party’s “ideologue” – which is a joke considering the so-called ideology is actually regurgitated from his Politburo handlers. But to be fair to her, she spends more time questioning if it will work that certifying it will.
Now if I go around enumerating various tweets and SM posts by the assorted denizens of the Palazzo servant quarters that call themselves journalists, more contestants will emerge. It is already a crowded field plus my nose is aching from the stench of such fearless, independent display of journalism and intellectual integrity.
Interestingly almost all these observers seem to doubt if the yatra will pay off politically even as they try to follow the party line in spinning the yatra as some grand act of social or national service that has nothing to do with politics! If so, why worry about its pay off at all?! Don’t ask such inconvenient questions.
Who gets the Pidi Oscar award? I will leave it to each one of you to decide your own winner!
