Dear Readers,

Two images caught my attention this week.

One was of former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal visiting Mahatma Gandhi’s memorial at Rajghat to pay his respects, on the same day he announced a boycott of court proceedings in the Delhi excise policy case and spoke of his commitment to Satyagraha.

The other was of former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav visiting a Lucknow hospital to enquire about the health of BJP MLA Anupama Jaiswal. Jaiswal had been injured days earlier while setting fire to an effigy of the Samajwadi Party chief during a BJP-led Mahila Janakrosh March in Bahraich, held in support of the Centre’s Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam.

To Kejriwal first. He and Gandhigiri go hand in hand. He was the public face of the 2011 India Against Corruption movement, with its Gandhi-inspired hunger strikes at Jantar Mantar and its demand for a Jan Lokpal Bill. He has been photographed at Rajghat many times since.

Between those visits, the Aam Aadmi Party shifted its iconography. Ahead of the 2022 Punjab election, party supporters demanded that Bhagat Singh and B.R. Ambedkar appear on currency notes. At the AAP’s national council meeting, Kejriwal declared the two would be the party’s param-aadarsh, or guiding lights. After the win, the BJP accused the AAP of replacing Gandhi’s portraits in Punjab government offices with those of Bhagat Singh and Ambedkar.

In October 2022, Kejriwal wrote to the Centre, requesting that images of Lakshmi and Ganesha be printed on new currency notes alongside Gandhi. This came ahead of the Gujarat Assembly polls and drew criticism as vote-bank politics. The Reserve Bank of India did not act on the suggestion. The status quo held, with only Gandhi on the currency.

This time, his Satyagraha was a demand that Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma recuse herself from the excise case. After Justice Sharma rejected the plea, he and former Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia refused to appear before her court, neither in person nor through counsel. Kejriwal’s letter said his hope of getting justice had been shattered. While Kejriwal calls the standoff Gandhian, the Delhi High Court is, going by its detailed order, not pleased.

Meanwhile, in the BJP MLA versus Akhilesh Yadav case, the Samajwadi Party chief later posted on X: “We do not want fire to erupt among the people of society. We want showers of harmony to prevail in society. The healthy tradition of our positive politics has taught us exactly this…”

Three months ago, on Mahatma Gandhi’s 78th death anniversary on January 30, Akhilesh, while paying tribute to him, called for reviving Gandhian ideals to counter what he described as divisive and violent forces. With the 2027 Uttar Pradesh election approaching, the question arises: will we see more of such Gandhigiri in Uttar Pradesh?

This is all the more important for Akhilesh’s party, whose workers have often been accused of dadagiri. The charge stuck so hard that, ahead of the 2007 Assembly election in Uttar Pradesh, Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party coined the slogan: “Chadh gundon ki chhaati par, mohar lagao haathi par”—climb on the chest of the goons, stamp the ballot for the elephant (the BSP’s symbol).

This illustrates how quickly political narratives shift. Within months of Mayawati’s government being formed, detractors had altered the slogan, turning it into a debate over dadagiri versus sarkari dadagiri. The debate today is over “encounter raj” in Adityanath’s tenure, a record once advertised as decisive anti-criminal action.

But the larger picture is that, even in these times of polarised politics and a widening distance between the ruling party and the opposition, Gandhigiri works when netagiri and dadagiri fail.

I came across a news item that the Congress, at its lowest ebb in Bihar, will adopt Gandhigiri there. The party plans to use Gandhi’s methods, the Charkha (spinning wheel) and Shramdaan (voluntary labour), to connect with people and rebuild a base. Workers will be trained in batches of 100 at Sadakat Ashram, the party’s Patna office, with trainers brought in from Delhi and Wardha.

Rahul Gandhi has reached for the same lexicon often. In a Facebook message in 2018, he praised the women Congress workers led by Goa Mahila Congress chief Pratima Coutinho for their spirit of Gandhigiri after they were attacked by political rivals. The same year, the Indian Youth Congress released a video clip of Modi’s and Rahul’s parliamentary speeches under the caption “Dadagiri vs Gandhigiri”. The country would decide in 2019, the video noted.

Sections of the press read Rahul’s surprise hug of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Parliament during the 2018 no-confidence debate as a gesture in the same vein. The Prime Minister did not look amused; the BJP termed it a show.

