In Pune, a stage and a space, new and old

Opinion In Pune, a stage and a space, new and old The young have asserted their presence, they want to be heard, all parties must find new ways of seeing, new ways of listening, new ways of speaking.

Key points

• 3 min readAug 26, 2026 06: 05 AM IST First published on: Aug 26, 2026 at 06: 05 AM IST.
• But if Rahul Gandhi struck a different note in Pune, his party, in its CWC resolution, harked back to an older format of politics.
• Congress's new and old politics comes at a time when the success of the students' agitation is still rippling throughout parties.
• He spoke of routinised violence, including the "violence of denied opportunities", and the "various forms of control" women are subjected to daily.

Speaking to an audience of young women from a Pune stage, Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi remarked women should not be defined by their relationships with men as they belong to themselves. He spoke of routinised violence, including the "violence of denied opportunities", and the "various forms of control" women are subjected to daily. The formulations were not new – what was new and discovered resonance in the auditorium was that they were being articulated from a mainstream political stage, and Gandhi produced room, on that stage, for women to tell their own stories. Of course, the Congress leader was not just tweaking the woman-unfriendly script in a male-dominated politics. He additionally employed the post-Jantar Mantar occasion to create a jab at a political opponent pushed on the defensive. His mention of the Manusmriti, and UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's almost immediate counter-strike, indicated that the mark had not been missed. But overall, the Pune performance opened up a space that, ironically, had once been created visible by Narendra Modi. In his particularly first I-day address as Prime Minister in 2014, he asked why parents who impose restrictions on their daughters apply a different yardstick for their sons: Have they ever asked their sons what they are doing, where they are going?

But if Rahul Gandhi struck a different note in Pune, his party, in its CWC resolution, harked back to an older format of politics. As it had decided to do in 1937, the party will not sing all six stanzas of 'Vande Mataram', the resolution remarked, only two verses. The old-ness of Congress's new position comes not just from its attempt to turn back the clock. It comes, additionally, from the fact that it follows a stale Congress pattern -of scoring a secular point without really working for it. After all, what halted the party from opposing the amendment that gives 'Vande Mataram' the same statutory protections as the national anthem, in Parliament? After only two members spoke on it, and DMK was the only party that registered its criticism, in the Lok Sabha, the law was cleared by voice vote in only regarding 15 minutes. Now, why does Congress not challenge the law in court, instead of sullenly refusing to sing? And what's the playbook for its three CMs for official functions?

In short, in Pune, a stage and a space, new and old is the central thread here, and readers can expect follow-up reporting as the picture becomes clearer.