This 30-yr-old is walking from Kanyakumari to Kashmir to empower India’s women

It’s been two months since Srishti Bakshi has been walking on the National Highway 44 that links Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu to Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir via major cities and towns in the country. She is on a mission to herald a change in society by sensitising the country’s womenfolk about gender issues and empower them through workshops on financial and digital literacy.
A United Nations Empower Women ‘Champ-ion for Change’ 2016-17, 30-year-old Srishti has pledged to walk 3,800 km through the country in 260 days, and will be reaching Hyderabad on November 28 after passing through Madurai, Bengaluru and Anantapur.“I am a very ordinary woman. I am not an athlete or from the social development sector. But I am an army officer and a professor’s girl, so discipline was ingrained in me at an early age. The only reason I chose to do this is because I truly feel for the cause of Indian women and want to bring in a positive change in the society,” says Srishti, speaking to Hyderabad Times over the phone from Anantapur.
The decision to embark on what’s being dubbed a ‘modern day Dandi March’ however, didn’t happen in a flash for this MBA from the Indian School of Business (ISB) Hyderabad. “It all began with a conversation at a dinner table in Hong Kong in 2016. I was then working for a multi-national brand. There were people from different countries at the table. And the topics of discussion too were as varied as their nationalities — French, South Africans, Americans, et al. After a few exchanges on changing trends and life in general in the global financial hub, one of my friends suddenly shot a question at me — ‘Tell me Srishti, why do your countrymen rape women?’ Though initially the question caught me dumbfounded, slowly it sank in and a sense of embarrassment took over,” says Srishti, adding that of all the things the question did, it sowed the seeds of what would later became the ‘Billion Steps for India’ campaign.
“A few days later a horrific rape happened. This time it was on National Highway 91, which the media later termed as the Bulandshahr gang rape case. The news got me fuming with rage. I was disturbed and spoke to a lot of people about it.”
“Shockingly half of the people either didn’t want to talk about the rape, terming the topic to be painful or simply brushed it off saying, ‘yehi toh hota hain India mein’,” she says adding that these conversations acted as the trigger to do something. “I discussed it with my husband and a few weeks passed planning a course of action,” Srishti says. But, soon, she found her calling and decided to mix her passion with what she loves to do — hiking. “I love hiking and have completed close to 30 trails around the world. Moreover, rather than being in an office, I wanted to work at the grassroot level and apply all my knowledge and education to make a difference. So, I decided to walk across India and empower the women in any way I can,” she avers.
For the last two months, since September 15, a typical day for the 30-year-old starts at around 4 am. Every morning after her warm-up, she, accompanied by her team, reaches the point she had finished her walk the day before, and starts walking. “I start around 5:30 am and walk for seven hours straight till 12:30 pm. After which, my team and I take a lunch break and then we conduct our workshops in the rural areas, the audience of which are usually prepared by the district collector,” she says.
Srishti says she usually takes nine minutes to walk a kilometre, but when people join her, the time taken goes up to 16 minutes per kilometre as she matches her speed with theirs. “That’s fine, because later I neutralise the time difference by doing power walking. It is basically is speed walking,” she informs.
Throughout her 260-day campaign, Srishti and her team will be holding close to 110 workshops in the cities and towns she visits. The workshops will cover an array of topics from health, hygiene, sanitation, leadership and gender sensitisation among others. “The workshops are activity-based sessions where we try to educate women, children, zilla parishads and sometimes, even the police about various topics,” she informs.
She and her team have also developed an app through which people can connect with her and contribute towards the initiative. “I wanted to change the armchair or social media activism which people today are so fond of. So, we thought let’s develop an interactive app and get people involved. By downloading the app people from all over the world can contribute to the mission. The app will monitor the steps they take and with every 1000 steps, the app will unlock a notebook that will be distributed to a student in the rural areas,” she adds.
For a woman, who has been born and brought-up in North India, Srishti was initially a little apprehensive about walking and interacting with the rural population of South India. “Initially, I thought it’s going to be difficult because of the language barrier. But thanks to the local volunteers, so far that hasn’t been a problem at all,” she avers.
When in Hyderabad, Srishti has an action-packed schedule waiting for her. The campaigner for women empowerment will participating in multiple workshops around Hyderabad, including one at her alma mater (ISB) in the city. “I will also take part in a night walk through the city with a motto to ‘reclaim the night street for women’,” she informs.