When all roads led to Prayagraj during the Mahakumbh held from 13 January to 26 February 2025, Rahul Gandhi participated in a ‘Jai Samvidhan’ rally at Ambedkar’s birthplace Mhow and visited Raebareli, his constituency, not far from Prayagraj. Mahakumbh was not on his itinerary. By not taking a dip in the Ganga, Rahul Gandhi has finally mustered the courage to show which side he is on. He is not on the side of the Devas or the Aryans who didn’t allow the Asuras to partake of the amrit (elixir of life) churned from the ocean even though it was the sheer industry of the Asuras in difficult conditions that is said to have made the extraction possible. The Vishnu Purana describes the scene of Samudra Manthan (churning of the ocean) thus: “The assembled gods [Devas] were stationed by Kṛṣṇa at the tail of the serpent; the Daityas and Dānavas [Asuras] at its head and neck. Scorched by the flames emitted from his inflated hood, the demons were shorn of their glory; whilst the clouds driven towards his tail by the breath of his mouth, refreshed the gods with revivifying showers.” They were using the mountain Mandara as the churning stick and the serpent Vasuki as the rope. One of the Devas, Jayant, the son of Indra, assumed the form of a crow, snatched the pot of amrit from the Asuras and flew with it for 12 days before alighting in the four places – Prayagraj, Haridwar, Ujjain and Nasik – where Kumbh is held today. The non-Aryan Dalits, Adivasis and the other backward castes today or the majority are descendants of the Asuras.
Rahul Gandhi has learnt his lesson the hard way. There was no way he could stand with the Adivasis to protect their jal, jangal and zameen; spend nights in Dalit homes; let his party’s government introduce OBC reservations in higher educational institutions; yet wear the janeu and go temple-hopping. The upper castes weren’t going to be fooled and consider him as one of them. The janeu-wearing kind and their cohorts have always kept the amrit for themselves but Gandhi has not been on the same page as them despite his part-Brahmin lineage.
Some of his party colleagues like Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar and former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijaya Singh were seen at the Mahakumbh, taking a dip. They are yet to learn. Or the party, still unconvinced about centring its politics on social justice, may feel the need to atone for the “sins” of Rahul Gandhi and Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge. At the event in Mhow, Kharge had said that taking a dip in the Ganga wouldn’t end poverty.
In the recent past, Rahul Gandhi has gone further. He has been one of the most vociferous supporters of caste census, which would help all sections of society get their rightful share in the State’s institutions and the country’s resources. He has spent time with coolies, gig workers, mechanics, civil services aspirants and college students, among others, to understand why a tiny section of Indians without even breaking a sweat continues to enjoy the amrit, while the majority are barely making ends meet and aspiring for secure jobs but never getting them. He has understood how the monopoly of established business houses over raw materials such as viscose and polyester and their favouring export of these raw materials has sucked the life of the textile industry. Had this been not the case, the industry could have provided crores of jobs and brought in crores of rupees in revenues from duties. He has seen government bodies overlooking the knowledge and skills of the artisanal castes to train a new generation of artisans thus depriving them of a deserved source of income and contributing to the dying of skills. The Devas have been lining their pockets while the Asuras suffer. He has also observed the kind of power the modern-day Devas wield. An Asura may be the chief minister but he or she will still be at the mercy of the Devas who largely make up the bureaucracy, judiciary, the police, the investigating agencies, the businesses and so on.
The Dalits, Adivasis and the OBCs are still waiting to taste the amrit. Samajwadi Party (SP) President Akhilesh Yadav and Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) President Jitan Ram Manji took a dip, so did millions of OBCs and Dalits, braving crowded buses, trains and stampedes, hoping for a change in their lot.
While the amrit continues to elude the Asuras (except for the few boatmen who are said to have made lakhs and crores ferrying pilgrims during the 45-day event), is it time to discover their history and their place in the religion? The Varnashrama Dharma of “all work, no play, no reward” can’t be their religion. Clearly, it has been imposed on them. But it looks like they won’t stop swarming to the Kumbhs and the Mahakumbhs anytime soon, even though the festival derives from a myth that describes the aborigines of this land, their ancestors, being deprived of the hard-earned fruit of their labour.
(Edited by Amrish Herdenia/Nawal)
