{"id":166140,"date":"2016-08-05T13:06:32","date_gmt":"2016-08-05T07:36:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=166140"},"modified":"2016-08-13T23:50:43","modified_gmt":"2016-08-13T18:20:43","slug":"the-magic-of-pada-yatra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/the-magic-of-pada-yatra\/","title":{"rendered":"The Magic Of P\u0101da Y\u0101tr\u0101"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Yudhanjaya Wijeratne<\/span><\/a> –<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Yudhanjaya<\/a>

Yudhanjaya Wijeratne<\/p><\/div>\n

Pada Yatra<\/a><\/span>: rough translation, pilgrimage<\/em>. They\u2019ve been around for awhile, but the most famous is Mahatma Gandhi\u2019s non-violent Salt Tax protest. That original Pada Yatra started with 80 people and went down in history as the famous Dandi Salt March: it even inspired Martin Luther King, Jr.<\/p>\n

Leave it to the Joint Opposition to organize their own Pada Yatra. Mahinda Rajapaksa and Co basically rallied thousands of people who marched, on foot, from Kandy to Colombo, while their political overloads trundled by gently in jeeps sucking on cheap ice cream.<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t overthrow the British Raj, of course, but it was pretty impressive. It began in Peradeniya and spread to Nelumdeniya. Kiribathgoda was packed. Residents of Kelaniya reportedly hung grass from electric wires \u2018for the protestors\u2019. A disorganized crowd of several thousand strong preceded the actual rally. Most of us in Colombo didn\u2019t feel it, but everyone on that route definitely did.<\/p>\n

Let me get something off my chest first<\/strong>: that really should be P\u0101dha Y\u0101thra \u2013 unless<\/em> our Media is having well-organized chuckle by making Mahinda\u2019s rally sound like the Fart Pilgrimage. In that case, well played, Lake House, Wijaya. You\u2019ve made us all proud.<\/p>\n

Phew. Now, on with the conversation (photos by Shehan Gunasekara<\/em>).<\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

Protest marches are generally organized around a single specific grievance \u2013 British India\u2019s Salt Tax, the deployment of troops to Vietnam, Taylor Swift\u2019s never-ending albums of breakup songs. The Joint Opposition, who likes to multitask, seems to have decided to go for a shotgun approach: let\u2019s protest about everything<\/em> we don\u2019t like. Most of the slogans are divisible into four broad categories:<\/p>\n