“I have come for my grandchildren,” says Gangutai Chandar Warghade, around 60 years old. “Maybe my walk will help better their lives.”
Gangutai is a farm labourer from the Mahadev Koli community, a Scheduled Tribe. She lives in Manjushi-Met village in Palghar, a predominantly Adivasi coastal district in Maharashtra.
Sitting under a tree on the ground adjoining the bus stand in Nashik, at Mumbai Naka, she and many of her co-marchers speak of their growing hardships and the total absence of mitigating measures by the government.
“We want the land in our name,” Gangutai says. For decades, she and many others have been tilling farmlands that are ‘owned’ by the forest department. Thousands of households in Thane, Palghar, Nashik and other neighbouring districts in north and coastal Maharashtra have been demanding titles to these lands under the Forest Rights Act (FRA) of 2006. This will also allow them access to government schemes and formal loans. The Maharashtra government agreed to implement the FRA after the landmark Long March last year, but has not kept its promises.
“We want a better future,” says Tai Bendar, a young farmer and activist from Palghar, listing out the issues that concern her and others from her village. “Our water is being diverted to Mumbai and other cities, so we are struggling against that too.”