By contrast, Sanjay Dutt’s jadu ki jhappi in Lage Raho Munna Bhai (2006) was a hit. The film translated Gandhi’s principles, non-violence (ahimsa), truth (satya), and civil disobedience, into modern problems. Gandhigiri has remained a recurring Bollywood theme.

In 2010, the Indian Youth Congress organised a four-day leadership course for young leaders. They stayed in modest rooms at Gandhi Smriti to learn Gandhian principles and avoid luxuries. Rahul Gandhi had then asked them to do Gandhigiri and avoid chamchagiri (sycophancy).

Public representatives from different parties have, on various occasions, reached for non-violent Gandhian methods to make their voices heard. In January 2025, an MLA from the Bharat Rashtra Samithi in Telangana saw his supporters confronting an official at a Gram Sabha; he stepped in with folded hands and asked the officials to ensure schemes for all beneficiaries.

A few months earlier, in September 2020, an MLA from Maharashtra had taken the script further. A video of him went viral on social media: he was honouring a bank official by placing flowers at his feet and a scarf around his neck, in protest against the manager’s slow work. The Marathi press called it a Gandhigiri andolan.

During the early COVID-19 lockdown, MLA Adesh Singh Chauhan from Jaspur in Uttarakhand handed out roses to constituents while urging them to maintain physical distancing.

Bihar contributed one of the more unforgettable images. In November 2016, BJP MLA from Lauria, Vinay Bihari, turned up at the Assembly in shorts and a vest, his knees bruised from prostrating himself along the route. He had vowed not to wear a kurta-pyjama until a 44-km road in his West Champaran constituency was built. The Speaker, citing parliamentary shishtachar, denied him entry.

In 2021, BJP MLA Pradeep Patel of Mauganj, in Madhya Pradesh’s Rewa district, walked into the local electricity office, touched a junior engineer’s feet, and then spread a bedsheet on the officer’s chamber floor and lay there for hours. He had submitted a 67-point memorandum four days earlier.

The most striking set-piece may belong to Andhra Pradesh. In July 2022, Nellore Rural MLA Kotamreddy Sridhar Reddy, a member of the ruling YSR Congress and in effect protesting his own administration, sat for nearly an hour in knee-deep sewage water to demand the rebuilding of a bridge wall. Headlines duly anointed him the “people’s MLA”. In West Bengal, social media has often given the same treatment to Indian Secular Front MLA Naushad Siddiqui from Bhangar.

Officials, too, have had to pick up the rose. In December 2025, Goa’s Mormugao Municipal Council launched a recovery drive against commercial establishments that had ignored years of dues. Council officials walked into shops and banks across Vasco, handed out roses, asked owners to settle outstanding bills, and sealed the premises of those who refused. The chief officer, Siddhivinayak Naik, told the press he had tried the technique earlier in Margao, where, he said, a Rs.50 investment in roses had recovered nearly Rs.50 lakh. “People who owe dues will first receive a rose,” he said. “But if they still don’t respond, we may have to show them the thorns.”

Citizens have used the same language. In 2019, students at Jamia Millia Islamia handed flowers to police personnel at Jantar Mantar in Delhi after a campus crackdown. The image of Shreya Priyam Roy offering a rose to a helmeted officer travelled widely. How effective the gesture was is harder to argue.

From Rajghat to the bylanes of Nellore, from the chambers of assembly halls to the corridors of civic bodies, Gandhigiri still works.

At this stage, I am reminded of Majbooti Ka Naam Mahatma Gandhi, the published Gandhi Memorial Lecture by scholar-writer Purushottam Agrawal, delivered at the Gandhi Peace Foundation. Gandhi’s non-violence is not weakness. Politicians realise this well, which is why Gandhigiri thrives.

How do you rate these four “pillars” of Indian politics: dadagiri, chamchagiri, netagiri, Gandhigiri? Bonus marks for brutal honesty.

Until the next newsletter.

Anand Mishra, Political Editor, Frontline

We hope you have been enjoying our newsletters featuring a selection of articles that we believe will be of interest to a cross-section of our readers. Tell us if you like what you read. And also, what you don’t like! Mail us at frontline@thehindu.co.in