Bharat Mata [Mother India] is the voice of every single Indian, no matter how weak or strong, former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi said in his message to citizens on the nation’s 77th Independence Day on Tuesday.
He posted his message as well as a three-minute video, drawing from his 145-day hike across India, labelled the Bharat Jodo Yatra on X (formerly Twitter). That march took him from Kanniyakumari to Kashmir.
Posting the video on X, Mr. Gandhi said “My mother India is not just a piece of land, it is not even a bunch of impressions, but it is the voice of every Indian”.
“The object of my love had suddenly revealed herself. My beloved Bharat Mata was not a land. It wasn’t a set of ideas. It wasn’t a particular culture, history or religion. Neither was it the caste that people had been assigned. India was the voice of every single Indian, no matter how weak or strong. India was the happiness, the fear and the pain hidden deep inside all the voices,” Mr. Gandhi said in the video.
“To hear India, my own voice - my desires - my ambitions had to fall silent. India would speak to one of her own, but only if one was humble and completely silent,” he added.
Much like his no-confidence vote speech in the Lok Sabha on August 9, Mr Gandhi quoted the 13th Persian poet, Rumi, and narrated anecdotes from his yatra to convey how people of the country passed on their energy to him just when an old knee injury started giving him trouble.
“It was as if a silent energy kept helping me, and like fireflies in a dark forest, it was everywhere. When I really needed it, it was there to help and to guide,”he noted.
