Senior Congress leader Salman Khurshid was in Mathura to inaugurate a slimming centre. But the local MLA led him to a crowd of 25,000, who normally do not have two square meals a day. Khurshid sheepishly commented on the “other side of India” that he was seeing, “beyond nuclear power and super-speciality hospitals”. He was at one of the biggest non-violent marches organised in recent times — 25,000 people walking along National Highway 3 from Gwalior to Delhi since October 2.

They are tribals, or marginal farmers who have been displaced as a result of mining, industries or wildlife parks. There are some who have been driven out of the land they tilled for generations, which officially is forest land. There are Dalits who have been systematically kept out of tenancy rights.

Above all, it is a logistical wonder: 25,000 people walking for the last 14 days, eating and sleeping on the roads (without causing any major traffic disruptions), starting at Gwalior, going through Morena, Dhaulpur, Agra and Mathura. They will walk through Balabhgarh and Faridabad to reach Delhi on October 28.

The Ekta Parishad, which has organised the march, has been planning it for the last three years. Its leader, P V Rajagopal, is best known for his work with the peaceful surrender of Chambal dacoits in the ‘70s.

Yesterday, a group of leaders including Rajagopal and Aruna Roy met Sonia Gandhi, who promised that she would speak to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and that the Centre would do some thinking on the land reforms issue. The main demand is for setting up a National Land Reforms Commission and a new land reforms policy.

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