Is Rahul’s white t-shirt movement a gimmick or a game-changer?

medium117600652Rahul Gandhi’s latest wheeze, the grandly named “white t-shirt movement for justice and equitable future for all”, has intrigued many, giving rise to sinister theories.On the wilder side, there are suggestions that in the garb of a social justice movement, Rahul is actually raising a private militia independent of the Congress party’s organisational control and available to him to do his bidding.Some are invoking extreme visions of how his late uncle Sanjay Gandhi used Youth Congress cadres to push through his five-point programme, which was also dressed up as a civil society movement to promote literacy, family planning, tree planting, the eradication of casteism and the abolition of dowry.These are, of course, extreme theories.A more common view is that it is another of Rahul’s seasonal gimmicks as a distraction from negative headlines about his stuttering leadership.He is good at staging head-turning stunts. His most famous act remains his 2013 public trashing of an ordinance issued by his own party’s government, calling it “complete nonsense”.In front of live TV cameras at Delhi’s Press Club, he proceeded to tear up a copy of the ordinance, causing much embarrassment to the party leadership — not least his mother, Sonia Gandhi.There was then that farcical scene in 2018 when he padded across the floor of the Lok Sabha to give Narendra Modi an impromptu hug, taking him by surprise.Anyway, coming back to his white t-shirt gig, it’s claimed to have been inspired by the lofty ideals behind the white-khadi-kurta-topi movement popularised by Mahatma Gandhi as part of his “swadeshi” campaign against the use of British goods.The khadi kurta became a uniform for generations of not only Congress politicians but much of the political class across the ideological and regional divide.One party leader put it thus: “Everyone, rich or poor, can associate with a t-shirt. When Mahatma Gandhi spoke about swaraj, he introduced charkha, khadi and topi as key symbols. We need a symbol too to popularise Rahul’s ‘nyay’ brand of politics. White, of course, symbolises peace and harmony.”In other words, the white t-shirt appears to be Rahul’s TikTok version of the khadi kurta. It has become his own trademark dress lately though his t-shirts apparently come from Burberry at ₹41,000 a piece (equity?). medium nocaptionhttp://youtu.be/dO4MtZcnRW8?si=6WLvVZO1Okhq0GsnApart from Mahatma Gandhi, other sources of inspiration are said to include Singapore’s first prime minister Lee Kuan Yew’s 1950s White Shirt movement against corruption, and the Yellow Vests populist protests which rocked France in 2018.So far, so good.But if Rahul’s advisers had dug a little deeper, they would have discovered a darker history of shirt-centred movements — mostly rooted in 1920s-1930s European fascist movements.The most notorious was Italy’s fascist Black Shirt movement of Benito Mussolini — a paramilitary group which fought against socialists and other real or imaginary enemies of Mussolini.Its British offshoot, the National Front, was banned after the start of World War II amid suspicion that its supporters might form a pro-Nazi “fifth column”.Then, of course, Nazis had their dreaded black-uniformed SS stormtroopers.There’s a well-documented history of clothes/uniforms being used as symbols of political action, especially in Europe.And of all items of clothing, shirts have been the most popular tool of propaganda both among protest movements and “strong” rulers.“Clothing is politics” was once a popular phrase among European observers of political movements.But in today’s modern Western liberal democracies, mainstream parties take care to keep such extra-curricular outfits at arm’s length.India has had a more benign history of such groups.In Tamil Nadu, Periyar (Erode Venkatappa Ramasamy), the architect of the Dravidian movement against casteism and superstitions, chose the black shirt as a symbol of his campaign.There’s then the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) cadres’ uniform of brown pants (originally, khaki baggy shorts), khadi white shirts and black caps. medium nocaptionhttp://youtu.be/jVBY-icnVj0?si=eNfQUfz5Uye5yhD3The Congress has its own white-uniformed Seva Dal “dedicated” to social welfare. Incidentally, RSS founder KB Hedgewar was also associated with its parent body — Hindustani Seva Dal.One wonders why Seva Dal volunteers can’t be used for the purpose for which the t-shirt warriors are to be recruited.Meanwhile, it’s not clear how the proposed group will exactly operate, raising doubts if the “movement” will take off at all.On past experience of such made-on-the-hoof schemes, it’s more likely that after the initial hype, it will be quietly buried.As of now, though, the plan is being hailed as an example of the Congress party’s commitment to social and economic justice (“nyay”) as opposed to the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) “crony capitalism”.Launching the movement, Rahul said it was aimed at securing “rights for the poor and working class” who had been ignored by the Modi government.According to the movement’s website, a white t-shirt represents “more than just a simple garment”.“It symbolises the party’s five core principles: compassion, unity, non-violence, equality and progress for everyone,” it says, describing them as encapsulating the “spirit of India’s 8,000-year-old civilisation, which is based on harmony and diversity”.There’s more in the same vein: “The white t-shirt is our symbol — a call for a just and unified India. By wearing it, we honour the spirit of Bharat Jodo, which echoes the goals of the Bharat Jodo Yatra: bridging divides and building a cohesive, equitable nation.”Yet, for all its gimmicky-ness, the political instinct behind the project is not without significance in as much as it attempts to draw a clear blue line between the Congress party’s policies and that of the BJP.It represents a U-turn on its earlier bid to steal the BJP’s clothes and jumping onto the Hindutva bandwagon rather than offering an alternative vision.Remember how Rahul made a big play of his “Hindu-ness” with the Congress boasting that he was not just any Hindu but a “janeu dhari Hindu”? medium nocaptionhttp://youtu.be/fdhiZ3tIm9A?si=wLbSQbay0svwBNuDWhen the “me-too-Hindu” strategy failed as it was bound to (why should people vote for an imposter when the real thing was available?), the Congress realised that the route to survival lay not in imitating the BJP but in offering itself as an alternative and laying down clear dividing lines.That’s the central message of this campaign as Rahul’s following long X post makes clear:“The Modi government has turned its back on the poor and working class and has completely left them to their own devices. The government’s entire focus is on enriching only a select few capitalists. Due to this, inequality is constantly increasing and the condition of the workers who work hard to nourish the country is getting worse… In such a situation, it becomes the responsibility of all of us to raise our voices together to get them justice and rights. With this thought in mind, we are starting #WhiteTshirtMovement.”Ok, ok, point taken.But surely there are more imaginative ways of securing justice than relying on a ragtag militia in gleaming white t-shirts.Let’s stop trivialising everything for effect.Read more from the author here.