Bhim Yatra- Day 65

Bhim Yatra- Day 65

     

Day:   65

Date:  12th February 2016, Friday

District and places covered: Puna city (Krishna Nagar,Valmiki basti ward no 7)  Mumbai (Tata Institute of social sciences TISS)

After the night halt in Krishna Nagar, Puna, we planned to start early on the 12th. It was very cold and foggy. We planned a rally in the safaikarmachari community.  We prepared a community map. The Yatris went door to door and distributed the pamphlets and told the community about the meeting in the community hall at 11AM. We appealed to all of them to come for the meeting. The safaikarmacharis came forward and organized the community meeting. Most of the safaikarmacharis went early by 5AM to work. But they made it possible to come back early in time for the meeting. When we asked the safaikarmacharis how they managed to finish work early one of them said,  “If you can come for a day to my basti, for creating awareness about our rights , then I can also finish my work early and can be a part of your meeting. This is very  important for all the safai karamcharis” -  Ahdiya  bhai

We started the meeting by introducing ourselves and then we spoke about the Bhim Yatra the purpose and the culmination of the Bhim Yatra on 13th April meeting at Delhi.  We also explained the Act, the Supreme Court Judgment and the rehabilitation schemes. We gave them pamphlets of Bhim yatra and asked them to distribute in other areas and share the purpose of the Bhim yatra with other people. The community people collected and gave Rs 2000 for the Bhim yatra. After, discussing, about yatra we left for Mumbai around 2 pm.

While traveling for Mumbai via Pune-Mumbai express highway we stopped at a dhaba for refreshments. While traveling on the express highway our yatris shared their joy and happiness with each other. It was the first time, that most of the yatris were travelling outside their state and had never experienced travelling on the expressway. Maya Gautam from Uttar Pradesh, Jyothi from Orissa narrated their experience like this:

‘This is for the first time we have  come to this highway and it give us immense happiness to share this beautiful journey of spreading and creating awareness about our Baba Saheb from state to state, basti to basti. It is a double joy, for us  because we are traveling with those people who share the same ideology and working for the same cause and we thank SKA for believing in us to be part of this beautiful journey of Baba saheb’

We reached TISS Mumbai campus around 4 pm and were welcomed by Tannu, organizer of Mumbai, her team members, Bezwada Wilson and Bhasha singh and some research scholars from the colleges. Tannu and her team garlanded all the yatris and gave sweets. After that we all left for the Chaitya Bhoomi, where Babasaheb Ambedkar was cremated after his death. Here we garlanded the statue of Baba saheb and moved around the memorial. After walking through the memorial, we held a brief meeting with social activists of Mumbai, NGOS, research scholars, college students.  We introduced ourselves and shared our experiences of the yatra. After that, we left for TISS , had dinner and stayed at the hostel for the night.

JAI BHIM

Bezwada Wilson National Convenor
Safai Karmchari Andolan,
36 / 13 Ground Floor, East Patel Nagar
New Delhi - 110 008