Himanshu Kumar’s cycle march from Delhi to Mumbai continued his legacy of advocacy against oppression

On November 22 this year, Himanshu Kumar, now 60, completed a nearly 2,000-kilometre cycle march from Delhi to Mumbai, through parts of western India. PHOTOS BY BACHCHAN KUMAR

In 2009, in what was perhaps the first punitive demolition in recent years, Indian paramilitary personnel destroyed the Vanvasi Chetna Ashram, a non-profit welfare centre for locals spread over 16 acres in Kanwalnar village, near Chhattisgarh’s Dantéwāḍā district. Over 17 years, the centre had served the minimal needs of the Adivasi populace, such as healthcare, nursing care, primary education, elementary vocational training, and ultimately also the housing and legal needs of those displaced in the wanton destruction of huts and villages inflicted during anti-Maoist operations. The next year, the noted Gandhian activist who ran the centre became a tadipaar, forced to migrate to a safe zone, never again able to rule out further trouble, including arrest. He became known for flagging, without fear or favour, the state’s vigilante militia and militarisation in the Bastar region. On November 22 this year, the deportee from the Maoist heartland, Himanshu Kumar, now 60,…


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Prashant Rahi is an electrical and systems engineer, who completed his education from IIT, BHU, before eventually becoming a journalist for about a decade in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. He was the Chairperson for Human Rights and Democracy at the annual Indian Social Science Congresses held between 2011 and 2013, contributing to the theorisation of social activists’ and researchers’ experiences. Rahi devoted the greater part of his time and energy for revolutionary democratic changes as a grassroots activist with various collectives. For seven years, he worked as a Correspondent for The Statesman, chronicling the Uttarakhand statehood movement, while also participating in it. He has also contributed political articles for Hindi periodicals including Blitz, Itihasbodh, Samkaleen Teesri Duniya, Samayantar and Samkaleem Hastakshep. From his first arrest in 2007 December in a fake case, where he was charged as the key organiser of an imagined Maoist training camp in a forest area of Uttarakhand, to his release in March 2024 in the well-known GN Saibaba case, Rahi has been hounded as a prominent Maoist by the state for all of 17 years. In 2024, he joined The Polis Project as a roving reporter, focusing on social movements.