What Rahul Gandhi's Telangana Tour Did For the Congress

It has been a year since Narendra Modi's triumphant election as Prime Minister. Back in May 2014, even as the results of the elections were being declared across the country, some commentators were rushing to publish obituaries of India's oldest political party. Some said that Modi's election heralded the birth of a "second republic" in India, in which the BJP would be the natural party of government. Others said, more bluntly, that the Congress Party was a spent force in Indian politics.

The outcome of the elections and the commentary it generated were especially painful for Congress members such as me in Telangana. After all, the creation of India's newest state was an act of rare political courage. The leadership of the Congress Party overcame extraordinary hurdles to honour the aspirations of the people of one India's most neglected and backward regions. Powerful forces were arrayed against Sonia Gandhi's principled decision to clear the way for Telangana's creation. She refused to yield to them. After all this, Telangana should have become a bastion of Congress support. Instead, our party performed dismally.

The reason for this was simple. Support for the now-in-power Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) party emanated primarily from the euphoria surrounding the state's creation. The credit for this should have gone to the Congress Party. But the TRS claimed it all for itself. The local Congress leadership should have forcefully challenged this false narrative. It did not, and we lost.

Contrary to the mythology constructed by the BJP, the Congress's loss in Telangana had nothing to do with the "Modi effect". Yet, if the response to Rahul Gandhi's padyatra last week is anything to go by, Telangana may well be regarded as the place where we witnessed the beginning of the end of Modi's national reign. As Rahul aptly noted, Telangana has

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become a microcosm of Modi's India. As the government has gone about courting foreign investors to pour money into Hyderabad, hundreds of impoverished, debt-ridden farmers have committed suicides in rural Telangana. According to unofficial records, more than 700 farmers have committed suicide since Telangana's formation last year. The situation is so grave that the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has asked the Government of Telangana to submit a comprehensive report on the subject.

Rahul Gandhi arrived in Telangana's Adilabad District last week with a simple purpose: to comfort the relatives of the dead farmers, raise awareness of this unfolding calamity in the national consciousness, and to express solidarity with debt-ridden farmers. As one farmer in the district of Nizamabad told me, "At a time when politicians are busy denying the suffering of the poor and the rich have gained unrestricted access to netas, the knowledge that someone like Rahul Gandhi has our back fills me with hope." In a quarter of a century of political activism, I have rarely witnessed the level of enthusiasm and solidarity I saw among the crowds who marched last week in Telangana. The march was held under the aegis of the Congress Party, but it seemed almost to transcend politics. There was anger and sorrow, but there was also genuine hope that the government would at last be forced to pay attention to the neglected masses.

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The BJP used to impugn Rahul as a "dilettante"; to its tragedy (but to the country's delight), it turns out that when he takes up a cause, his resolve is unshakeable. As he promised the crowds in Telangana on Friday, he has devoted himself to the cause of the farmer. He has committed the Congress Party to the kisans of the country. The BJP and Modiji will soon learn that their suited-booted businessmen friends cannot save them when the farmers of India decide to dispense with them. The winds are changing.

In India's youngest state, we can see signs of the Congress Party's countrywide revival. We can see hope.

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(K. Jyothi Devi is a senior Congress Party member in Telangana, a former member of the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly, a lawyer and an activist for women's rights.)

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