Why am I walking at all?
One of the questions everyone asks me about our planned Dandi March is simple and direct: Why are you walking?
An easy question for which I’ve been trying to find answers — with very little success.
As I read books and articles, I keep encountering different viewpoints — the historian’s, the idealist’s, the local’s, and so many others. Being a bit more pragmatist than realist (I still wonder what the difference really is), these viewpoints sometimes leave me with more self-doubt than clarity. Is this even worth an attempt? A walk of almost 400 km from Sabarmati Ashram to Dandi. "For what joy", my kids would ask. “Nothing has drastically improved… the weakest are still ignored… so what are you even walking for?”
When I look through a Gandhian lens, it appears that the original Salt March was meant to point us towards ethical resistance and collective swaraj — and the nation today seems to have wandered from that path of conscience. When I look through a local’s eyes, I see that life now runs on survival, not slogans. Their worries are practical; heritage is a luxury. And when I look around at us, I see how some of us love basking in the sunshine of past glory, while others feel that the same sunlight exposes the cracks in our present.
Adding to the mix is the debate between development and swaraj. Some cheer the single-minded pursuit of growth, industrialisation, and infrastructure. Others insist that such progress contrasts sharply with Gandhi’s idea of self-rule, self-restraint, and ethical community.
Somewhere between these competing truths, I found myself stuck with the same question: Why am I walking?
And then, as my head cleared, the answer came — not in what I am walking for, but in what I am not walking for.
I am not walking to fix India. I am walking to understand it just a little more — at least one small corner of it. I am not walking to be some saviour. I am walking to become a witness to the state of the country I belong to. I am walking to feel the land that once shaped a movement, to walk a path of history that may be fading but still tingles somewhere in my mind. I am walking to test my own strength and discipline.
I am not trying to recreate a symbolic struggle; I am simply attempting to honour it. I want to be part of a lineage of people who have asked themselves questions with their feet. And, most importantly, I am walking because the preparation itself has already begun to transform me. I am not walking to transform the country.
Some people ask me, “Why the Dandi March? You could have walked from Bangalore to Chennai — same distance.”
They are right — from their point of view. But for me, this walk is not a waste of time, energy, or money. It feels like a pilgrimage.
It reminds me of the legendary British mountaineer George Mallory, whose attempts to scale Everest made him a symbol of human daring. When asked why he wanted to climb that one impossible peak, he replied, almost mystically, “Because it’s there.” And Sir Edmund Hillary, who eventually conquered Everest, said, “It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.”
No, this Dandi March is nowhere close to the physical and mental challenge of Everest — but the spirit feels similar. I am walking the road to Dandi because it is there, and because it offers me a chance to conquer something within myself — physically, mentally, and maybe even spiritually.
Yes, our country’s development is uneven and incomplete, but it is happening. Inequalities remain. Our ideas of self-restraint and ethical community feel distant, sometimes forgotten — but they are not dead. Our heritage is constantly being rewritten — but it is not lost. And maybe, just maybe, this walk will shift something in my own consciousness. If it does, then every step will have been worth it.
I don’t see our walk as either heroic or pointless. I see it as that small, stubborn human impulse to step out of our comfort zones and try something we’ve never done before. I just want to do it.
And, that is reason enough to walk for me.
If you do get an opportunity, would you walk this path? If Yes, Why and if No, Why Not? Just wondering !!!
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