A scene in Richard Attenborough’s award-winning movie Gandhi encapsulates the significance of yatras (journey) for a political chief to realize a aim. When Mahatma Gandhi says India is an “alien” nation to him, his chief Gopal Krishna Gokhale responds, “Effectively, change that.” “Go and discover India. Not what you see right here, however the actual India. You’ll see what must be mentioned. What we have to hear,” Gokhale would advise him. And thus started Gandhiji’s journey throughout the nation in a third-class prepare coach.

From the times of Gandhiji, yatras and marches have proved to be an efficient methodology of reaching out to folks and realizing their pulse. Towards the backdrop of Congress chief Rahul Gandhi embarking on the Bharat Jodo Yatra from Kanniyakumari to Kashmir, The Hindu traces a few of essential rallies and marches from the Tamil Nadu soil.

Whereas some yatras, such because the Rath Yatra of BJP chief L.Ok. Advani, modified the course of Indian politics, others have did not fulfil the target. Most leaders desire Kanniyakumari to launch their yatra as a result of the panorama within the southern tip of mainland India provides a definite id and concept to the slogan, “From Kanniyakumari to Kashmir”. Whereas reporting about Gandhiji’s tour in March 1925, The Hindu reported it as “Mahatmaji’s Tour—Cape Comorin to Vaikom”. He got here once more in 1937 and worshipped on the Nagaraja temple together with many Scheduled Caste members. “After worship on the shrine, Gandhiji and the small band of Harijans who adopted him got prasadams by the chief priest,” experiences The Hindu.

“Yatras provide an important alternative to work together with folks with none intermediaries. When a bit of reports reaches the excessive command by means of different sources, it could get distorted. Yatras are a easy, however efficient political technique to learn folks’s thoughts. Gandhiji did it by launching Dandi Salt March,” says Durai Vaiko, the MDMK headquarters secretary, who had labored behind the scene for the yatras of his father Vaiko. He says that when social media have turn out to be a main device of communication and it’s not potential to completely confirm the veracity of any situation and growth, yatras will assist a pacesetter get the best info.

Mr. Vaiko, who has launched into many yatras, in 1994 launched a Kanniyakumari-Madras “awakening march” when his social gathering was within the nascent stage. A decade later, after his launch from detention by the Jayalalithaa authorities beneath the Prevention of Terrorism Act, he undertook a 42-day “renaissance march” from Tirunelveli. Traversing by foot throughout 1,025 kilometres, he dramatically ended it close to the Marina in Chennai, outwitting the police who have been out to arrest him. Very like Mr. Rahul Gandhi’s rivalry that his yatra is bereft of any political agenda, Mr. Vaiko had mentioned, “The march is just not for deriving any political benefit. It has social, financial and cultural goals. We dedicate ourselves to the institution of a casteless society. We wish to attain folks.”

Sadly, flawed methods and political compulsion compelled him to align with Jayalalithaa two years later, attracting widespread criticism. It was from Kanniyakumari that BJP chief Murli Manohar Joshi began his Ekta Yatra in 1991. Two days earlier than the occasion arrived a person, whom the nation didn’t know a lot about at the moment, to make the preparations. It was Narendra Modi, the present Prime Minister, who performed the function of a back-room boy throughout the yatra.

BJP chief L.Ok. Advani’s Bharat Uday Yatra began from Kanniyakumari on March 10, 2004, and travelled by means of 122 Lok Sabha constituencies earlier than reaching Amritsar. However the consequence of the 2004 Lok Sabha election went in favour of the Congress. Former Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar, as a pacesetter of the Janata Occasion, began his Bharat Yatra from Kanniyakumari in 1983. Although it made him and the social gathering standard among the many plenty, the social gathering couldn’t acquire any mileage out of it politically. “The success of a yatra is determined by the power of the cadre of a political social gathering. Chandra Shekar couldn’t obtain the specified impact due to the shortage of social gathering power. However I strongly consider Rahul Gandhi’s yatra will result in a change within the nation and consolidate the political forces towards the BJP, as a result of Nitish Kumar can also be making comparable efforts,” contends Ok. Thirunavukkarasu, a historian of the Dravidian Motion.

What got here in the way in which of the Janata Occasion within the 1984 basic election was the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, which led to a Congress sweep. DMK chief M. Karunanidhi undertook a padayatra from Madurai to Tiruchendur in 1982. The goal was to press the AIADMK authorities of M.G. Ramachandran to arrest the trustees of the Tiruchendur temple within the wake of the Paul Fee’s findings. He demanded speedy motion towards officers of the departments of Police, Income, Medical and Hindu Non secular and Charitable Endowments chargeable for the dying of C. Subramania Pillai, verification officer of the temple. The march made a huge effect, and Karunanidhi might hold the problem alive. However MGR’s recognition prevailed; he received the 1984 basic election from his hospital mattress within the U.S.