Congress MP Rahul Gandhi on Thursday shared a video on X of one of the martial arts sessions held at camps during his east-to-west Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra earlier this year and said a “Bharat Dojo Yatra” is coming soon.

Dojo refers to a training hall or school for martial arts.

On National Sports Day on Thursday, Rahul said he wants to share his experience with the people, hoping to inspire some of them to take up the practice of the “gentle art”.

“P.S.: Bharat Dojo Yatra is coming soon,” the leader of the Opposition said in the post, which included an eight-minute video of “a harmonious blend of meditation, jiu-jitsu, Aikido and non-violent conflict resolution techniques”.

Though the post was tailored for National Sports Day, his signing off statement, “P.S.: Bharat Dojo Yatra is coming soon”, raised numerous questions on whether there was another mass-contact programme in the works.

While suspense remains on whether there will be a Bharat Dojo Yatra, the purpose will not be very different from Rahul’s first two yatras — Bharat Jodo Yatra and Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra — aimed at “bringing people together at a time when divisive politics is tearing India’s social fabric asunder”.

His detailed post on the “gentle art” makes it clear that if there is a Bharat Dojo Yatra, it will be aimed at helping people evolve non-violent conflict resolution techniques, possibly with a more targetted audience — the youth.

The video attached to the post is of Rahul practising the martial art jiu-jitsu every evening with youngsters during the night halt of the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra that began on January 14 from Manipur and ended in Mumbai. It was a journey that was the second phase of his earlier Kanyakumari-to-Kashmir padyatra undertaken from September 2022 to January 2023.

“What began as a simple way to stay fit quickly evolved into a community activity, bringing together fellow yatris and young martial arts students from the towns where we stayed.

“Our goal was to introduce these young minds to the beauty of the ‘gentle art’…. We aimed to instill in them the value of transforming violence into gentleness, giving them the tools to build a more compassionate and safer society,” Rahul said.

What comes through in the video is not just Rahul’s youthfulness and agility but a politican unafraid of falling and with an ability to pick himself up and carry on, very akin to the first two decades of his political career.

Additional reporting by PTI