For the past six weeks, millions of people have been marching silently across Maharashtra, a state as populous as Mexico. It is a unique protest: the silent marchers have no leaders; and they include the peasant and the professional. Women lead many of the marches; and politicians are not allowed to seize them. It is a sound of silence, says a commentator, that India can ill afford to ignore. The protesters belong to the Maratha caste, one of India's proudest - the warrior king Shivaji was one of them. Mostly farmers, they comprise more than a third of the population of Maharashtra, a relatively prosperous state, which is home, on one hand to Bollywood, thriving factories and farms and on the other, malnourished children and neglected tribespeople living in abject poverty. Read more
