Dandi March II

WALKING WITH DAANDI MARCH II IN CALIFORNIA

By

Om P. Juneja*

On 22 March 2011, I walked with 22 others including 4 women on "Daandi March II" for about 22 miles from Fremont to Milpitas in California. With a two point agenda of a) Removing corruption and b) Enacting Lok Pal Bill in India and emulating the historic Daandi March of Gandhiji, while the six persons will complete this march of 240 miles on 25 March at San Francisco, I walked for a day in this March. It was both educating and entertaining as I met Kewal, a 72 old man who came from Texas just for the pleasure of walking for a cause with no political affiliations. Sunil Kumar in his early 50s who is a veteran journalist of a Hindi daily from Chhatisgarh has come to complete this walk to raise the consciousness about corruption in India.

Waking for a few miles with us was Chandresh Patel, the Treasurer of Gujarati Cultural Association of Bay Area. He told me that a few years ago his association had over one thousand members, it has only six hundred now. With the increase of numbers in the Gujarati population in this area, the number of caste based and sect based associations has increased at the cost of a pan Gujarati association, a peculiar trait, though ?

The others who walked with us were the members of the NRI wing of Lok Sata, a small political party from Andhra. Asked about their agenda in California, the leader who entertained us at a sumptuous lunch at his mansion like residence told me that this walk would unite the resourceful NRIs in this area to fight against creation of Telangana. He is waiting to register as a voter in India.

As the President of NRIPA Vadodara, I got interested in this walk mainly to gauge the love for India of our children who have come to settle in this land of opportunity in search of a better lifestyle. My personal involvement in this campaign against corruption had begun when we presented a letter with more than two thousand signatures to the Collector of Vadodara to be forwarded to the Prime Minister of India on 30th January (the Martyer’s day) under the banner of Bharat Swabhiman, one of the sponsors of this Daandi March in California.

* The author is President of NRI Parents Association, Vadodara.