After two days on the road to Bellary, the leader of the opposition in the Karnataka legislative assembly, Siddaramaiah, provides a telling epitaph for the modern, well-fed, unfit, disconnected politician. In contrast: a lean, mean, fit as a fiddle walking machine from 70 years ago, who spoke for the salt of the earth.
Distance from Sabarmati Ashram to Dandi: 390 kilometres
Distance from Bangalore to Bellary: 307 kilometres
Salt satyagraha—2 March-6 April 1930; 25 days
Mining march—25 July-9 August 2010; 16 days
No. of km traversed by Gandhi & Co on day one: 21 km
No. of km traversed by Siddaramaiah & Co on day one: 15 km
No. of TV cameras that captured Gandhi & co: none
No. of TV cameras that captured Siddu buying shoes: one
No. of masseurs, ambulance that accompanied Gandhi: zero
No. of masseurs, ambulances that accompany Siddu: guess
What the salt satyagraha got us in the end: Freedom
What the march to Bellary will never get us in the end: Freedom from self-serving thugs and goons
Photographs: Karnataka Photo News
churumuri 
You just have to appreciate congies, they are still not lost cause, Even if this is sham drama, you have to accept that congies still have lot of good leaders, even after all the years of being in the gaddi.
Look at the other camp BJP, a bunch of lousy thugs and criminals. Bombing masjids, renowned sufi dargah in ajmir and cold blooded killings approved from the high command, no less.
The less said the better of the yeddy and his pals reddys, katta, acharya, ashoka et el.
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Aathana HAWAII chappli savadhu color Hogaythallo !
How can you walk with flip flops (with sweaty legs) ?
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Nice post..
Gandhiji fought for independence..these gentlemen are positioning themselves for power. The difference shows.
Also, this so called padayatra is a joke. How is this a “padayatra”when somebody walks 20 kms with 20 breaks not to mention the other breaks – coffee, breakfast, lunch – and then board a luxury vehicle to next place and reach in time for a sumptuous dinner ? Not to mention the masseurs, doctors etc you mentioned.
The closest who came to doing a real Padayatra was Y Rajashekara Reddy in AP in the year n 2003.
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Good observation. But, we can not compare Gandhiji with these men. This anti mining march at the most can improve their physical health. State health will be as pathetic as ever.
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Churumuri is turning naughty. Why tease these guys bringing up Gandhi, whom they know as ‘October 2 Gandhi’.
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I hope some intelligent media folks will start tracking the total cost of this exercise.
How many vehicles are following the yathris, how many yathris are coming back to Bangalore every night, how many are carrying clothes/toothpaste/brush/soap etc. which can last for fifteen days, who is arranging/paying for the food, water, etc, how many have purcahsed new reeboks/raybans, who is bringing in crowd, who is hiring the Chattras, who is paying, who & why??
and finally whats the carbon footprint of this yathra?
PS: I think it is costing more than couple of crores a day, I guess the total tab will be 50-75 crores by the end of 15 days.
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Padyatra is merely symbolic in nature. It may at best enthuse party workers and may swing a few votes towards Congress. Padyatra will certainly not stop corruption. Like the Rath Yatra of BJP did not end in building the Ram temple.
We need more creative ways of hauling up governments guilty of dereliction of duty.
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The “Carper’s Index” doesn’t throw light on one vital fact:
Gandhi’s age at the time of Salt Satyagraha: 61.
Siddaramaiah’s age at the time of Mining March: 62
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Even to give a comparison to Gandhi’s salt satyaghaha is ridiculous. These two are incomparable. The whole world knows that all these so called leaders though belong to different political parties, have the same DNA.
I wish Churumuri would have come up with some other example to compare.
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Khan:
>you have to accept that congies still have lot of good leaders
Amen.
I don’t know about ‘good leaders’ but atleast their ‘achievements’ in corrpution index seems moderate compared to BJP counterparts.
Congress does a disservice to itself by not entrusting one leader with authority of the state unit, with an incentive of becoming CM. It’ll change the organization in the state.
But then, it may not need to do that. BJP seems to be killing itself.
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Its unfair to compare Gandhi with current generation leaders. Gandhi was never a politician. Anyone who has read his story will know, he was a true leader who represented the aspirations of Crores of people. He never aspired for anything for himself. He adopted walk, talk and dressing style of ‘aam admi’ to show he is one among the teeming millions of India.
There wasn’t anyone like him even during the Independence struggle, leave alone now!!
Subash Chandra Bose, after giving up Congress president post on the displeasure of Gandhi had said – If I call for a strike, a handful will respond. If he calls for a strike all of India will close down. How do I operate as president without his support?
That is the strength of Moral/Referal power.
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Do us really bevieve that these Congress politician have the intention of briniging some well beingness in the minds of public. Total useless circus. These things happens with any political party when there is no real agenda on their hands and no leadership with commitment, just to play for media!!! Just doesn’t it appears that they want us to think that the mining is done by only Reddy gang where as realtime miners are all congress politician and in the guise of fightining mining they are trying to settle scores with Reddy bros for snatching away their strong domine like Bellary?
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Different Times, Different Strokes! Why dont you mention that people are also different now than in Gandhi’s times. Politicians are a reflection of the society. A society gets the politicians they deserve.
Why not recognize the fact that at least these guys are making an attempt to galvanize the people against rampant state controlled corruption. Is this not what the opposition supposed to be doing? The response of the people in the villages is proof that these guys have struck a chord and connected with teh aspirations of the people.
Whether they are physically fit or not, at the age of 60+ they have the determination to walk 320 KMS to take up a cause that affects the state. I do not want to compare siddu with gandhi. But at least give the man a break. He is one of the few genuine “relativel;y Uncorrupt” Popular leader left in the state. He still has the courage to challenge the feudal Bellary brothers through democratic methods.
Go Siddu! Go! The state is behind You!
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